Your obligatory commentary on the thing that crudded up your timelines today.
—-
All day I’ve watched 140 character commentary flit past on the State of the Beebs. People have very strong opinions about this kid, bordering on hatred. Apparently he was somewhere and he did something and he was arrested. Last week he was somewhere and did something and the police came. Somewhere back there in the Legend of Bieber I think there’s an incident with a monkey, too.
The simple truth is this: I don’t care. Arts and Entertainment is one of my responsibilities here at Good Men Project (the others: cleaning the fro-yo machine every night and feeding the parakeet), so I feel obligated to comment on this breaking news but I just. Don’t. Care.
This is news for those in the Bieber camp whose livelihoods depend upon the kid. It’s certainly news for Justin Bieber. For his fans (which, apparently, no one admits to being) it’s news in the human interest sense of the word, but for the rest of us? This is not news.
Granted, tabloid journalism has always been around, which is what this story is, but the line separating gossip and news has become so blurry that I’m not sure we can all see it anymore. The 24 hour news cycle doesn’t help, either, with its constant need to fill the empty space.
The only way that I can handle the onslaught of information that hits me everyday is by defining “news” as “that which may have some impact on my life.” That’s still a broad net, covering everything from the neighbor’s house being robbed to the island of plastic floating in the Pacific. What Congress does impacts me, so that’s news; what congressmen and women do in their private lives doesn’t (gossip). If I didn’t put that little filter on I would be distracted to the point of stupification, and then I’d probably really be into this story. But I’m not.
Okay, I care a little bit. I feel bad for the kid. I know how this game ends for the Beebs. His fifteen minutes will eventually run out, his accountant/manager/label/mom/uncle/somebody will run off with whatever money is left after the strippers and coke. If he’s lucky he’ll have a run on a weight loss reality show with Screech, play the county fair circuit, that kind of thing. If he’s unlucky he’ll OD broke and alone in a motel room.
I don’t wish either outcome on the kid. What I’d really like is for him to hit whatever bottom is in Bieberland before it’s too late. I’d like to see him get it together, whatever that means in that world, and do whatever it takes to live a life imbued with meaning.
But I fear that one of those other outcomes is inevitable, and when it happens; well, I guess I’ll have to write another piece like this. But not until I feed the parakeet.
Want a different perspective? Read Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Biebers