Justin Bieber is Pissing Us Off
Maybe it's the fact that he's a little more everywhere than normal—what with the Grammys and his stupid movie and the Rolling Stone cover story—but Justin Bieber is really fucking pissing me off this week.
Not being a 12-year-old girl, I've never been a fan, and up until this week, I probably couldn't have identified a Justin Bieber song if I heard one—now that goddamn "Never Say Never" song is stuck in my head. And up until now, I haven't really had an opinion about this kid. Little girls like him. Fine. Whatever. But now, with Bieber's publicity machine working overtime to cash in to his moment of supreme overexposure, there are all these quotes and soundbites out there on the Interwebs, and I can't help but have an opinion. And it's not a good one.
First there was what he said about Lady Gaga on Chelsea Lately: "People say it's artistic and stuff. I'm just like, 'You're an egg.'" Ok. I'm not all up in arms defending Gaga. It's definitely not that. What pissed me off about this quote is that, to me, it indicates a contempt for anything out of the ordinary. This says to me that Justin Bieber will probably never appreciate anything that isn't bland and pre-packaged and ready for a Pepsi commercial. And this is the arbiter of culture that is shaping the opinions and tastes of American tweens, coaching them to think that anything that's not immediately palatable, anything they don't immediately understand, is weird and worthy of nothing but their ridicule. If you have to think about it, it's bad.
Then came the preview of Bieber's Rolling Stone interview, in which he implies that rape "happens for a reason"; that women who become pregnant as a result of rape should not have the option to abort the pregnancy; and that people choose to be gay.
Ok, here's the thing: I get that this is a 16-year-old kid. I get that—no matter how many stadiums he's sold out in the past year—he barely has the life experience necessary to formulate an opinion on Harry Potter, let alone controversial social issues. So maybe it's not Justin Bieber who is pissing me off, but the media for paying so much attention to this teenage twerp. As the National Post's arts blog, The Ampersand, points out, why the hell is Rolling Stone asking a teen pop star about abortion and rape to begin with? And yeah, Queerty, where are this kid's handlers at a time like this?
There are enough incredibly stupid people out there saying ignorant, uninformed things about social issues that affect real people's lives. Politicians, radio hosts, Fox News personalities. Do we really need to add the (justifiably) ignorant opinions of a 16-year-old pop star to the fray? Maybe Justin Bieber will grow up to be a socially concious, well-informed adult. But honestly, I kinda doubt it. He's too steeped in Christianity, too invested in the most inane aspects of pop culture to become anything but an overly pious douche.
But for now, he's just a dumb kid. We don't need to hear what he thinks.
Read more: Justin Bieber says questionable things to Rolling Stone [NationalPost.com]
Does Justin Bieber Really Think He Chose Not To Be Homosexual? [Queerty]
Justin Bieber Disses Lady Gaga's Fashion Choices [Pop Eater]
