Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

Jan. 26, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

11:26

2599 Justin Bieber: What They Aren't Telling You!

Justin Bieber was recently charged with drunken driving and resisting arrest after police saw the pop star street racing... but what is the real story behind the story?

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Hi, everybody.
	My name is Stefan Molyneux.
	I'm the host of Free Domain Radio, which is the largest, most popular philosophy show in the world.
	I hope you're doing well.
	I would like to talk about Justin Bieber, the gloriously-haired, fantastically vocally gifted, great dancer, entertainer, and all-around charitable fellow who admittedly is going through a few rough patches at the moment, but I think it's worth putting ourselves in his oversized neon shoes and trying to figure out what's going on for him.
	This is a very fascinating individual and going through some very unique circumstances.
	You probably know the backstory.
	He was discovered as a YouTube sensation when he was about 13 years old.
	He's now 19.
	And if you can imagine, I mean, I mean, just imagine growing up with that kind of money and power and exposure and screaming fans and entire clusters of people whose living depend upon your breathing and singing to produce what a universe that must be to live in.
	It's hard to imagine.
	I am a minor public figure myself and can't even come close to imagining what it would be like to be the Biebs.
	It's a really fascinating thing.
	One thing that I do understand is that when you do anything in the public sphere, when you rise to any kind of provenance in the glorious global digital human tribe, Ooh, the haters!
	They come out.
	The haters emerge with their scaly reptilian backs, their lizard squid-waving tentacle, red-stained eyeballs, and they attempt to feast on every glorious and pretty thing that they find, anything which has beauty, anything which elevates, anything which pleases people, anything which makes their lives more enjoyable, and I think all of that can be said for Justin Bieber, his music and his performances.
	They wish to drag all glorious things down into their petty, self-loathing dungeons of insecurity, paralysis and venom-feasting nastiness.
	And I think Justin Bieber...
	What's the big deal?
	He's a pretty guy, he's a great singer, a great entertainer, and he makes a lot of money.
	What's the harm in that?
	I can't believe that this is what people call some sort of moral crusade.
	There are Facebook pages, hate sites all over the place.
	It seems to be a rite of passage for anyone who considers themselves vaguely hip to drink a quart of Justin Bieber blood at dawn.
	Actually, probably not at dawn, probably at sunset when these people finally crawl out of their mother's basements.
	But it's tragic.
	It's horrendous.
	Look, I mean, if you're a hater of this young man, come on.
	Seriously.
	You and I both know.
	Be serious now.
	If you were offered the same things that he was offered, what would you say?
	No!
	Absolutely not!
	I am above these things.
	I am Pink Floyd incarnate.
	I am a combination of Mozart with a side frappuccine of Beethoven, and therefore I will not sally myself in lyrics of less than 19 syllables.
	If the song does not contain a reference to an Aztec god living in a Welsh village, I don't even want to know about it.
	Of course you would take exactly what Justin Bieber is offered.
	Who wouldn't?
	Wouldn't you want to try that?
	I mean, if you'd say no, how could you live with yourself?
	So, of course, you can hate on him all you want, but if you were offered it, if I were offered the same thing even now, let alone at the age of 13, I mean, who on earth would say no to global fame and talent and all of that?
	So, to hate him is to imagine that you would make a different decision in his position, and I think that's a pretty tough...
	Idea or argument to sustain.
	So let's step into these low-rise pants and figure out what it might be like for him to, as a young man, to face the hatred that he faces and the contempt that he faces is just astounding.
	Got to remember too, when you become rich and famous, you end up surrounded by By people whose very livelihood depends upon you being a crazy, you know, power-bar-eating workaholic.
	I mean, that's just the way it is.
	There are hundreds of people around Justin Bieber who rely on him for their income.
	Are those people going to give him clear and objective advice about what is best for his own long-term mental, emotional, and spiritual health?
	Of course not!
	Or at least it's quite unlikely.
	You know, agents, they have this kind of speech, you know, where you say, oh, you know, I'm a bit worn out.
	I think I want to take a break.
	Don't even think about it!
	The public has the attention span of drunken cats in a barrel rolling down a hill.
	And if you're out of the public eye for approximately 12 to 14 nanoseconds, they will forget about you and you will have no career and it will all be over and you can go back to asking people if they would like fries with their Happy Meal.
	So they want to keep you on the treadmill.
	They want to keep you working.
	It's like being an actor who's in demand.
	Your agent stands to make...
	100,000, 200,000 or more from you landing a film role.
	Is that agent going to say, no, no, no, it's important to rest.
	You know, balance of life is important.
	No, their financial incentive is to keep you working as hard as possible.
	Working that hard takes a huge toll on a person.
	I mean, just the jet lag, the travel, the constant sense of threat from paparazzi, from crazy fans.
	I mean, poor Justin Bieber.
	There's a couple of people who were arrested a few years ago for a plan to kidnap, castrate and kill him.
	God, what the hell is wrong with humanity?
	And so what happens is you end up surrounded by people who really, really have a huge incentive to have you work like crazy.
	And that's what they do.
	The workaholism takes its toll and you turn to stimulants.
	You have a headache and you've got 20,000, 50,000 people who pay tickets.
	You have to go on.
	I mean, the poor guy threw up on stage, got up and kept going.
	I mean, that's impressive in terms of his dedication, but that's the world that you live in.
	I'm an angel-voiced pretty boy with Elvis on a Van de Graaff generator hair.
	What's the problem?
	I mean, God, if you're going to have a moral crusade, you know, let's take on war, let's take on poverty, let's take on child abuse, let's take on circumstances, whatever, genital mutilation, whatever, pick your battle, but for God's sake, make it something important, not, well, he's arrogant.
	Come on!
	I mean, I don't have 100,000 screaming fans show up to see me speak.
	It's not even half that, in fact.
	So yes, let's give the kid a chance to be arrogant.
	I think he's earned it.
	So find yourself a moral crusade that's more important than hating on a Madonna voice pretty boy.
	Oh, it's Shallow Pop!
	No, it's Shallow Pop.
	He's 13.
	What's he going to sing about?
	The death of his grandchildren?
	The cats in the cradle?
	He's 13.
	Come on, at the beginning of the Beatles' career, they were, I want to hold your hand.
	I mean, they were, you know, nothing boys in terms of depth.
	It takes a little while to get your Sgt.
	Pepper's.
	It takes a little while to get your Dark Side of the Moon groove on, and the kid was 13.
	Come on!
	I mean, he's not David Gilmour.
	But when David Gilmour was 13, he was probably popping zits and playing Dungeons and Dragons.
	So, give the man a chance to mature into whatever musician he's going to be.
	But don't expect Prince out of a guy when he's 13.
	So, I think that's pretty important.
	There's a lot of people who want him to fail.
	There's a tragic thing that happens in humanity.
	If you rise like a star, everyone takes out their pistols and tries to shoot you down.
	Not everyone.
	A lot of people do.
	And you get this weird kind of view of humanity when you're in the public sphere as somebody who's famous.
	On the one hand, you have like these screaming fans of tentacled adulation, the believers, right?
	But on the other hand, you have these venomous, golem-like, squid-backed haters.
	And you kind of get this distorted view.
	So there's people all around you who want to make money from you.
	Nothing wrong with that.
	I'm a free market kind of guy, but it does distort their advice.
	And then you get the fans for whom you can do no wrong, and then you get the bloodshot-eyed cyclops haters for whom you can do no right.
	It's kind of a discombobulating view of the planet to be worshipped and loathed in significantly equal measures in some ways.
	So forgive the guy.
	Give the guy a break.
	If he's having some challenges finding balance in this kind of universe, I think he's doing a great job.
	I mean, seeing him perform is exhilarating.
	He's got such a positive energy, such a pep, such steps.
	His voice is maturing beautifully, and I think he's doing a pretty good job.
	Yeah, he's got a DUI. Yes, he did some drag racing.
	Yes, there's rumors are that his mother may have given him some prescription pills and so on.
	Tragically, his family does have a history of...
	Substance abuse.
	His mother has reported being sexually abused as a child.
	She attempted suicide when she was a year prior to giving birth to Justin.
	There's some dark stuff in the family, which a good therapist can really help with.
	There is a cycle, but that's a huge amount of fame and adulation to pour on someone that young.
	My message is for internet haters as a whole.
	I mean, it's so frustrating.
	The frustrating thing is you think you're paralyzing someone other than yourself.
	Like when you pour this venomous blah on people for their shining qualities and ambitions and talents and achievements, they keep moving.
	You know, you think you're advancing on people and changing them, but what you're doing is you're actually just retreating into a sad situation.
	Tragic, truly tragic little dungeon where you lie and can only see the sun like a pinprick from an almost infinitely deep well far under the ground.
	It really is tragic.
	The way I see these people, I mean, I have my own little haters, and the way I see these people, it really is tragic.
	I wish that they could find something better to do with their time and their lives, but the reality is if you are committed to something important, then you keep doing what you're doing, and you take...
	Pleasure in doing what you're doing.
	And while the haters think that they can reach up, you know, lick their fingers together and put out the sun, all that happens is they plunge their own world into a darkness.
	And I think that is really tragic.
	You are not extinguishing the bright lights of mankind.
	You are simply burying yourself in an unmarked grave.
	This is Stefan Molyneux.
	For Freedom Radio with a message to Justin, keep on singing, brother.

▲