Another weekend of Justin Bieber being let out of his room, another worldwide swirl of media stories. What's he done this time? Pulled an historic symbol of the Holocaust into his Bieber bubble, that's what.
The Bieb, currently on tour around Europe, stopped off on Saturday at the Anne Frank museum in Amsterdam, and all was going well until someone put a pen in his hand, and presumably said 'write something.' Now, while there is no doubt of Bieber's talents with a microphone and a pair of trainers, his way with prose has so far extended to repeating the word 'baby' thrice and adding an 'oooh' to very lucrative effect, so perhaps this this was a little ambitious.
Taxed with summing up history in his hand, Bieber kept it simple - "Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a Belieber."
No sooner had this bon mot been posted on the museum's Facebook page, than people were Up. In. Arms. According to the Twitterati, he's been variously "self-serving", "up himself", "lacking in respect" and of course, to many, his behaviour is "unbeliebable" (so it's okay for them to make a joke out of it, then? Interesting...)
But it strikes me that he's really committed the cardinal teenage crime of making everything about him. And if most adolescents, have since the dawn of time, had trouble making sense of any subject beyond their basic needs of hair gel, free alcohol and attracting people of the opposite sex, imagine how much harder it must be for Le Bieber, trapped within the bubble of his own success and adulation.
This is a boy-man who replays his own turn on Saturday Night Live over and over again, much to the joy of his people trapped on the tour bus. Did we really expect words of great unprecedented sagacity and sober reflection regarding the trials of Anne Frank and her family? Plus, it no doubt needed to fit into 140 characters, otherwise what was the point?
Of course, this may prove a storm in another Bieb-cup, or it may prove to be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Bieber's not been quiet of late - when he's not been scrapping with paparazzi outside his London hotel, shimmying to parties wearing inexplicable masks or infuriating his neighbours with his anti-social Ferrari wheelspins, he's been causing monkey business with Mally, his much-loved but unfortunately un-quarantined pet primate, currently holed up in Munich while Bieber fails to pay the fine and sort out a visa.
Of course, what the 19-year-old Bieber really needs to do is pick up his ball and head home, sit in the bath, help serve up the Sunday lunch and then get sent to clean up the garage. But there are an enormous amount of people, both financially in the case of his entourage, and emotionally in the case of his Army of Beliebers (not to mention the press, who can always rely on him on a slow news day), depending on him to do the exact opposite, so I think we can expect this one to run and run.
This isn't the first time a pop star has seemingly rocked the pillars of the establishment. Remember the fall-out when Mr Lennon was taken out of context and seemingly billing the Beatles above Jesus? Well, Mr Bieber, you sir, are no John Lennon, but you have even more people hanging on every word, so perhaps it's time to let the music do the talking.
Is Bieber the Lennon of his generation? No. Is he a self-obsessed teenager? Most probably. Is he being badly managed? Seemingly. Is he a Holocaust denyer? Doubt he knows they exist. Is it time for Bieber to do something positive and media-friendly? Most definitely, failing which, staying in and shutting up would be a start.
In the meantime, more teenagers today are asking who Anne Frank was than this time last week and accidentally getting a dessert-spoonful of history in the process. Something tells me her memory will survive the ponderings of this year's popster.
And, thinking about it, it could have been so much worse. At least we were spared that catch-all, one-word description of his tour around a house where a young girl came to symbolise the suffering in the face of Nazi atrocity. She may have been "truly inspiring" (surely you're either inspiring or you're not!), but she wasn't "awesome" and, for that in this day and age, we can at least be thankful.
