Hello and welcome back to my still yet-to-be-named column where I give you a tour of what’s going on in popular culture today. On the name: Thank you to everyone for your many and varied suggestions, including Jessica Laird with “Weissgeist,” Doug Sgarro with “Weisscracks,” and Stan Nadel with the gravest option, “Weiss Column.” I’m still sleeping on what I want to call this thing, but I’ve absolutely loved reading all of your ideas and comments. Keep them coming!
Is Justin Bieber Okay?
We’ve seen it before: A child star with a cherubic face, and enough skill to navigate a bit of choreography, ascends to megastardom on the wings of a new technology. They get some cash, and the wrong people surround them, and eventually their brain breaks. Then they spiral, in public view, until they are wrecked, the same tech that launched them contributing to their ruin.
So went Judy Garland, who came up around when Technicolor films were lifting off and was put on amphetamines to keep up with her filming schedule, and then became addicted to them. So went Britney Spears, who rode the early internet and MTV at its peak. Twenty years later, she’s dancing with knives on her Instagram and recently took a baby doll on a vacation to Mexico. Now, we have Justin Bieber, 31, who hasn’t yet reached the level of enlisting a security guard to carry around a Barbie in a BabyBjörn for him. But given how he’s been behaving, he seems mere weeks away from doing something deranged.
The pop star who gave us “Baby” never got to grow up. He was discovered on YouTube at the age of 12 by manager-to-the-stars Scooter Braun—who stumbled upon videos of Bieber performing pop covers that Bieber’s mother had uploaded. Within a year, Bieber signed with Braun’s label, and soon he was selling out arenas.
Today, we’re watching his crash out, to borrow a phrase from Gen Z, all across social media.