Thursday 13 March 2014

He's done it. Justin Bieber has broken me.

I have refrained from ever mentioning his name on this blog. Mainly because I refuse to be just another person who simply can't talk about anything else other than him... Throughout the years he has been around, I have, at best, shared a mundane indifference towards him, at worst, felt incredibly violent towards his general area.

However, I have just watched his deposition video on youtube and the temptation has become too great. I need to get my general feelings out, I need to unleash these thoughts. I NEED RELEASE!

Okay, so here's my timeline of thoughts towards Justin Bieber. For the majority of his early start, I very quickly developed this general dislike towards him. When the world blew him up into the star he became, I found his music irritating, as well as his face and general persona. However, I also realised that he was just some kid who suddenly had everything he could ever want thrown at his feet and I immediately felt guilty for my detest. He clearly was just dealing with it the only way he could. I guess it wasn't his fault that every girl in the world seemed to now idolise him. I mean, that coupled with the fact that he was pubescent and not at all fully grown yet, and I guess everything could have become a little overwhelming for him. I knew this, and I knew that it was wrong of me to have issues with just his general being, but I couldn't help it, the manchild has always made my skin crawl.

My annoyance of him was all around the time he seemed to be dealing with the fame thing okay... or as well as any teenage boy would. I just couldn't stand the fact that he always seemed fake and scripted on every interview. He came across as cheesy and rehearsed when talking to people, and I couldn't work out any genuineness (is that a word?) in him. As such, he irked me. It also irked me that everyone loved him. I couldn't work out why, but then that's probably a good thing, given that I would have, at the time, been having inappropriate feelings for an underage child if I had followed the crowd.

All that being said, he never irked me to the point that I really became vocal about it (not like Nicholas Cage... he knows what he did). Sure, I seriously tried to encourage The-Goddaughter to take down the awful massive poster of him she had in her room, and there was one particularly heated debate I had a couple of years ago when I was asked directly what I thought of the manchild. This then resulted in myself and a guy who adored him almost fighting to the death over the reasons why we loved/hated the Biebs.

As a side note, I do like the One Direction guys. The reasons for this are simple, they actually seem to be real people. To me, they seem to have taken the fame thing and kept a modicum of their own normalcy throughout it all. However, I'm not exactly a follower of them, I just don't have negative feelings when they're mentioned in conversation.

Okay, there's my background on my thoughts of the Biebs. Here's where I am now; oddly enough, now that he seems to have gone a little odd, my opinion of him is probably the highest it has ever been. I know, it sounds weird and wrong, but stay with me, I've got a point.

So, this morning, I watched Justin Bieber's deposition after only just hearing about it today. If you haven't seen it yet, it's worth a watch, give it a look.


My entire facial region for the whole interview looked a bit like this:


After I had composed myself however, I then realised that, instead of the usual angry feeling I get after watching Bieber, I had nothing but sadness. Far be it for me to feel sorry for the guy, I wouldn't presume to be so important, but for the first time since he started invading my TV space, I actually felt like I saw the real Bieber, and it does not look pleasant. I do wonder sometimes how many times people are going to take children, make them massive and then watch them completely fall apart, before they actually realise the whole thing might be detrimental to their health in the long run.

I know that there are a lot of childhood stars who have managed to grow up and be okay. Same that there are those who have had their breakdown moment and come out on the other side stronger and shizzle. However, I just don't know how many more times I can watch the media take a normal kid and warp them into something they probably never would have been, had they had a normal childhood.

I watched the deposition and thought, "Yeah, he's coming across as an idiot and full of himself and holding the biggest ego in the world, but you know what? I'm pretty certain that he's always been that way, and I actually applaud the fact that he's no longer hiding it." It was the general fakeness before that I couldn't stand. Sure, there's no excuse for being a prick, but if you're going to do it, at least own it and don't pretend to be someone else, that's worse.

Also, in terms of the Biebs, I kinda accept that he is who he is now, because, let's face it, who of us would be able to experience that amount of praise, adoration, money and publicity without it going just a little bit to our heads? I used to act, sing, dance and just generally all-out perform growing up. However, I knew that I would never pursue that career, as neither outcomes seemed all that appealing to me. I would either never make it and end up broke and stuck, or, by some weird miracle, I would make it and get so caught up in the fame and crap that I would turn into... well... Justin Bieber. There's no doubt in my mind that, if the same things were given to me as they have been to Bieber, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus et al, I would totally have ended up publicly breaking down and going weird.

My reasons for this, and my own humble interpretation of why the above have fallen down the route of weirdness, is thus. When you are in the public eye as much as they are, you are simultaneously being thrown two extremes of both love and hate. Every day, every moment, you are surrounded by everything you could ever want plus all this horrible troll like abuse. Because of this, you then find yourself wanting to keep the high of the love whilst also constantly trying to win over the people who don't love you. On top of all that is the pressure of staying at the same adored status you are now, because it has become something you couldn't live without.

And suddenly fame becomes this drug that you need 24/7. It can be managed fine with those people who enjoy the adoration but don't crave it and need it, like any drug. However, for those who need the constant validation, it becomes this love/hate relationship. You hate all the crap that comes with having your every move documented and followed, but if it went away, the love and attention would go with it and suddenly you're stuck trying to find the next fix of publicity and then left afterwards with the broken self-loathing feeling as you come down from the high and look at the repercussions that publicity has caused. Basically, a very extreme version of a night out on a drinking/drug binge. As with all addictions, the same rule applies.

I think the reason that the majority of our "broken" celebrities started as childhood stars is very much because whilst they were growing into the person that they will inevitably become, and therefore more susceptible to the things around them, they are being conditioned to think that this is the life they should have. Again, it does depend on the person and I am aware of the childhood stars who have not gone this way, but there is a definite correlation.

I don't think that Bieber has necessarily "broken down" as such. But he is definitely showing the more negative results of what years and years of constant attention can do to a person. He also appears to have reached a point where he's no longer going to hide the person that the fame has made him. For that, I'm glad. And that is why I actually like him more today than I have ever done.

I am beginning to think that there should be some sort of limit to how much coverage a famous kid can have. Maybe there could be a rule that paparazzi can only follow people over the age of 18 or 21, perhaps? Kids who are in movies and the music industry should be able to continue doing that, but the fame and shizzle that goes along with it should be clearly capped. I think they almost need to be protected because, let's face it, this is all just getting ridiculous now. You look at these stars going through stuff and the harsh reality is that the media and easy accessibility of these people, as it stands today, is exactly what got them there.

If Bieber hadn't been discovered, he could very well have ended up drink driving with an expired driving license, but even then, he would have been dealt with by local authorities, the situation would have been organised and trialled appropriately, and it would have been something that he and his family would have dealt with alone, thus keeping the focus on the crime and not on how best to publicise it for the general public.

And that's all I'm going to say about it. My two cents done and dusted.

Peace out my lovelies.

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