Tuesday, 13 April 2010

  • Who The F**k Is Justin Bieber?



    Who the fuck is Justin Bieber? Seriously. Who the hell is kid. I had never heard his name before last week and now I can't go on twitter without seeing his name, he's on SNL, and he's showing up at the White House. What the fuck? Get the fuck off my television, child.

    Does this nine year old have parents (I assume he's nine, all I know about him is that I saw him during Tina Fey's monologue)? Who thought it was a good idea to shove a kid in a leather jacket and make him perform all over the place? This is why there is terrorism. How the fuck is anyone supposed to look at this vulgar travesty and not want to blow something up?

    I probably should look up a bit more about him before I rip him to shreds, but I don't really care to. I don't really give a shit about Justin Bieber. What makes me angry is what this says about the sad state our society is in. It hits all the classics. Our unbridled obsession with fame at any cost, our complete disregard for what fame does to children, "art" as a commodity, the level of corporate/marketing intrusion into our lives.

    I mention "art" because I assume he's some sort of singer since he was on SNL and wasn't the host. Also, he belted out a few extremely off key notes to "I'm Every Woman." So this gives me a chance to plug into my utter disgust at the music industry.

    What's so aggravating is that I know nothing about this child, yet I know everything about him/it. Basically, he's a product. A bunch of ad men and his parents (or at the very least his parents are as complicit as Nazi Pope is in the very literal abuse and torture of thousands of children the world over) decided that in the name of the great powers of fame, greed, and vanity they would put this child forward as a product to be consumed.

    They would put out record of songs that were already written and recorded by a 47 year old man somewhere that were specifically designed to be catchy and "radio friendly" and completely devoid of all emotion and soul. Then they would auto-tune the shit out of this child's voice so that it is nice and smooth and empty so it can match the music and be filled with whatever they want to use it to promote. The lyrics are probably filled with some proto-Christian messages while really just being about sex. He probably goes around talking about how great it is to be a Christian (he'll do it a lot so people know he's a good and safe person, but not too much so he doesn't scare people) and how no one should ever do any sex or drinking or drugs, while grossly gyrating about imitating sex symbol rock star moves of yore.

    In one fell swoop his handlers had him all over the TV and radio (because the company that owns him has paid the right people) which gets articles written about him in print and online as "the next big thing" (although, there's definitely the greasing of palms here, as well). His age means adults will find him cute and as stated earlier safe so they will buy their kids the record and extortion level concert tickets. But what they're really doing to their children is mashing their brains into a nice compliant, corporate pulp. Congratulations, parents, you're kids have already reached the highest level citizenship this country can bestow: consumer.

    And what of young Justin Bieber, himself? Well, the poor kid, has a rocky road ahead of him. He has parents callous and narcissistic enough to exploit him for personal gain so he probably wasn't going to be that well off anyway. But now? Well, I hope he comes out okay. I feel for the kid. It's probably a whole lot of fun and it's not like he knows any better. However, if there's anything our pop culture gluttonous and celebrity worshiping society should understand by now it is that young minds cannot handle fame. Fame destroys full blown adults. It takes an extreme amount of emotional maturity and/or an extremely secure home life completely separate from one's career to survive it. Few have. Far too many end up like Corey Haim or Michael Jackson or Brittany Spears. A lost sense of self is the price of growing up in the public eye.

    So when I say fuck Justin Bieber, it is not directed at the boy himself, but at the industry that has swallowed his personhood. When I say who the fuck is Justin Beiber, I mean it. And even though I can say all this without having heard a single song or read a single thing about him, I truly don't think anyone will ever know.

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