The real Justin Bieber
A Wanna-bieber kissing YOUR daughter
Walking through Pitt Street Mall in Sydney yesterday, I noticed something rather unnerving. Yes, I'm aware that Justin Bieber is in town...I find myself squirming and feeling rather nauseous when I see images of young girls screaming and crying at the sight of him. And look, he's cute. In a sort of little girl-boy way. But have these girls not heard him speak? Considering he's come from such 'humble beginnings', he appears to be a little white boy, but has a strange, sort of hybrid African-American accent. I also find it weird watching children..and that's essentially what they are, singing about love and sex. People blame magazines, and beauty pageants, and music videos, and everything under the sun for the premature sexualisation of girls. Yes, fair enough, and I couldn't agree more.
But I'm also blaming Bieber.
When I was 16, I did have pictures of Paul Walker and Josh Hartnett strewn all over my walls. And some years before that there were the Backstreet boys, who also sang about love and lust and whatever else. But I never took it too seriously. I liked them, but I didn't beg my mum at the age of 13 to let me go to the concert and cry hysterically when they came on stage. I also found myself laughing at them a bit and occasionally thinking eeewww. I believe it was a healthy interest. There are few acts that would get that kind of excitable reaction from me now, even at the ripe old age of 23. Except perhaps Radiohead.
Anyway. People might be thinking, what's wrong with loving something or having a celebrity crush? I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But I do think theres something wrong with 16 year olds having serious relationships, and I've noticed a hell of a lot more of it since our mate Justin emerged. And some Bieber fans are considerably younger than that. They are at the age where they should still think boys stink and have germs. But they don't; they want their own Bieber, they want a boyfriend, and the male teenagers in this country are catching on. The unnerving site that I saw yesterday, was not only 3 teenage boys who exactly resembled Bieber, but teenage boys absolutely surrounded by girls that were far too young to be hanging out with boys. At the train station, One of the Wannabiebers (which I have aptly named them for the sake of this post) was even wearing the same scarf, had the same haircut and even the same Bieber Nike shoes. But what was more disturbing, was that he was kissing and had his hand all over a girl who was definitely not a day older than 14. And at 14, you should still be at home reading Harry Potter books. Not hanging around a train station with a wannabieber at 6.30pm.
So I'll leave you with this thought...is Bieber fever a healthy obsession? Or is it encouraging your daughters and younger sisters to go crazy and allow someone's underage son to grope them at a train station in the dark? Obviously he isn't solely responsible. He is simply the Shirley Temple of our age (and similarly feminine, might I add). But I think mums need to be a little more worried about the words he's serenading teenage girls with.
