The word “fan” doesn’t adequately describe the feverish faith and tireless attention of Bieber’s legions. Instead, they call themselves “beliebers,” banding together online, devouring Bieber news, Bieber rumors, Bieber anything, Bieber everything. Their hunger is insatiable. Their metabolism is astounding. For 12 hours Tuesday, I tried to become one of them.
I wanted to belieb.
As humanity continues its migration onto the digital plane, we’re still learning how to process instant access to breaking world news, the entirety of recorded human history and 24-hour surveillance of our favorite pop singers. In order to become a belieber, I would need to adapt. So at the stroke of noon, I closed all of the usual windows on my computer screen and began waterboarding myself with Bieber-related content. And nothing else.
As Bieber prepared for Tuesday’s gig in Houston, I happened upon some unlucky Texas teens who were tweeting jealous darts at their ticket-holding classmates. (Behold the power of Twitter — it facilitates revolution in developing nations and allows music journos to eavesdrop on high school cafeteria chatter from 1,220 miles away.)
Elsewhere on Twitter, fans wondered whether or not our hero had split with his 20-year-old girlfriend, singer Selena Gomez. Over the weekend, Bieber posted — then deleted — a frowny self-portrait on Instagram captioned “Lingse,” which cryptography experts quickly decoded as an anagram for “single.”
There were also photos of a fresh tattoo (a cartoon owl on Bieber’s left forearm) and a new pet (a hamster named “Pac”). Fans parsed these snapshots the way their grandparents once inspected the LP sleeve of “Sgt. Pepper’s.”
Others just jockeyed for the singer’s attention. Whataburger, the Texas-born grease chain, invited Bieber to drop by for lunch. An animal rights activist asked Bieber to stand up against the captivity of marine mammals. But most fans were simply begging Bieber to acknowledge their earthly being. “Dear Justin Drew Bieber . . . ” one tweeted, “can you notice me and follow me? I EXIST.”
It all felt very techno-spiritual. Tweeting at Justin Bieber is like sending a prayer to God. You hope you’ll be answered, but the real comfort comes from believing he can hear you.
Slow news day for the Biebs. I signed up for a Google news alert, which filled my new inbox — wannabelieb@gmail.com — with a few dozen iterations of the same five stories.
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