I was very jealous of Justin Bieber

When I was in high school, Justin Bieber was huge. I remember attending dance nights at our sister school Hornsby Girls when one of his songs would come on. Crowds of girls would scream and rush into the hall to dance. What an ass.

At the time I justified my feelings towards him in light of his unruly behaviour. Pissing in a bucket and short clips of him being rude to people were more than enough to convince me that this guy was a total jerk and did not deserve the crazy obsession girls had over him. In some sense I was right, and it made a lot of sense that I thought that way. Shouldn't girls at least somewhat appreciate a nerdy Asian kid who spends most of his time studying?

In fact, I remember watching a video of Bill Burr on Conan at the time where he said something to the effect of "he's just a kid and all that hate is unwarranted". Pfft, of course it should be warranted. He should learn to stop being so arrogant and all the hate will humble him!!!

Then the older I got, the more I looked inward to realise that my hate towards him was motivated by jealousy. In fact I was not only jealous, but in denial of being jealous because my ego couldn't handle me thinking I'm lesser than someone else. I was jealous of his singing, his looks, his money, his fame, most importantly his ability to make girls go crazy.

This realisation also made me see him for who he truly is, just a kid overwhelmed by the industry. Been promoted so hard and made so famous at such a young age nearly destroyed him. DUI, brawls, bad press, drugs, alcohol. His entire childhood was torn from him due to his fame and he felt isolated.

Lately his comeback and revival reminded me of him. Overcoming Lyme disease, Ramsay Hunt Syndrome, marrying, starting a family were all huge strides he made in climbing out of the hole that the industry dug for him. I was impressed. It prompted me to think deeper about who he is and what I really think of him.

I also used to find his music unbearable. "Pop garbage after pop garbage. I'm better than generic music that everyone likes of course". But of course this is not true. He is actually a phenomenal singer with some of the most talented writers sending him some great ideas. The songs are actually very well produced and catchy as hell.

I suppose that as you get older, you realise that it's just incredibly hard to be honest with yourself.