What Bieber fans know— and you don’t
On a Sunday in Las Vegas, at the MGM Grand casino and no place for children, 11-year-old Annalise Davis is having an outof-body experience.
Ten minutes before I met her she met Justin Bieber.
She’s weeping, taking big gulps of air as she recounts the rendezvous at a pre-show meet-and-greet that could generously be called glancing, lasting at most 15 seconds.
Annalise vibrates, recalling through shrieks and sobs what it was like to lay eyes and eventually other parts of her small body on the doe-eyed crooner who is the biggest pop star on the planet right now.
“I asked him, ‘Can I have my first kiss with you?’ He said ‘I’d love to!’ ”
“He leaned down . . . And I kissed him on the cheek! His left cheek!” Annalise wails. “It was his cheek! But it was my lips!
“It was incredible! He smells so good. His face is perfect! It’s soft! It’s pimple-free!”
For weeks, whenever she thinks of it, she will start to cry. Meeting Justin Bieber was that good.
Bieber’s Believe tour opened in Glendale, Ariz., on an early autumn day a hundred degrees in the shade. At the hockey arena where the NHL’s Phoenix Coyotes play — or as is the case this season, don’t play — another obsession of Canadian origin was taking hold.
The 18-year-old’s world tour in support of his third album is a 125-date effort that lasts well into 2013 and stops tonight at the Rogers Centre in Toronto. The entire tour sold out in an hour, the cavernous old SkyDome in a minute, two nights at storied Madison Square Garden in 30 seconds.
Pop stars have the most precarious careers in show business, and the kid from Stratford, Ont., no longer a boy, not quite a man, faces the most difficult challenge — to bring his audience along and leave no one behind, in the face of haters, doubters, but also the most faithful fans in entertainment.
“There’s never been a star like you,” Oprah Winfrey told Bieber during a recent interview she called the biggest since she sat down with Michael Jackson in 1993. “Lots of people compare your audiences to Michael Jackson’s audiences and the screaming fans to the Beatles fans. But even those tremendous legends who really changed the face of music for our culture did not have a rise to stardom like yours.”
Bieber is the first genuine social media superstar, discovered and nurtured on YouTube long before he entered a recording studio. He has, at the time of writing, 30.8 million Twitter followers (he’s poised to overtake Lady Gaga in the top position as the world’s most followed), 48 million Facebook fans, four million Instagram followers and is tops on YouTube with more than three billion views.
He has sold more than 15 million albums, and Believe is his fourth Billboard No. 1. His concert film, Never Say Never, has made more money than any other in the world. He’s earned more than $110 million in the past two years. Last month he won three American Music Awards, including the night’s biggest prize, Artist of the Year, for the second time in as many years. But he’s got bigger dreams.
“Although being a teen heartthrob is fun, and I love the screams and the girls, thinking I’m hot and stuff, that’s not a bad thing, I want it to be about my music and I want people to really respect my music,” Bieber told Winfrey. “This isn’t a gimmick. This isn’t about people putting someone with nice hair and a good smile on the TV.”
There is some chance it will never get bigger than this. But after following Bieber’s Believe tour — tonight will be my 11th show — you should know it could easily go the other way.
I saw him the first night in Glendale, when he threw up twice but finished the show with the poise of a veteran. I saw him doff his shirt on stage for the first time in Memphis, turning a mass of teenage girls into a sobbing, certifiable mess. I saw him command the stage at Madison Square Garden. I saw more girls cry in nine weeks than I’ve seen in a lifetime. When you delve deep into the fandom, you realize the most important character in a story about Justin Bieber isn’t actually Justin Bieber at all.
ULTIMATELY THE PEOPLE
who decide his fate as a long-term artistic success won’t be the record executives who signed him or the marketing department at Island Def Jam Records, or the folks who vote for the Grammys. The people who will decide if Justin Bieber is here to stay are his fans.
He’s got all five points of a star — the voice, looks, work ethic, a deeply charitable heart and, it seems, an old musical soul.
Only a handful of pop stars have made a meaningful mark on their generation. Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, Elvis Presley, the Beatles. The last artist to make a successful leap to adulthood was Justin Timberlake. Bieber says he’s determined to join them. But is that enough?
Larry LeBlanc, the former Canadian bureau chief of Billboard, has been writing about the music industry for more than four decades. He’s seen artists over the moon and in the twilight, and believes Bieber will be a pop fixture.
“People were calling for this kid to be over two years ago, and he’s going to come out with one of the most successful tours of 2013,” LeBlanc says. “He’s a hotter ticket than the Rolling Stones.”
Before we go further, one thing must be clear. Calling Bieber’s fans fans is blasphemy. It’s too benign a word for this group of more than 30 million. It doesn’t do their passion justice. They are Beliebers.
You may have heard of them a few years back, but they’re no longer a novelty. They are a family, an army, a force for good and for unabashed, undying support for a young pop star. They will not be deterred in their mission, and they do not suffer snark or disdain for their beloved. Do not mess with them. They are loyal and vocal and span all ages. They live all around the world and commune on Twitter.
And on Sept. 29 in Glendale, they are psyched.
“He has the Beatles hair, he has the lovability of Michael Jackson, he has the talent of Elvis Presley,” L.A. Reid, the Harvard-educated music executive and former chairman of Island Def Jam Music Group, told Oprah Winfrey in May 2010. On this afternoon, it feels like all three are in the house.
The box office released a handful of floor seats at 10 this morning, and girls have been gathering since. The arena’s outdoor concourse is packed. A nearby pub sells gallons of lemonade to kids and moms who mingle at the bar with the college football crowd.
DJs from the local pop/dance/hip-hop station play a non-stop rotation of Bieber’s hits and conduct a trivia contest on a small stage. The prize is a chance to meet him before the show.
It’s a tween/teen tailgate party but instead of beer and barbecue it smells like Bieber’s fragrances, Someday and Girlfriend.
There are moms and young daughters, in pigtails and purple tutus, preppy girls in purple polo shirts and skinny jeans, girly-girls with lots of makeup who resemble — or try to — Bieber’s girlfriend, the Disney star Selena Gomez, and older girls, dressed dangerously in torn, bellybaring T-shirts and the shortest of shorts.
Many wear homemade tees (true Beliebers make their own) and have etched their feelings onto arms and legs with Sharpies. I Heart JB. Bieber Fever. Would you be my Boyfriend? Believe Tour. No. 1 Belieber.
On matters of Justin Bieber, the trivia contestants have a kind of hyperthymesia.
What time was Justin Bieber born? 12:56 in the morning! What is Justin’s middle name? Drew! What is Justin’s phobia? Having sticky hands! What is Justin’s favourite colour? Purple! Who is Justin’s celebrity crush? Beyoncé! His favourite number? Six! His favourite soda? Sprite!
“These are the easiest questions ever,” one girl says with a world-weary sigh and eye-roll.
What is Justin’s favourite food? A girl named Gladys guesses Indian. Wrong. It’s spaghetti. Gladys grimaces, hangs her head, and shuffles off the stage.
Where Justin Bieber goes, crying, screaming and sometimes stampeding fans follow. It’s as predictable as the tides. The ones who call themselves Beliebers say they’ve made a pledge to stick with him forever.
The Ferguson sisters, Alyssa, 12, Ashley, 14, and Brittany, 15, and their friend Mariah Hamilton, 14, commandeered the bathroom of the nearby pub to get ready for the concert.
They apply makeup, adjust homemade shirts just so, spritz themselves in Someday. Curling irons, lip gloss and mascara are strewn across the counter. They could be getting ready for a date.
“We’re obsessed,” says Brittany. “My whole room, every single spot is covered with pictures of him. In the car, it’s the only thing we listen to.”
“You know what’s most amazing?” Ashley says. “Tonight, we’re going to be breathing the same air as Justin Bieber.”
Outside, Ally Ennis, 15, and Molly Buckler, 16, have brought their life-size cutout of Justin to keep them company until they can see the real Justin. It’s their first show.
“I can’t even find the words,” Molly says, hyperventilating. “I freak out every time I hear him sing.”
“We talk about him all the time,” Ally says. “When I saw his first videos on YouTube I was like, who is this kid? His voice . . .”
“It’s everything about him. He has swagger,” Molly interrupts.
“When he comes on stage I’m going to cry,” Ally says.
Molly adds: “I’m almost crying right now talking to you.”
TEEN IDOLS
and screaming girls date back to Sinatra in the 1940s. Known as bobby-soxers for the way they dressed, they were the first to scream, and their behaviour was regarded as so ribald and shocking, FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover opened a file on Sinatra.
In his Sinatra biography, Frank: The Voice, James Kaplan wrote that Sinatra’s publicist paid girls who could scream loudest $5 to stay for more than one show. Later, Elvis Presley’s manager Col. Tom Parker adopted the practice, but by that time, girls screaming at boys who sang and thrust their hips on stage for a living was becoming the norm. No one has to pay the Beliebers to scream, but maybe someone should.
“Since before the1950s and the advent of rock and roll, we’ve seen that kind of
insane fandom over and over,” says Susan Fast, a professor in the department of English and cultural studies at McMaster University who specializes in popular music.
“But Justin has turned that fandom into a very smart marketing strategy with a phenomenal use of social media.”
Bieber sent his first tweet on May 11, 2009: Check out my single ONE TIME on my myspace and spread the word for me. Thanks.
It was the first Bieber blast — a tweet encouraging fans to download a song so often it raced up the charts. This strategy put seven songs from My World 2.0 on the Billboard charts simultaneously, setting a record. BACK IN GLENDALE, everyone begins to press against the arena gates as six o’clock nears. A chant rises. “I say Justin, you say BIEBER! Justin, BIEBER! Justin, BIEBER!”
The gates clank open. Ear-splitting screams erupt. I inch toward the doors behind Ally and Molly and cardboard Justin. A security guard holds them up. “He can’t come in here,” he barks. “No signs.”
Inside, moms queue for 16-ounce plastic cups of Bud Light and twist in foam earplugs. Girls race through the concourse SHRIEKING. Some of the men’s rooms have been opened to ladies. At the snack bar I hear three teenage BFFs having a most serious conversation.
“If I saw him right now I’d jump on him. And kiss him,” says one. “All over.”
“I’d just hug him. Unless he asked me to kiss him,” says the second.
“I just want to hold his hand,” the third says softly, clearly the introvert of the group.
Like most conditions, Bieber Fever comes in grades.
By the time the concert begins and Bieber, in black leather and sunglasses, descends on wires wearing wings made of musical instruments, Mariah, Ally, Molly, the Ferguson sisters, the three girls who want to maul him and 13,421 others instantly lose their minds. Everyone. Is. Freaking. Out. Bieber is a preternatural showman, and he dances, jogs and skips easily about the
“He has the Beatles hair, he has the lovability of Michael Jackson, he has the talent of Elvis Presley.” L.A. REID FORMER CHAIRMAN OF ISLAND DEF JAM MUSIC GROUP
three-level stage while singing. His voice is deeper than it was two years ago. His hair, the colour of honey, stays in place. He barely sweats a drop. There are disappearing tricks designed by David Blaine. Chris Kuroda of Phish fame designed the light show.
Just before the halfway mark, all the dancing and a dinner of spaghetti and milk catches up to him. He turns his back to the audience, bends over with hands on knees and throws up. As he runs off stage the crowd carries the song and a murmur hums through the crowd. A minute later he returns, apologizes, and climbs with his guitar into a cherry picker that will move over the audience for two songs he wrote for his girlfriend. There is swooning.
Back on the ground he vomits again and the crowd continues to sing. They have his back. When he returns he’s mopping his pale face with a black towel.
“It’s really hard for me, throwing up in front of a bunch of people, but you never judge me, and I know you’re always there for me,” he says, promising to put on the best show ever.
He doesn’t lose a step or any more of his dinner.
That night, from his tour bus on the way to Las Vegas, Bieber posts a photo of himself on Instagram, lying in bed, shirtless with glassy, tired eyes: Great show. Getting better for tomorrow’s show!!!! Love u, he wrote. IN SIX YEARS, Bieber has gone from finishing second in a Stratford singing to contest to being the most scrutinized teenager in the world — one of the most reviled, but also the most beloved.
Bieber is long on charm, though he’s begun to push back at the haters. When Sharon Osbourne said she doubted his fans would stick with him because he’s “a little guy,” Bieber tweeted: Doubt me . . . I like it and Not worried Sharon.
Accepting an American Music Award last month he said, “This is for all the haters who thought that maybe I was just here for one or two years, but I feel like I’m going to be here for a very long time.” Then he won two more awards.
Most great artists are polarizing, says Lainey Lui, a reporter with eTalk and founding editor of laineygossip.com, who has met Bieber several times.
“The people who hate him have quite clearly never seen Never Say Never,” Lui says.
“My husband is the prototype of a Justin hater and I made him watch it on a plane. Ninety minutes later he’s like, ‘I love this kid.’
“The people who hate are hating what Justin Bieber represents, which is cotton candy and no soul and no substance. As opposed to what, Bon Iver?” Lui laughs, referring to the American indie rocker. “You almost get an image in your mind of who the Justin Bieber hater is and that person probably looks just like Bon Iver and wears plaid shirts and has glasses. And that’s a stereotype too.”
Bieber knows he’s watched by both the lovers and the loathers.
“This is the time where people are either going to be like, he either has it or he doesn’t. I just want people not to hate on me because other people hate on me,” he told Winfrey. “There’s a lot of Justin Bieber haters.
“There’s a lot of people who are waiting for me to mess up because a lot of teen stars do. A lot of people make that mistake and end up getting into drugs or alcohol . . .”
There is a point near the concert’s end when Bieber, backstage doing a costume change, is shown onscreen. He thanks everyone for watching videos, downloading albums and coming to concerts. He launches into “As Long as You Love Me,” which is about a romance but could also be a contract with the fans.
He communicates directly with his fans better than any other celebrity. He follows nearly 123,000 on Twitter and retweets thousands more messages. Even more intimately he shares “selfies” on Instagram — shirtless photos from the gym, sleepy-eyed, tousled hair shots from his bed on the tour bus. Girls can feel they are in his bunk, or on his arm.
“I remember blowing up my mother’s telephone bill trying to call Shaun Cassidy,” says Holly Wickline, president of the Moms 4 Bieber fan club. “Twitter is the equivalent of being able to call your idol on the phone and there’s a chance he’ll answer.
“I’ve never seen a star spend so much time connecting with his fans,” she says. “He goes to great lengths and it’s a huge part of his success.”
Bieber is just doing what comes naturally. He was discovered on YouTube, after his mother posted his singing competition videos for relatives and thousands of kids and his future manager found them.
Annalise Davis was one of those kids, and her bond with Bieber has gone from viral to visceral. The Salt Lake City preteen says meeting him was the best moment of her life and she’ll love him forever.
In keeping with the theme, her mother captures this declaration with her smartphone. Her father chuckles softly. Sociologically, it’s pretty damn interesting.
In the past decade, the way we hear, purchase, share and talk about music has changed. The savviest artists, like Bieber and Lady Gaga, have tapped into that and made it part of their strategy. And while the idea of fandom hasn’t changed, its practice has.
Mark Duffett, a senior lecturer in media and cultural studies at the University of Chester in England whose specialties are fandom and Elvis, says Bieber has rewritten the rules of engagement, which puts him in a unique position to hold on to his fans in ways artists couldn’t have imagined even a decade ago.
“He’s built this idea of social networking into his stardom,” Duffett says. “What he’s constantly doing is referencing his affiliation with this new generation who has come up that way.”
LeBlanc believes Bieber is too big, too talented and too well managed to fail. The fans won’t let him, because he knows he works for them.
“I judge people by asking, ‘Are they good at what they do in their genre?’ Does Justin put on a good show, does he make good records, is he professional, is he good to his fans, can he evolve?
“The answer to every one of those questions is yes.”
The Beliebers concur. They have spoken. And they’ll have the last word.