Currently Convinced: The Justin Bieber Edition

I am currently convinced that this could be proof that God has not forsaken us.

Indeed, Justin Bieber is starting to hit the Britney Spears trend. His original deluded fans are growing out of their age range, and new fans are hard to come by. I have never understood how or why he was popular. At best, he’s a YouTube creation using a heavy dab of Michael Jackson and Justin Timberlake. He has the sex appeal of celery. He also really doesn’t have any songs anyone knows. I defy the average person on the street to name one of his hits.

I am not joking when I say this: the first time I saw Bieber, I thought it was a joke. His thin voice, his ridiculous “choreography,” and his hideously juvenile songs were so bad that I thought I was supposed to be laughing. If memory serves, it was on the Today show a few years back, and the laudatory reaction from the Today staff finally clued me in that this was no laughing thing. People, apparently, were paying this guy to make records.

He may well be a perfectly nice kid, but everything about his music feels like something the neighbor kid does to torture the adults on New Years Eve. “Hey, I can put on a show!” Nothing about him convinced me that there was talent to be nurtured or an original voice to be heard.

So, yeah, maybe we can all put this shameful moment behind us and embrace the Post-Bieber Era.

I know I will.