I have never been a huge Justin Bieber fan. The little guy emerged as a pop sensation when I was just blossoming out of my teenybopper years. He was just a little too young for my taste, and I never understood the appeal of his hair cut and signature high-pitch tunes. Granted, maybe if I was a little younger I would have hopped on the Bieber train. But alas, this was just not the case. But for little girls everywhere, Justin Bieber shines as a bright beacon of delicious teen goodness. Indeed, the singer has garnered a cult following of young girls who have grown up with his tunes a constant presence on their playlists. I guess I could see the appeal. He sings, He dances. He wears super tight skinny jeans and kind of makes them work. Kind of. His fans have amassed themselves online, through different social media outlets such as Facebook, Instagram and his pièce de résistance Twitter.

Beiber’s Twitter followers are truly something to behold. They stand by their man like no woman could. And with the majority of his fans being young female girls, things can get a little catty. The “Belibers”, as they like to call themselves, find that Justin can do no wrong in their eyes. They have even gone as far as to verbally attack any of his opposers, or potential love interests. (See Selena Gomez, Olivia Wilde, Drake Bell, Patrick Carney and a slew of others.) But it has recently emerged that almost half of Beiber’s fan base are actually not real Twitter users. According to Socialbakers.com, a social analytics company who specializes in finding out how many of your followers are actually real users, about 43% of Justin’s fan are fake or empty accounts. This goes to show that social media alone cannot be used to measure popularity.

But maybe it is the content of Bieber’s tweets, or general behavoir, that has people up in arms. Last week, Bieber travelled to visit the Anne Frank House, and left a comment in the guestboook that left many wondering whether or not Bieber was living on this planet that we call Earth. He stated,

“Truly inspiring to be able to come here.  Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber.”

Whoa. Not only did the comment come off as completely self-absorbed and egotistical, but Twitter users were up in arms about the stars apparent callousness.  Not only that, but many other celebrities mocked the 19 year old’s comment.

Celebrities lash out at Beiber’s insensitivity

Lucky for him, the Anne Frank House didn’t take the remark as seriosuly as the rest of the web. Bieber’s PR people must have their hands full. Unfortunately for them, instead of issuing the standard apology that most celebrities give after a misunderstanding, he went on to post shirtless pictures with captions that seemingly mocked the media. Oh, Justin. I know you are only a youngster and new to this whole fame thing, but the media is your friend And you need to use them to your advantage. When you have them on your side you are unstoppable. If I was the Biebez PR team, I would lasso in that little buck and try and get him under some stricter regins. It won’t be long before he is making the transition from teenage hearthrob to “former child star”. And we all know that it doesn’t work for everyone.

So do us all a favor: put your shirt back on and work on your tunes. You can’t be a angsty teen star forever.

The Social Butterfly