Nurse the Hate: Hate Justin Bieber

For some bizarre reason, I have had a number of people speak with me about Justin Beiber recently.  I generally spend no time thinking about Justin Bieber as he is just another in a long line of young boys with good haircuts and a ruthless management team.  Whenever I see a picture of him I reflexively think, “What a douche!”, but I don’t really care about him one way of the other.  Well, until I started thinking about him this week.  Now I find myself actively hoping that he will pick up the pace of his spectacular public downfall into drug addiction, misery, and shame.  This really says more about my shortcomings than Master Bieber, but I am being honest here.  Taking potshots at this 19 year old is really easy, but I can't help myself. 

First things first…  There have always been Teen Idols.  Always.  From David Cassidy came Leif Garret who may have fathered some of the New Kids on the Block with Tiffany who were replaced by Backstreet Boys who were made irrelevant by N’Sync who lost out to Brittany Spears who flamed out to Mandy Moore who was stunned to see MIley Cyrus move in who got replaced by Bieber.  It’s a cruel ride where some 14 year olds who have never been told “no” by their stage mothers and get replaced by even worse human beings, Big Time Talent Management.  At the end of it the Teen Idol is 22, convinced they are important recording artists and can’t figure out why no one wants to take their picture anymore.  Well, unless they are doing cocaine with porn stars in Vegas.  Then lots of people want to take their picture for TMZ.

You have to feel badly for Bieber in one respect.  Every single person he knows is trying to take advantage of him for his or her own personal gain.  His most trusted inner circle is bleeding him dry.  At a certain point, the merry-go-round ride is over and the inner circle will drop him like a bad habit.  Beiber will be wondering why he can’t buy a mink basketball court anymore.  That money is gone, but the lifestyle he has come to understand as “adulthood” has a long way ahead. He has lived his entire life from age 13 on being told “Yes!” on almost any of his whims.  He is the oldest, most damaged age 19 you can imagine, and yet has almost no real experiences that will help him in later life.  What does a future punch line do with the rest of his life when he has been used up of relevance at age 21?  Biebs will have 50 years left and nothing to do.

Yet, all of that does not quite forgive his almost unparalleled douchiness.  I challenge you to find a photograph of that kid from the last year or so and not unconsciously clench your fist.  He is truly a person that would benefit from being punched in the face by a grown man.  The social experiment of “teen idol” has taken what appeared to be a good kid and turned him into a monster. I know people involved in Big Rock Tours.  When you are openly called “a little shit” by the crew, and unfavorably compared to Neil Diamond, Madonna, and Diana Ross in your behavior, where do you go from there?  How does a 19-year-old Canadian kid become a bigger pain in the ass than Madonna?  I mean, we’re talking about Madonna here!  This is a woman that demands NBA locker room showers are carpeted for her.  A woman that demands that the dressing room toilets are all replaced with brand new toilets so her royal ass will not rest on anything mere mortals have used.  He’s worse than that?  Hell, Bill Hader from SNL said in an interview on Howard Stern that Bieber was the biggest pain in the ass guest EVER on SNL.  Damn…

The thing that many of us here in the world of indie rock are having trouble with is understanding why this young man has maintained his popularity.  For example, why does this kid dress in outfits that people ruthlessly ridiculed Vanilla Ice for two decades ago?  Is that Vanilla Ice look now “retro” like Docksiders and Wayfarer sunglasses?  Do I need to buy an enormous baseball hat for my head too?  He is such is wispy little boy the tattoos, giant hats and gold chains make him look like he is playing dress up out of Uncle Tupac’s closet. Why do so many 13-year-old girls think, “He is the hottest guy out there”?  If that kid showed up at their school, they would have to think “What a douchebag!”, right?  There is no one crueler than a pack of 12-year-old girls.  How have they not turned on this kid yet?  How are more people not creeped out that this 19 year old spends his every waking minute smoking weed and checking out 14-year-old chicks?  If Bieber’s family wasn’t generating so much revenue on this thing somebody would poke their heads up out of the piles of money like a gopher and mention, “this might be unhealthy for The Lad”.    

They have all come and they have all gone.  The one thing we can feel comfortable in knowing is that his clock has almost struck midnight.  Payback is going to be a bitch for that little asshole.  There will be fuzzy pictures in supermarket tabloids.  He will be the punch line for Late Night monologue jokes where even dopes from Nebraska "get it", laugh and say "Hahaha!  Justin Bieber!  Hahahaha!".   Some nice car wrecks are coming.  Small fender benders where he has to explain how those drugs got under the seat.  Ummmm....   With luck will come appearances on Celebrity Rehab, and tearful appearances on talk shows where he tries to explain those awful outfits.    

Now we wait…