
You guys, am I a curmudgeon? I wouldn’t have thought so, but then I learned about this fifteen year-old singer named Justin Bieber and started worrying that I’m a crotchety old man.
Because honestly? I think it’s ludicrous for some Canadian boy, whose voice hasn’t even changed yet, to be singing about his “shawty.” Yet that’s exactly what Bieber does in “One Time,” a song that is selling well on iTunes and has started climbing the pop charts. I can’t embed the offiical video, but you should take a look. Bieber comes across like the modern day version of Pat Boone: A squeaky clean white kid who’s appropriating as many elements as he can from African-American culture, desexualizing them, and then waiting for hordes of young girls (and closeted gay boys) to go bonkers
I mean, I guess we’ll stop having pop stars like this when the rain stops falling from the sky—lord knows, Justin Timberlake was the Bieber of his day—but I’ve never been so annoyed by the trope before.
So here’s my question: Is there something about Justin Bieber that’s especially irritating, or am I just a sour senior citizen now?
I don’t think it’s the latter. I like that one Jesse McCartney song, and he’s basically Justin Bieber plus seven years. And Bieber is being groomed by Usher, which means the whole racial appropriation thing is less egregious than it was in Boone’s day.
Maybe my biggest problem is that I don’t like watching or listening to prepubescent children playing dress up. Honestly, if Bieber’s voice had broken, I bet I’d be less annoyed, since he might then seem mature enough to sing this song sincerely. Well, as sincerely as you can ever sing a song about your shawty.
I turn to you, readers of The Critical Condition. What are your thoughts on Justin Bieber?