I don’t like Justin Bieber.
That may come as no surprise, considering that I’m a 27-year-old male, and his audience is teenage girls. It’s not that he doesn’t have talent — I think he has a decent voice. It’s more about what he represents in himself, and furthermore, what he has started in terms of a new trend of teen idols. So perhaps it would be better to say I don’t like Justin Bieber the product.
Now, certainly the teen idol has already been a long standing figure in American culture. Elvis Presley and James Dean rocked the teenage world of the ‘50s and defined a generation. The Beatles inspired the youth of the ‘60s. The ‘90s brought the rise of boy bands like New Kids on the Block and the Backstreet Boys.
These newer groups in particular all represent a rather emotionally driven and shallow genre of music directed towards the romantic tendencies of teenage girls precisely at a time in life when they are not exactly tempered by reason or maturity. Lyrics usually focused on all the raging hormonal issues surrounding the romantic desires of these impressionable girls. Most of us get this and seem to accept it as some kind of bizarre phase that parents have to suffer through.
The thing about the teen idols of yore, at least, was that they were all in their late teens or early twenties. Granted, they were still young and inexperienced in the ways of the world, but at least they had a few years under their belts. But what we have in the rise of Justin Bieber is a whole new class of teen idol: the “I don’t even shave yet” teen heartthrob.
My introduction to this twilight zone came with my first viewing of Bieber’s music video for his first single, “One Time.” You have likely seen the video, but I’ll set the scene. Bieber’s mentor-daddy Usher is away and wants little Justin to keep the house while he’s gone. But of course, what Bieber does instead is invite a bunch of friends over for a house party. It’s basically college freshman keg party sans keg. None of the swaying teens are holding red cups, and I’m assuming there’s no beer pong going on in the background somewhere. Oh yeah, and also there’s no promiscuous sex happening or drugs involved, because of course parents across American would burn the record label to the ground. These kids are 13 after all. I mean, we want our kids to grow up fast, but not that fast, right?
But perhaps the most surreal part of this experience is watching Bieber do his thing. With his fresh sneakers, baggy pants, sideways brim and shaggy locks, he throws down his rapper gestures like the big dogs except he’s in middle school. But who am I to judge? Maybe Canadian middle schools have gangs that revolve around drugs, violence, and promiscuity — you know, the stuff that 90% of rap music talks about.
Of course, there’s also the lyrics. Bieber sings to his sweet little thing: “And girl, you’re my one love / My one heart / My one love for sure.” But then he really ups the ante: “Your world is my world / And my fight is your fight / My breath is your breath / And your heart.” Be still my beating heart! Man, the Biebs is obviously a pro when it comes to the ways of the female psyche. I bet he was dating at 8 years old. He knows from experience what the ladies want.
In this manner, Justin Bieber was unleashed on our world to sing about things he has absolutely no familiarity with. I won’t bother to delve into the rest of Bieber’s lyrical catalog (particularly his slightly disturbing collaboration with Sean Kingston on “Eeenie Meenie”).
What elevates the ridiculousness of all of this is that Bieber’s rise to stardom seems to be spawning a class of Bieber clones. Two perfect examples of this are Greyson Chance and Brandon Pacheco.
Greyson Chance was discovered early last year at the age of 12 when his cover of Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi” was put up on YouTube and went viral, particularly after he was a guest on the Ellen DeGeneres show. Ellen soon signed him to her new “eleveneleven” record label. Ironically, since his arrival, a bit of a war has emerged between the Bieberites and the Greysonites over which artist is better. But really, Chance is cut from the same lyrical cloth as Bieber. His newest single, just released in May, is a breakup song called “Unfriend You” (a song for the Facebook generation if there ever was one). In it Chance laments of his lost love, “You’re beautiful and crazy too / Baby, that’s why I fell into you / Even though you would pretend to be / You were never with me.” He fell into her — such poetry. But wait, it gets better. The chorus unleashes the masterpiece: “So it’s over, yeah we’re through / So I’ma unfriend you / You’re the best I ever knew, so I will unfriend you / ‘Cause I should have known, right from the start / I’m deleting you right from my heart / Now it’s over, my last move is to unfriend you.” You, young sir, are the Shakespeare of your generation, which is going to give me nightmares for months.
Exhibit C in this group of baby boy idols is Brandon Pacheco. He’s 13, from Canada, and also got his start on YouTube (OK, now this is getting creepy). He actually looks 10, which I’m sure will help him someday . . . maybe. Like his compadres, Pacheco’s songs come in the standard cookie cutter form. In his single “Broke Up,” while staring at us with his little boy eyes and pre-acne face, Pacheco sings to the girl who broke his oh-so-fresh young heart, “Take another piece of my heart / You know it’s falling all, all apart / I miss you so bad and every time you look at me / I think of how we used to be.” But lest his baby face deceive you, he’s out to show you how hardcore he is. Later on in the song he protests: “I’m too young to be this damn lonely.” That’s right people, he used the d-word. He is obviously so adult in both feelings and experience that he can now use adult language. Oh Brandon, you are so eloquent in your raw intensity!
But perhaps the even more troublesome underlying factor here is how these three boys got to where they are. They all rose to young fame because they became viral sensations on YouTube. They weren’t foisted on us by the record industry. We created them. What does it says about the mental and intellectual state of our young people when they are spending their lives pushing people like this to the top of the fame ladder and then having their own little teen idol wars? Shallow art is a cycle that both reflects what is already present in the culture but then feeds back into it. I fear in some measure for the current generation of kids if this trend of immature pop stars continues. It is a sad time in a culture when the “wisdom” of youth is exalted, and getting younger all the time.