Let’s take it back to 2009. I was a freshman in high school, the economy was weak, and Justin Bieber literally looked like this:
My best friend, Veronica, was a die hard, self-proclaimed, “Belieber,” and boy did she fit the description. This girl knew more about the Biebs than she knew about herself. His likes, his dislikes, where he was going to be, when he was going to be there, what he was working on, what he was tweeting about, who he was hanging out with, who he was dating, his entire upbringing; all for the love of a pre-pubescent boy with a lengthy bowl cut? I was sick of it. I swore to myself that Justin Bieber was a talentless devil, and I told this to Veronica every time she brought him up. I mean, come on, “Baby, baby, baby, oh,” was not exactly the greatest lyric of all time. I was not a fan.
The rest of our high school career went on as you can imagine. Veronica would go to concerts, meet and greets and to the city to stalk him outside of hotel rooms. Then she would come to school and I would make fun of her. When 2014 rolled around I was really starting to have a blast with it. Justin was exiting his innocent teen pop star phase and entering a reckless, downward spiral that we all remember looked like this:
Something tells me he wasn’t super upset about it. I used this glorious phase in Justin’s life to further remind Veronica that he was simply terrible.
A year later, in March of 2015, Justin Bieber became the youngest person to ever be roasted at a Comedy Central Roast. The broadcast received the third highest ratings of Comedy Central Roasts, so I guess you could say that people were excited to watch JB get ripped apart. I know I was! I had a blast listening to some of my favorite comedians discuss how sorry they felt for Selena Gomez ever having to be with him and how he could easily fit into the Orange is the New Black cast as a woman. It was a night that further proved I had the right to make fun of people that liked Justin Bieber, until the end of the show. It was Justin’s turn to speak, and after he finished cracking jokes, he got serious with the audience. He basically told everyone how sorry he was for being a bad role model and that he was going to turn his life around. He said he was making music again and that he’d be coming out with some great new songs. I laughed it off, thinking that the era of Justin Bieber was over and his name would forever be known as the has-been who sang “Baby.”
BOY WAS I WRONG. Fast forward to August 2015, and Justin Bieber released what may or may not be the song of the 2015. “What Do You Mean” has become the gym song, the pre-game song, and the continuous joke among my friends. We can’t ask each other the question “What do you mean?” without following it up with the “ah, ah, ah, ah,” that comes next in the song. This has me questioning my identity. I was always the Non-Belieber, and now I watch the WDYM music video almost 5 times a day. Who have I become?! I can’t help it. I absolutely love the direction that Justin is going with his music. It’s relaxing enough to chill to, yet when it comes on at the bar you can dance your heart out, and the tropical vibe gives it a summertime feel that is impossible to dislike. Don’t even get me started on his new song “Sorry,” because just when I thought “What Do You Mean” was a one-time hit, Justin killed it again. I even saw girls dressed as the dancers in the “Sorry” video for Halloween, and I knew the kid was back on top. So here I am, listening to J-Biebs and wondering how my life did a complete 180. Here I am counting down the days until his full album is released. Here I am drooling over his tattoos and looking up concert tickets. I never thought it would come to this, but I have officially been stricken ill with the Bieber Fever. There, I've said it.
