Two months ago, I wrote the article: Fred Has A Movie; expressing my bewilderment that someone as obnoxious and unenjoyable as the character of Fred was on YouTube, and suggested that several other popular YouTubers warrant a movie before Fred does. Today, I realised to have shot myself in the foot with this one and take back what I said. Yes, that's right: Grammy-nominated, 2010 American Music Award Artist of the Year and 7th most popular woman on the planet: kidrahul, better known outside of YouTube to the world as Justin Bieber, has a movie. The movie is a documentary called Never Say Never, detailing his rise to success by some fluke of a music executive discovering him performing on the tubes, home vids, and of his of-so-fantastic World Tour 2010. Now, as you possibly might expect, this post, like the Fred one before it, is going to less about about the fact that Justin Bieber has a movie, and more about almost everything else. Apart from one thing...
To be honest, I've tried really hard to not dislike the guy. Even settling for indifference altogether. I mean, I at least "dislike" a certain rapper for all the dumb shit he says and much of the post-2007 music he did. He gets his monthly share, anyway. But in the end, I ended up being annoyed by Bieber. Not because of his music, but because he's either a moron or an arsehole. Specifically for many of his views and actions; some of which relate to :(*sigh*, not again...) religion. Perhaps I should give you a clue of what I mean:
Now technically, this one doesn't actually from Bieber himself, but his mother. After reading the Guardian (or G2) column Lost in Showbiz; a delightfully, wise-assed, snarky column that gives mine a run for its money, written by Alexis Petridis (Alexis is male, BTW. He's Greek), I learned that his mother apparently believed that Bieber was sent by God "to bring light to the world". Granted, she didn't actually specify how Bieber would do this, and that sounds like something mothers say. But if we can assume that coughing tepid R&B tunes, then I feel confident in saying that he doesn't quite compare to the likes of Moses, David, Solomon...you know, those guys, let alone, what was his name...oh yes, Jesus. But what do I know? I'm just a snarky, heathenous blogger making posts about things he declares to be bullshit. I mean, for all I know, Justin Bieber could become a special UN envoy or an ambassador of sorts, and bring peace in the Middle East through his music; with Israelis and Palestinians alike agreeing that the one thing they can agree on is that they love Justin Bieber (or perhaps hate as the case may be. After all, it wasn't specified if his music has to be liked to unite them).
Perhaps to strengthen his mother's case, there was a few months the massive flooding of the east coast of Australia. Bieber in response to the suffering experienced by thousands of victims, sent his prayers for them. A nice gesture. Although personally, I'd have thought a more direct response would be sending, you know, money. But then, given what his mother said of him, it's also possible that Bieber being the light of the world had his prayers answered, and God decided to alleviate the suffering experienced 35 dead lives and 9 missing later.
And then, there are these little nuggets on what he does when sufficiently peeved. Q: What do you do when some arsehole hacks into your Twitter account keeps prank-calling you? A: Well, if you're Justin Bieber, you get his phone number, post it on Twitter and encourage your 4 million followers, many of them rabid fans of his, dubbed "Beliebers", to call the phone number. Nice. Thing is, that sort of thing would get him banned from Twitter. Unless your name is Justin Bieber.
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| Look at how devilishly sweet he is... |
There's also the bit when he chucked a water balloon at a police officer, and got away with it. Thanks to his bodyguard...or possibly God came through on that one as well. (Although this example is funny)
Now for Bieber's "astounding" insight into serious issues and the world around him:
On abortion: "I don't believe in abortion. It's like killing a baby."
...except it's not actually killing a baby. It's killing a potential human being i.e. "not-born-yet non-person". Now this might be a rather cold distinction, and I know the abortion debate is a little more complex than this, but I should note that well over 50% of fertilized eggs are discarded before they implant and 25% of pregnancies result in miscarriage. So if we followed specifically Bieber's pro-life reasoning, around 50%-75% of "unborn babies" die under God's watch. Just saying.
On abortion even in the case of rape: "Well, I think that's sad, but everything happens for a reason."
Wow. I'm just glad no-one asked him about in the case of life-threatening pregnancies, specifically ectopic pregnancies.
On politics & international relations: "I'm not sure about political parties, but whatever they have in North Korea, that's bad."
Yes, um, that's...bad. (Good Lady Haruhi! Hasn't he even at least watched Team America!?)
r wasn't reall
Now, some of you might be saying "You're too harsh of him! He's only 16!". To that, I answer there's some of things I realised when I was 16:
At 16, I wished I was allowed to vote for about two years. I thought Tony Blair was a lying sod, and David Cameron was no better. I was a bit curious as to how Menzies Campbell could maintain the policy of removing or at least a reduction of pension plans. I also witnessed Tony Blair step down as Prime Minister and the leader of the Labour Party, who was then succeeded by Gordon Brown...who David Cameron later succeeded as Prime Minister, three years later.
At 16, I was already aware enough of the principles of socialism enough to know that the Labour Party wasn't really socialist, and had an least basic understanding of what Marxism actually was (and for American readers, it is NOT Barack Obama's policies), the different varieties of Marxism, specifically Trotskyism, Marxism-Leninism, Stalinism (the last two are almost interchangable), Luxemburgism etc. and was able to identify that North Korea follows the Juche system: a poltical ideology/pseudo-religion based on Neo-Stalinist thought, developed by it's founder Kim il-Sung, and inherited by Kim Jong-il. I also knew they have a practice of shooting citizens that are literally trying to run across the border to Chin...in frosty cold pools, and prior to him becoming head-of-state kidnapped a South Korean film director and throw him in a gulag for seven years simply to make a propaganda film.
At 16, I thought abortion was a little more complex than killing a person inside the womb, whilst when I was 15, the only way I could accept it as necessary is when the woman's life is in danger, or raped.
And finally, at 16, I began to question this "God" character everyone talks about. But that's here nor there.
Granted, I never went out in search for fame, especially by the comic strips I did in my spare time, but that was leaving aside the episodes of depression, I was content.
So what am I saying? Well, even excluding the latter which is pretty irrelevant, considering Bieber's ignorance of almost everything, I have to question the integrity of his marketing team, and how much they can squeeze out of him before he burns out. And more importantly, before he notices anything. I mean, if they were able to convince him that somehow his life story so far, while impressive with Grammy nominee and American Artist of the Year and whatnot, warrants a self-promoting movie, who knows what gimmicky shit they'll pull off next with him. For all we know, his own cartoon or show (possibly reality TV) might be in the process of being made, and a possible comic-books, if they're silly.
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| "Hi there! True Beliebers!" |
In any case, after they've extracted the marketing juice that Bieber gives off, when he does something ridiculous, he'll get dropped like a hot potato, and the adoring public aren't so pleasant anymore. (Shoot, half the public aren't pleasant to him already. Either they're just needlessly mean, or they've grown considerably sick and tired of the music industry's gimmicky pop-teen diabetic nonsense they churn out every two years) Or perhaps to give an example illustrating the cold and cynicism of the pop music/Hollywood market machine, let's look at the life of Britney Spears:
Her rise to stardom began when she joined the Mickey Mouse Club in the 90s, along with Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake. Out of those three, Timberlake seemed to be the one who did very well for himself. Not that Aguilera didn't escape well adjusted, but compared to Timberlake, well...
Anyways, Britney's first hit was "Baby One More Time" in 1999, at age 17, which topped the Billboard 100 List for two weeks, turned platinum and sold nearly half a million copies in the U.K., becoming the highest-selling single of the year and the 25th highest selling single of all time in Britain. And that's not even getting into the album of the same name. between her then four albums, Baby One More Time, Oops I Did It Again, Britney and in In The Zone, each of them with Spears delving further and further into her sexuality, she became one of the highest earning artists of the decade. After making hits after hits after hits, most of which in her early 20s. Then she randomly started marrying three guys at three separate times. Last of which was Kevin Federline, a dancer, who in his own ignorant, self-absorbed way, seemed like he was marrying his way into some stardom plan. Eventually after a messy break-up, Britney had a serious meltdown, following two cases she had to be admitted to the psychiatric ward and the incident when she decided that she could play an enraged Uncle Fester on the obnoxious pararazzi in the vehicle beside in the petrol station, and the cynical media that adored her so much turned against her.
And all of this happened, with this post written all before she turned 30. Although, she was lucky enough to bounce back. Partly because unlike Bieber, she actually writes her songs and decides which ones go in her albums and how they're executed, produces her own videos, and pretty much has reasonable creative control.
There's also the Lindsay Lohan example, but...I don't wanna get in that too much. The point is, Bieber is going to need a lot more staying power if he wants to stay on top. And being a naive little douche doesn't help. If I were him, I'd be either thinking of better songs to write that actually have an ounce of depth to them, or thinking about what would be a suitable investment plans. But if what I've shown is anything to go by, it's doubtful that Justin Bieber knows what an investment is. If anything, if all goes bust, Bieber's mother would probably blame everything on his manager, Scooter Braun, for being a typically manipulative, money-hungry Jew. As opposed to just possibly manipulative, and certainly money-focused. After all, she seemed to be initially dismayed when she found out that Braun was Jewish. Well, if all else fails, at least he can go back to making YouTube videos and playing hockey. Of course, at the possible risk to public safety, simply because of his music, he'd have to disguise himself from the world; preferably a disguise that inspires fear to those around him as he plays hockey:
So while I don't really care for music, perhaps a little media awareness would do the boy some good. Oh, and please, Bieber, please, please, please, please, I'll forgive you of everything that I find irritating about you if you'd just read a book. Thank you.
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