I remember when I first heard about Justin Bieber. It was 2009 and I was in middle school. Much like every other teenage boy, there was no one I loathed more than the squeaky, trendy, prepubescent Canadian lothario. I hated him. We hated him. I'm sure if you were to ask every 20 year old male what the worst part of puberty was, they'd say Justin Bieber. The Biebs had it all, the purposefully disheveled hair, the clothes, and most importantly, the uncompromising love and affection of seemingly every girl in the world.
Over the last year, I found myself enjoying all the stories of Bieber's wild escapades; fast cars, screaming fans, urinating in mop buckets, an even cooler haircut, and a tiger tattoo. I realized the unimaginable had happened; I became a Belieber. At first I didn't want to believe it. I kept telling myself, "I'm not an actual fan... it's just fun to follow him." But then, I liked a song, then, I liked another one.
The more I followed Bieber, the more I noticed that he kept popping up in songs with some of my favorite artists like Drake, Riff Raff, and Travis Scott. Even still, I was hesitant to come out as a proud fan. I mean, after all, my friends would make fun of me, right?
One day while perusing Twitter, I came across a video of Bieber stopping a performance to correct the fans who couldn't clap in the right rhythm. For some reason, I thought that was such a baller thing to do. I wish I had a better way to describe it, but some things are just pure "baller" and Bieber's latest move most certainly fit the description.
Taking all this into account, I fell victim to the hype surrounding his latest album. I mean, he has a Nas feature! That's right, Nas, Illmatic Nas! So I did what any other 20 year old male would have done - wait until the stroke of midnight to listen to every song on the album three times. After listening, I realized I couldn't keep living a lie, I am a Justin Bieber fan. I mean, have you heard "No Sense" or "We Are"?
So after I finally faced who I really was, a Belieber, I discovered something crazy. While driving my 16-year-old sister and her friends home from the mall, I played some of the Biebs' new music. Apparently, that was a mistake. Almost immediately, all the girls started attacking Bieber, trading different reasons why they all hated him. "He's a brat!", "He stopped a concert 'cause people were clapping wrong!", "He peed in a bucket!". All of the reasons I fell in love with the Bieb are the same reasons his original fan base, teenage girls, have bailed on him.
After dropping the girls off at home, I realized something. The same boys who all hated Bieber when he first came out have grown up with him and all want to be him. Even more fascinating, the same group that made him world famous, teenage girls, have turned on him. The same girls that had "Boyfriend" on repeat at every Sweet Sixteen party in 2009 have grown up and moved on from their Bieber phase. All of the 16-year-old girls today think that the new Bieber is an overrated spoiled brat. The only ones left are the same jealous pubescent guys who once hated everything about him.
If you would have told 8th grade me that there would come a day when four 20 year old males would drive around bumping to the new Bieber album, I would have have thought you were crazy. I mean what's next, guys wearing skinny jeans?
