Justin Bieber

Apparently Bieber fever has a new symptom: emotional blackmail. Justin Bieber is eighteen years old and supposedly last week smoked a joint. In response, his fans (prompted by a cruel hoax) have taken to Twitter in the #cutforbieber campaign, which at its core says “you stop doing drugs, we’ll stop cutting”.

The internet has been flooded with images of mutilated arms, real and fake, in a strange bid to save Bieber from himself. The trolls that started this are sick and have a lot to answer for.

This whole situation brings up a number of problems, the most serious of which is the way it has thrust cutting into the public eye whilst simultaneously downplaying its severity, and, even worse, making it the butt of jokes. Those who started encouraging fans to “cut for Bieber” but they couldn’t have picked a more vulnerable target.

Continue reading "Cut out the Cut for Bieber jokes, it’s no laughing matter" »

Kanye West + Justin Bieber = ?????????????

You tell us. The rap legend and the teen lust-icon are joining together on the one CD-ROM that will explosionise the brains of teenage girls everywhere. Yes, EXPLOSIONISE.

It’s Tuesday. A pinch and a Punch post about Justin Bieber for the first day of the month. What’s on your mind?

Click on the video below. I dare you. If you’re brave enough, watch it all the way to the end.

Eck. It probably doesn’t “light up your world like nobody else” does, but you’re hardly the target audience. Over the past few months the hit song of visiting teenybopper supergroup One Direction has lit up the musical worlds of the 8 to 16 year female demographic. Simultaneously, it’s lit a fuse of ridiculousness that’s threatening the sanity of Australian parents and people of good music taste alike.

The national tweenage hysteria alert level rose to amber yesterday as the band, cobbled together by pop mastermind Simon Cowell, flew into the country for a concert series and a gig at the Logie Awards.

Continue reading "Why tweenage girls go crazy over an average boy band" »

I hardly ever keep my New Year’s Resolutions, including the last two, which were Don’t Make Any More New Year’s Resolutions and Don’t Write About Making Resolutions Around The End Of December. Even my Only Drink Stirred Martinis (Not Shaken) resolution looked a bit shaky around June, when I didn’t keep my eye on a barman that had a rebellious streak and a twitchy hand.

So I’ve decided that this year, I’m just making resolutions that are impossible to keep. That way, I figure by the end of the year I might have some kind of a record – 100 per cent of my resolutions broken. A real achievement.

Let’s see…

Continue reading "You won’t fool the children of the anti-resolution" »

If a meteor were spotted tomorrow hurtling towards the Earth, you could bet that some shirtless Mike Sorrentino clone would spend his final minutes lip-syncing Rihanna in an attempt to rake up hits before impact.

As astronauts snapped the glowing explosion with their mobiles, old people made out on the beach and random 17-year-olds concluded their wedding vows, he would grin triumphantly. “At least I’m famous,” he would say as the television turned to static and the chanting began.

At any given moment, millions of people are sprinting toward fame, with no clue as to what they’ll do if and when they finally grasp it. Encouraged by the handful of well-publicised success stories, they cheerfully upload their auto-tuned vocals, tear-streaked rants and subway dance routines.

Continue reading "Festival of Obvious Ideas #8: We can’t all be famous" »

Kevin Rudd’s head is entitled to have swollen a fair bit recently. All week newspaper frontpages have been telling him how magnificent he is and how not-magnificent the current PM is. But just as magnificent as Rudd’s approval ratings is the gaffe (or perhaps, Freudian slip) he made this morning.

Kevin747 had just landed back home, shoulders sore after rubbing them against UN boffins all week in New York, when he said during an interview with a regional radio station that he was a “very happy little vegemite being Prime Minister - being Foreign Minister of Australia”.

It’s a ruddy spectacular slip, especially considering the leadership speculation kerfuffle of the past month. To commemorate such a brilliant verbal stuff-up, The Punch presents a few of the more embarrassing or just plain unfortunate conversational cock-ups of recent times.

Continue reading "A Ruddy spectacular compendium of gaffes" »

The Beatles had 20, Elvis had 18 and Michael Jackson racked up 13. Even Wham! managed a respectable two.

No, we’re not talking about girlfriends, but something just as hard to get – Billboard Hot 100 number one hits.

So how is it that the biggest star of the millennium, with as many screaming female fans as The Beatles or Elvis, hasn’t scored a single US number one hit some seven singles into his career?

Continue reading "Bieber’s number one with the girls, but not with Billboard" »

Hysteria. Queues. Outragious fashion. Prince Charming. We had it all on Friday night - in Homebush.

An hour before Kate swept gracefully into Westminster Abbey, I made my own dramatic entrance, swept off my feet by some moss and down my friend’s front steps in Balmain, taking out a large pot plant and fracturing my toe (now purple).

Sprawled across the damp pavers - a potted azalea in my lap, bits of me hurting but I wasn’t sure which yet - I took one look at my 12-year-old and saw that she had crowned me, in that moment, the Most Embarrassing Mum Ever.

Continue reading "An un-Belieber tells: Why I missed the Royal Wedding" »

A few weeks back, Adam Baidawi took to the online newsstands with a statement befitting most thirteen year old girls: “Back off, haters. Justin Bieber’s Got Talent.”* 

Baidawi’s main statement was that the world of social media perpetuates unfounded assumptions, especially those related to taste, and I’m inclined to agree: We jump on the bandwagon.

But there’s more to it than that – Adam’s argument ends up here: “For those curious, the sample principle should be applied to poor old Rebecca Black … who has endured a lifetime of ridicule … despite bands like the Black Eyed Peas pumping out lyrics that, frankly, read like OUTTAKES from ’Friday.’”

Continue reading "Bad lyrics: Oooh baby, oh girl, hit me. Please. Hit me." »

I respect Justin Bieber. Not begrudgingly respect—no, no, no. Plain, vanilla, true, deep respect. The kid’s good. I can acknowledge this.

There is no doubting that the immense Bieber whinging permeating through the (adult) world of social media is vastly unfounded. Of course, such facts won’t bother those who’ve gleefully ingested the Haterade.

One has to wonder if we’ve just become more adept at smugness for smugness’ sake - because it’s definitely not the music industry that’s changed.

Continue reading "Back off, haters - Justin Bieber’s got talent!" »

Sydney barely averted a potentially violent mob scene last week that would have been caused by 5 foot 3 of trouble, namely the floppy-haired, permanently smirking boy-child chanteur, Justin Bieber.

While last Monday’s pheromone-fuelled fracas may have gotten all the attention, it’s another group of staunch Bieberites who are more a case for concern.

Peer a little closer and the Justin Bieber show isn’t all rainbows and hair gel. Somehow this boy with his ridiculous forward-swept mop of hair has, consciously or not, crossed into largely uncharted, sexually-confused territory in the popular culture maelstrom.

Continue reading "Bieber: underage boy and sex object for older women" »