The 5 Most Unsettling Trending Topics About Justin Bieber
Dear Superultramegastar Justin Bieber,
Last month, the Grammys snubbed you with zero nominations. Perhaps you heard the air boiling with the howls of your devoted followers? Personally, I think it's terrible -- just terrible -- that anyone thinks the Grammys matter. But regardless, don't fret: A much higher title is reserved for you.
The American Music Awards (also known as "The Ones That Mean Even Less than the Grammys") chose you for Artist of the Year. Although an AMA is a paltry honor, it represents the voice of the people, and that means you are now the most popular musician on Earth. Well done, Biebs! You have officially broken the first seal and are ready to march the armies of man forth to do battle in your name.
What's that? Oh, you didn't know? You are the Beast.
I know, my money was on Chris Brown, too.
Now, before you strike me down with your unholy power, my dark lord, know that I say this with respect and devotion. Most people old enough to drive mock your music, but I see in you a charismatic young man who arose from the sea of noise on YouTube to become the new King of Pop and forerunner of Armageddon.
Of course, I don't have to tell you that the Book of Revelation actually mentions two Beasts: the Antichrist and the demagogue who announces his fearsome might to the world. And so amen amen, I say unto thee: I will be your false prophet, Justin Bieber.
My credentials speak for themselves.
I know, I know ... what do you need me for? You have united the nations with millions of Beliebers ready to do your biebing. But what happens when they all become teenagers and discover anger? Then they become Cracked readers. I can keep them sweet on you. Let me be your John the Anti-Baptist and preach your tempestuous glory, right here and now.
Give me a chance, and we can turn your worldwide fan base into a cult of the Fallen One that shakes the Earth for a thousand years. Don't belieb me? The evidence is in 2012's five most unsettling Twitter trends that mention you.
Justin Is Beautiful Inside and Out
What It's Really Saying:
"I love everything that you are, because you are good and pure. I pledge my being to your perfection." Basically, it's how someone who's never been in love imagines romance.
Also known as Twilight love.
Maybe It's Just Zealous Fans:
Heck, there's nothing presumptuous or creepy about that statement. I tweet this every couple of hours at model Adrianne Curry, even though the only things I know about our love are that she's a leggy geek and that the part of me that's still 13 is roaring for one of those. Also, please note that, wherever possible, I have replaced pictures of you with her, because you are not a pretty lady who pals around with Stan Lee. No offense to your cruel beauty, my dark lord, but when Adrianne Curry cosplays as Wonder Woman, even Wonder Woman touches herself to the pictures.
That woman could wear Clint Howard and make him look good.
So this "inside and out" malarkey is just the initial stage, where adoring fans pour goodness into a celebrity-shaped vase. It builds an artificial intimacy in the true believer's heart by hiding the real person behind an idealized version. This kind of fallacy wounds both parties. You know, like when you're fantasizing that the person you're having sex with is Adrianne Curry and then your erection withers because you'll never be good enough for her?
But hey, young people, don't ever let anyone shame you for the things you like. (Unless it's Hitler. Is it Hitler? For crying out loud! Why would you pick Hitler?) Just remember that your faith should also be strong enough to question the things you most want to believe. Otherwise you'll find yourself saying yes to statements you know aren't true. For example, it's simply wrong to say that Justin's tears can cure viral infections when they merely cure bacterial ones. And though we all accept his netherworldly power, let's not pretend "Boyfriend" is a very good song. It's all hook and no bait.
Unlike this picture, which is all 'bate.
Can This Hashtag Propel Bieber to Godhood?
Of course! Every devout group is united by its core values, whether it's a corporation, a sports team, or a nightclub down on Woviotis Street catering to a very specific fetish that only lets you in if you know that the password is "herringbone umbrella lick." (Be sure to bring your own catcher's mask.)
Core values are closely guarded. Members who challenge them are corrected or exiled for the sanctity of the group. In this case, the central value is your greatness as a musician, person, and architect of The End.
In my day, "Canadian musician" meant some really bad VH-1, not this "Dear Leader" bullshit.
In the normal course of things, sir, your fans will grow up and realize that they're projecting an unrealistic fantasy onto you that doesn't acknowledge the real human being behind it (or in our case, the rough, slouching beasts wearing meatsuits to hide our many heads behind it). Any fan who fails to make this transition after a certain age becomes ... unnerving. EXCEPTION: If the idol is Ms. Curry, because that rule doesn't apply to anyone so perfect that we're not worthy to lick her toenail clippings up off the floor.
Or possibly anyone who looks like the Baroness, I'm not sure what my criterion is here.
My Hadean master, we must trap them in this emotional bedrock until they're old enough to enlist in your Legion of Nine Devils. That's why I'm recommending that you start preaching abstinence until marriage. Not only will it protect them from coming of age in a real relationship until well into their 20s, but it will fool the religious right into condoning our glorious deviltry a little longer.
Happy Birthday Jeremy Bieber
What It's Really Saying:
Jeremy Bieber is Justin's father, and if you know any more about him than that, thank you for keeping your ecstatic moans low enough so no one else can hear.
"So great and eerie is my love," say these birthday greetings, "that the people you care about, I too shall treasure in my thumping heart."
Maybe It's Just Zealous Fans:
This is where the committed fandom -- or as it's known in professional circles, "gamma-level awkwardness" -- creates a false proximity. It's an effort to insinuate oneself into every corner of the Bieber existence. On the surface, it seems thoughtful. Ho-ho! But there are conditions, my goat-eyed lord; you'd better love them back, or they're going to turn bitter when you "betray" this affection you never asked for.
Can This Hashtag Propel Bieber to Godhood?
Veneration of the progenitor is a fixture of almost every messianic faith. Apollo and Hercules have Zeus. Jesus has Mary. Adrianne Curry has Odin Curry, who created her when he made love to the first sunrise of summer.
The cult is now in place to catapult the Canadian One to Beastdom. Not a moment too soon! When you're wishing happy birthday to someone you haven't met because they're close to someone else you haven't met, you're either a clown who gets paid in smiles or Adrianne Curry answering prayers.
My dad thanks you for the cake, Ms. Curry, but you and I both know that I must love you from afar. Just ... just promise you'll sniff this scented handkerchief whenever the west wind murmurs my name to you.
Justin Is Our Light When
What It's Really Saying:
It's not a huge leap to turn hardcore devotion into a death cult. After all, one person fixated on someone "perfect" they'll never meet is an obsession ... a million of them is a religion. Beliebers already treat the chosen one less like a Canadian musician and more like a Babylonian sun god. And like any good cult of worship, they perform public acts of devotion to summon his almighty gaze. Inevitably, someone in the group tries to one-up everyone else with an outrageous display of commitment to those values.
To use an outside example: In the documentary Trekkies, there's an anecdote about a Star Trek fan bidding big money for a glass of water that one of the actors drank from, even though the actor had the flu. Upon winning the joke auction, the fan glugs the entire glass at Warp Factor 10, which, for you non-Star Trek fans, is 1/8 of the time it takes light to travel from the sun to the Earth and be bored by Star Trek.
Maybe It's Just Zealous Fans:
Speaking of light, you are now theirs, young Biebzebub. Good luck keeping your balance on a pedestal so high that your nosebleed has vertigo! This is really the point where, after age 15 or so, the thing Beliebers call love is what the rest of society calls "Chapter 27 of Catcher in the Rye." These kinds of fans hold a celebrity to impossible standards. Nobody is anybody's light -- unless, obviously, you're Jesus or Adrianne Curry, and I can't prove that about Jesus.
Christ died for your sins, but Adrianne Curry is cause to make sure He gets His money's worth.
Their intense adoration is doomed because reality is never perfect. The first time one of them sneaks onto the tour bus and hides in the bathroom, they'll realize that even Light's poop stinks. Then they'll feel betrayed. Betrayed ... TO DEATH.
Can This Hashtag Propel Bieber to Godhood?
How to preserve this perfect state of unquestioning loyalty? Revelation tells us that the followers of the Beast will be marked on their head or their hand to show their allegiance. Only the firmest Beliebers would mark their flesh for you with a tattoo. You have to be 18 for that, and if they're still projecting the dreams they had as tweens onto a pop star when they're legally adults, they were going to miss all the cool parts of college anyway.
Getting a tattoo is a psychological commitment. With a permanent mark on their skin, they'll only be able to accept one reality -- and it's the one where they can only see the world via your reflection. That's why, my great foul master, you must demand that they mark themselves in devotion to you. Then they can easily identify each other and shun any dealings with non-Beliebers. Consolidation + Isolation = DOMINATION.
I recommend rich symbolism that commands followers to "Believe" and has a trafe animal for a familiar.
We Will Never Let Justin Go
What It's Really Saying:
Let's say they do grow frustrated when you don't turn out to be perfect, Darth Biebz. It will be OK! This is one of those "problems" that every couple has -- especially the ones who have never met! Their uncomfortably close love will heal the rift by forgiving you, and then reconciling at you twice as hard. Thankfully, Ms. Curry and I don't have these woes, because I'm cool with her never letting me go.
And I, in turn, refuse to let this joke go.
Maybe It's Just Zealous Fans:
You know that bit in The Crush when Alicia Silverstone flips out and destroys Cary Elwes' home? Me neither. Nobody saw The Crush. But if they had, your fans would recognize that it's make or break time -- they either admit that they were a little overexcited or they plunk down every last one of your mental chips and tell the croupier to put it all on crazy. I say go ahead and do the latter, Beliebers! You've already boiled the bunny; might as well pluck the meat from its bones.
P.S. Cary Elwes, you scamp! You have not aged a day since 1993!
Can This Hashtag Propel Bieber to Godhood?
We'll use their redoubled affection to ratchet up your legend. Hear me, O pathetic mortals! You must live for Bieber! Die for Bieber! Bieber is the dark revelation! Bieber is your soul's aching secret! When you wake up in a wet spot with tears still stinging your eyes, it is BIEBER's disappointed face acid-etched onto your retinas! Let us speak in one trembling voice: Bieber is all! Bieber is the omega! Bieber is! Bieber Is! Bieber! Is! BIEBER! IS!
And what good is a savior without an agent provocateur?
RIP Justin Bieber
What It's Really Saying:
After eight months of increasingly unhealthy trends, Twitter concluded the Bieber god cycle with a ritual sacrifice.
Maybe It's Just Zealous Fans:
So we've given our all to our idol, and some part of us still rings empty. Well, nothing for it but to turn the emptiness inward! Ever considered cutting? I would never advocate mutilating oneself, but if it were a way to finally be able to feel something ... God, can you imagine how good that would be, taking control of your pain? Hold on, I'm going to try it-
*GASP*
Guys, that was NOTHING like the fantasy. Alright, plan B: If you can't control your own destruction, destroy what defines you.
Can This Hashtag Propel Bieber to Godhood?
Don't worry if Twitter's trying to kill you, Jay-Jay Biebray-bray. The Bible tells us that the Beast will suffer a fatal wound, but it won't kill him right away. Whether it's Neo or Aslan, every messiah -- even a false one -- must be sacrificed to attain his full powers. It would be rude not to. In fact -- these Curry jokes. I love them, but they have to go.
It is survived by my uninformed lust.
It's one thing to destroy that which you love. It's quite another to claim that its death saved you. For some reason, people really appreciate your suffering the penalties of their screw-ups for them.
But death is not the end. Like any respectable deity, the myth of the Boy King renews itself. Like the snake shedding its skin, the light-bringer of pop music will return with a new haircut. We are told that the Beast "once was, now is not, and yet will come."
So plainly, there's a precedent.
In conclusion: A non-Belieber would no doubt say that you aren't the Beast, m'lord, and that you seem like nothing more than a nice young man who makes tolerably bland music. And that objective critic would then be slapped to death by offended Beliebers. But with his last breath, he'd manage to croak, "If you're standing next to Usher and he's the second-least-substantial musician in the video, it's time to bite the head off a bat."
Yeah, that's what an impartial observer would declare. But those of us who have accepted Bieber into our hearts know a deeper truth, inviolable to facts. Therefore the time has come to leave our computers and be with him.
Join me, then, in a toast! Everyone grab a cup of that Kool-Aid there ... great. To celebrities: filling our lives with theirs like a retrovirus overwriting host cells! In the next world, may we all have such good marketing. Why, with the right sales pitch, you could make anyone look like anything: the ideal boyfriend, the perfect woman, even the Beast himself, if that's what you're expecting to see. Perhaps ... hm.
Perhaps I was wrong?
And -- and perhaps ... famous people are a scant canvas onto which we project our desires? And if so, perhaps our increasingly celebrity-obsessed culture is our increasingly self-obsessed culture. And if that's true, then ... why ... the Beast ...
THE BEAST IS US.
Eh. Why turn back now? *glug*
Oh, and Biebs? When your dark powers manifest, maybe you could use them to land me a date with Adr-gaaack *Thud*
Brendan spends his days drawing Watchmen Hostess pie ad parodies. You don't have to be Adrianne Curry to flirt with him, but it's going to make all his Twitter-sexting really awkward if you are.
Brendan previously exploded your theological expectations with 5 Reasons the Rapture Did Not Occur.
