In Defense Of Justin Bieber

Floyd Mayweather brought Justin Bieber to his fight Saturday night and not everyone was happy about it. It’s fair to say that he inspired scathing reactions at bars and fight parties all over the country. All that backlash is best expressed in this Gawker post:

...when it was finally time for undefeated world champion Floyd Mayweather to walk to the ring, surrounded by his trainer and entourage and his friend 50 Cent, there was, right there in the midst of them all... some kid. Some sort of poufy-haired tween kid there, walking out to the world championship boxing match next to the world champion. Some sort of Life Cereal-looking little motherfucker there, diluting the whole god damn entourage, putting hair gel vibes all over the bloodthirsty arena, looking like a kid whose mom gave him ten quarters to play the slot machine while she went to the bathroom and instead he wandered off into Floyd Mayweather’s ring walk. Get out of there immediately. Leave the arena at once, you little kiddie Elvis impersonator/ New Kids on the Block Of a New Generation/ living embodiment of an eight year-old girl’s bedroom poster. What are you doing, on my television, on my $69.95 pay-per-view, right now, minutes before a bloody violent fight between world class fighters, Justin Bieber, you little shit?

Okay. Some fair points there. Especially the “Life Cereal-looking little motherf***er” part.

On the other hand... If you were Justin Bieber and Floyd Mayweather invited you to walk into the ring with him, wouldn’t you DEFINITELY go? Or more to the point, of all the ways you can live life as a child celebrity, isn’t Justin Bieber doing things better than just about anyone? On the scale between boring Disney Channel never-been-kissed nonsense (Taylor Swift) and walking intervention-in-waiting (Rihanna), he falls firmly in the middle. He’s never claimed to be something he’s not (Drake) and he’s not slowly ruining music as we know it (the Black Eyed Peas), so... Is he really that awful?

He releases pop songs that sell 10 billion records to 14 year-old girls, then hangs out with rappers and records stupid freestyles in his spare time. Which, again: If you had a state of the art studio at your disposal, wouldn’t you screw around recording stupid freestyles like all the time?

(If I’d had unlimited time and money at his age, I’d have spent at least three days a week shopping for velour sweatsuits and jewelry, then re-creating 90s rap videos with freestyles about pizza.)

Anyway, I made fun of him along with everyone else on Saturday, but upon review, I’ve come to the following conclusion on Biebs: He may not do and say cool things in public and his music/movies are pretty terrible, but he wouldn’t be hanging out with Floyd Mayweather and running around All-Star Weekend if he weren’t actually kind of awesome. He’s doing pretty much everything I spent most of my teens daydreaming about. I mean, come on. He got to walk Floyd Mayweather into the f’ing ring at a major fight in Vegas. He’s in the studio with Kanye. He’s got courtside seats at the All-Star Game. On and on and on.

It’s out of control.

If you want to hate Justin Bieber, that’s cool, but don’t go around acting like he’s Taylor Swift. He seems a lot closer to Justin Timberlake. All of which is to say... If you really want to be mad at him, do it because you’re insanely jealous of his ridiculous, hilarious lifestyle. God knows we all are.