Stop hating on Justin Bieber

So here's to dispelling all the things that people say to discredit him, namely that he's a little boy with no talent who was probably born into fame and doesn't write any of his own music.

If I'm being honest I can't really be arsed writing this right now because it's nearly 4 in the morning and I've been drinking on my own because I'm a lot like Bridget Jones these days but I know that if I don't do this now then I never will so here goes, hopefully it will shut you all up.

This is mainly directed at all you boys with your guitars and your rock bands that like to harp on about how boys like Justin Bieber are "ruining music." Well, no they're not. The worst part is that the majority of you have no idea what you're talking about when you rip into artists (yes, I used that word) like Justin Bieber and that is what really annoys me. Despite how much success he's had, unless you're a 14 year old girl, Justin Bieber is pretty much considered a laughing stock and it isn't fair because he really doesn't live up to the picture that people are painting him as. I'm hoping that by merely telling you a little bit about Mr Bieber, I can silence a lot of you. It's easy enough to find out all of this stuff on Wikipedia but the majority of people these days would rather form an opinion about someone before they make the time to read up on them so I did my research on him for you.

Okay.

So Justin Bieber taught himself to play the piano, drums, guitar and trumpet. Now how many of you aspiring musicians can do all of that? How many of the people that sit and wax lyrical about how talentless this boy is can even play two of the above instruments? No, I thought not. Not many people in this world can honestly say that they can play four instruments and I for one think that anybody that can deserves some recognition. Let's not forget that the guy is only 18 years old. I'm 20 and I can't even play one instrument! In fact, nothing that I can do equals this, and I'm not trying to be modest here. I've always got straight A's, my blog gets hundreds of views a day and my writing has been published online, but that doesn't even come close to being able to play four instruments! Hell, if I have the right to be proud of my small time achievements then Justin Bieber has the right to be bloody proud of himself for this.

Also, contrary to popular belief, he was not just born into fame and fortune. He was actually born to a seventeen year old single mother, and made a name for himself entering competitions and playing small venues around his town which were uploaded onto YouTube, the site that eventually led to his being discovered. It didn't take long for a marketing executive to find him and the guy liked what he saw so much that he tracked Bieber down and made him a star. How many of you can say that at age thirteen and fourteen your life was devoted to furthering your career, truthfully? Not many people have the drive to do this. Most of us were too busy worrying about making the knots on our ties the right size and whether the hottest boy in school would ever notice us.

Not only this but Bieber's debut album went platinum. He was fifteen years old. How is this not a fantastic achievement? It's all well and good to sit and compare him to bygone music "greats" but is it really fair to expect a fifteen year old boy to live up to some of the biggest music legends of all time? If he's still singing songs like "Baby" when he's thirty then I'll eat my words but for someone who is essentially a child co-writing and releasing decent pop songs I'd say some of them aren't half bad.

Because that's my next point. Bieber co-wrote 3 out of the 8 songs on his EP and all of the songs on his debut album. Again, we must remember that the guy was a child at the time. For a fifteen year old, to be co-writing your own songs, songs that the public like,  is a big deal. There are plenty of older stars out there releasing songs that aren't half as well-written as the stuff that Bieber was churning out when he was practically still in nappies. I'm not saying he's as eloquent as Shakespeare but let's cut the guy some slack here. When you compare his words to that of Flo Rida, who says that "Shawty was hot like a toaster", suddenly stuff like "I just can't sleep tonight, knowing that things aren't right. It's in the papers, it's on the TV, it's everywhere that I go, children are crying, soldiers are dying, some people don't have a home" SEEMS A LOT BETTER. 

He's also a Christian and advocates being thankful to God for your success and only sleeping with "people you love" which is surely a positive message to be sending out? Maybe I'm a prude but I'd rather my child look up to people like that rather than women who sing about BDSM and insist on having very public relationships with violent men. I actually think that Bieber's moral values are a really good thing. Little girls are more likely to take their values from a good looking pop star than some crusty old teacher at school so I think it can only be a good thing if Justin isn't singing about cars and bitches and getting carted off to rehab every five minutes. Sorry.

Oh, and something else? He's even charitable! Yup, despite being a big bad Christian, Bieber is in no way homophobic, and had actually contributed to the It Gets Better campaign which aims to prevent suicide within the LGBT community. He also helped the Children's Miracle Network hospitals by performing at benefit concerts and donating proceeds from his albums to them, as well as the Pencils of Promise charity which helps build schools in the developing world and train young leaders. On Valentine's Day 2011, Bieber surprised six year old fan and brain cancer sufferer Avalanna Routh by flying her to New York, where he spent the day playing board games and eating cupcakes with her. Now personally, I think that these acts of kindness are beautiful no matter who has carried them out, but considering again that he was only sixteen/seventeen when he did this stuff, who are we to fault him?

I honestly can't understand why, knowing the above information, anybody would criticise Justin Bieber. Sure, his music isn't everybody's thing but you don't have to listen to it. He's not doing anybody any harm. He's got to where he is today through faith and hard work, he keeps his fans happy and he donates to charity. Is he really so bad?

I guess if I was an average looking guy going nowhere in life I'd be jealous too.