Hoax is not just on Bieber fans
Media, public was just as taken in by Twitter- based self- mutilation prank
On the second day of 2013, Justin Bieber was in a Newport Beach hotel room with several friends, his security detail and at least one young lady. Also present that day was Bieber’s rap protégé Lil Twist and his brother, both of whom spent some time rolling “blunt” joints — a hollowed- out cigar filled with marijuana, for those interested in something harder than Corona.
As Bieber — the 18- year- old son of God- fearing parents from Stratford, Ont. — held one such joint between his index and middle fingers, a fellow partygoer began snapping pictures.
Five days later, the first gruesome photo of slit arms appeared on Twitter. Then another. And then another. Under the hashtag # CuttingforBieber, hundreds of photos of what appeared to be Justin Bieber fans cutting themselves began appearing online. The photos were accompanied by demands the pop singer quit smoking marijuana or his devoted fan base — selfdescribed “Beliebers” — would continue to cut themselves.
Soon, media outlets began reporting the disturbing trend while mortified onlookers condemned the fans as morally reprehensible. Comment sections filled with disbelief, but also acceptance at the insanity of the fans.
By the end of the day, #CuttingForBieber was the top trending hashtag in the U. S.
There was only one issue: It was all a hoax.
Dreamed up by members of online message board 4chan’s “/ b/” board — who, less than a year earlier, had convinced Bieber fans to shave their heads by propagating the rumour that the singer had cancer — # CuttingforBieber was created as a prank in order to “troll” real fans into cutting themselves.
While this, in itself, is unsettling, far more disturbing is the media’s and, by extension, the general public’s willingness to believe it.
As a member of 4chan, who would not allow his name to be published, put it in an interview, # CuttingforBieber’s instigators “did it for the lulz ( laughs).” They were not wishing harm on Bieber’s fan base as much as they were trying to get a perverse joy out of laughing at something they shouldn’t.
Sites such as Complex and Buzzfeed were quick to jump on the “story,” highlighting both the graphic images and the disgusted responses from celebrities and that first bout of publicity led to more disgusted responses, more outrage and more coverage.
This cycle of breaking news and self-reinforcement is normal in the world of celebrity journalism. However, the #CuttingforBieber reaction allowed for two relatively new evolutions to the old formula.
First: The degree of violence in the images, and the sheer volume of images, were not only tolerated by the consuming public, but were also propagated through their personal social media accounts.
Second: The proof of the story’s falsified root was always available on the 4chan public pages for anyone with an active interest in finding it.
Together, these two factors show a disturbing trend in the public’s willingness to accept and encourage a disturbing degree of violence, and the media’s predisposition to revel it in.
Dr. David Giles, author of Psychology of the Media and Reader in Media Psychology at the University of Winchester, says it comes down to how much pleasure we take in the suffering of others, especially the suffering of devotees to what we consider to be a “low- grade” icon.
Giles argues that the media had a predisposition to want to believe that so- called Beliebers were cutting themselves because “it would pathologize fans.”
“There is still a tendency in parts of the media to see fandom as pathological, especially if the object of their fandom is culturally quite low grade — and Bieber would certainly fit that category,” Giles explained via email. “If Bieber fans can be constructed as fanatical and mentally deranged, this would satisfactorily explain their irrational fandom in the media’s eyes.”
“The best explanation for pathologizing fandom in this way is that the media sometimes have a hard time accounting for why people would devote time and energy ( and indeed passion) in following low- grade culture,” Giles added. “