SODOM & GOMORRAH: We don’t usually follow pop news on this site, but this particular event seemed over the top.
While on tour in Germany, Justin Bieber left a somewhat controversial comment in the guest book of the museum. He wrote, “Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber.” For those not in the know, a belieber is someone who is a fan of Justin Bieber. There was the expected outrage.
Many wrote on the museum’s Facebook page comments in disgust. Various words have been used to describe the comment – they range from insulting, insensitive, selfish, shocking, vile, and some have called Bieber a “shallow doofus.”
The museum itself is just happy to have someone famous come by and give it publicity so they are certainly not saying anything bad.
The outrage has been followed up by some questions about if people were being too hard on Bieber for his comments. Anne Frank was, in many respects, an average teenage girl and might have been a fan of the pop star’s.
@simonpegg even wrote on Twitter that Bieber’s comments can be attributed to age. He’s 19 and 19 year olds say stupid things.
I find that to be slightly insulting.
First off, age is not an excuse for a lack of intelligence. Plenty of 19 year olds say intelligent things, just as plenty of 70 year olds say unintelligent things. To say that, at 19, you are probably not smart enough to know that you shouldn’t make selfish remarks at a museum honoring someone who died in a death camp flies in the face of the way our laws are structured today and the way human society has functioned for thousands of years.
People are often married, raising children, and running a family at 19. Others are fighting and dying in wars at 19. Still more are drinking and gambling (in some places) at 19. To say that at 19, when Justin Bieber has had a large hand in creating his massive and lucrative entertainment brand, Bieber can just be excused for making ridiculous remarks is a bit of a cop out.
Do I think we should censure Bieber and never allow him to live down the remark? No. Do I think this is proof of Justin Bieber’s lack of intelligence and sense about how the world functions? Yes, but I thought he was a “shallow doofus” before he visited the Anne Frank house.