In the words of former President Richard Nixon, “Baby, baby, baby! Oooh!”
There are times in our life when NewsFeed finds ourselves a cauldron of stewing Nixonian class resentment. We take stock of the injuries, the wrongs done unto us, and let them boil deep inside until they turn into fuel for our triumphs. We’ve never been especially proud of the practice, but there’s at least one good thing about it: It gives us something in common with Justin Bieber!
The trailer for the teen singing sensation’s upcoming film Never Say Never, which comes out Valentines Day because ugh, at first glance appears to be similar to that of a normal concert film: screaming fans, awestruck admirers, larger-than-life spectaculars. But on second glance, readers may notice an interesting strain of paranoia, mixed with delusions of grandeur and martyrdom, running through the bit: “They said it would never happen. They said he would never make it. But you never stopped believing.”
It’s pretty apparent that ‘you’ is the teeming mass of Bieber acolytes, but who are ‘they’ supposed to be? The Jonas Brothers? Mean blogs like NewsFeed? Representative John Conyers?
Either way, the trailer is full of the same mix of audience ego-stroking andĀ rhetorical appeals to resentment that you’re more likely to find coming from a politician than a pop star. Is Justin Bieber in the Tea Party?