The hyper-sexualisation of Justin Bieber: Why we all owe the exploited star an apology

Here’s a difficult truth: We as a society owe Justin Bieber a huge apology for the incessant sexualisation thrust upon him from an early age.

There was once a time when Justin Bieber ruled every top 40, had millions copying his iconic Bieber flick, and was on a poster in every teenage girl’s bedroom. He was just 15 when he hit international levels of fame, and seemed to be the new heartthrob, with some serious expectations to live up to.

However, a lot of the behaviour towards Justin from his early days would now be called out as incredibly inappropriate, especially considering he was a minor at the time. In this essay I will– in this article, we’re going to deep dive into the insane sexualisation of Justin Bieber, and how we as a society did nothing to prevent it.

Justin Bieber’s incredibly young success story

Justin Bieber was one of the first celebrities to be discovered on YouTube, which was still an up-and-coming website at the time. Record executive Scooter Braun, who is most well-known for buying Taylor Swift’s masters, accidentally clicked on one of Justin’s covers on the platform and that’s where it all started for him.

He shot to fame at an insane level after the release of his first EP, which he recorded at just 15. Baby was its hit single, which every single person alive could sing along to – the song has over 3.2 billion views on YouTube today. He was one of the most famous people on the planet at 16 years old.

Sexualisation at his own concerts

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Justin has been known throughout his entire stage career to get shirtless and wear low hanging trousers while performing. He was on stage as early as 2009 as the opening act for many shows on Taylor Swift’s Fearless Tour, which would have made him 15-16. He was 19 in the video above, but there’s footage (that I did not feel necessary or appropriate to plug in this article) of him as young as 16 prancing around the stage shirtless, and the crowd went absolutely crazy for it. Nobody saw a problem with this??

Not only is it inappropriate, it’s also super dangerous. Justin has had stage crashers for as long as he’s been performing, and without a shirt on, he’s in a really vulnerable position.

Leaning into the bad boy vibes

I will admit, this video is pretty funny. Justin is incredibly cheeky, and tells the interviewer “I like that laugh,” followed by a mimic of it. However, it’s obvious his management team wanted him to appeal to the ladies by acting like a total bad boy flirt. He looks so young in this video with his old Bieber flick hairstyle that he sported in his YouTube days, and it just feels weird, not endearing. In this video, he was 16 and the interviewer was double his age (32) at the time.

This BIZARRE video of him kissing a mannequin head on Jimmy Fallon

This part of his fame honestly makes me so uncomfortable. Who on his team thought this was a good idea? This whole skit is just establishing a young minor as a sex symbol in the public eye. Imagine how weirded out you’d be if someone asked you to make out with a lifeless mannequin head on national television. Most people look back on this as being a funny moment, but I can’t even imagine how awkward he must’ve felt being asked to do that.

Jenny McCarthy, James Corden and Katy Perry are not innocent

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♬ Backsound Seram Mengerikan – Ewine Goelt

Justin looked incredibly uncomfortable at the 2012 American Music Awards. He had just turned 18 that year, and was onstage accepting an award when Jenny McCarthy appears to grab him from behind and kiss him in front of the entire audience and the cameras.

Then, Katy Perry is literally caught on camera grabbing a young Justin Bieber’s butt. Both times, Justin looks so awkward and doesn’t know how to react. I really feel for him here.

The dumpster fire that was The Ellen Degeneres Show

Everybody knows what happened on The Ellen Show and why it was cancelled, and Ellen has a reputation of making her guests feel super uncomfortable (Taylor Swift and Dakota Johnson I love you both). But, in what might be the worst thing I’ve seen on Ellen, she publicly exhibits paparazzi pictures of a naked Justin Bieber that he didn’t consent to being taken. While the images are censored, is one of the weirdest invasions of his privacy I’ve ever seen. While The Ellen Show is cancelled, the video is still up on YouTube with over 11 million views.

Are times finally changing?

Like many female pop stars before him, Justin Bieber has been at the centre of so much sexualisation and unwanted attention. So many people have called out the behaviour towards Britney Spears, Mila Kunis and Lindsay Lohan to name a few, but when it comes to teenage boys, the media seems to brush over it.

However, times do seem to be changing. A few years ago, a level of sexualisation was beginning to emerge around the Stranger Things cast, and people online were quick to shut it down. One of the key moments that set people off was when American model Ali Michael reposted a selfie of Finn Wolfhard on her story, with the caption: “Not to be weird but hit me up in four years.”

via Instagram

Stranger Things actor Finn Wolfhard was just 14 at the time, and she quickly issued an apology on her story after getting crazy backlash, telling her followers that it was “a joke.” Really funny babes.

It seems like the world is moving in a better direction now, and people feel comfortable recognising and calling this gross behaviour out. We can only hope that the sexualisation of Justin Bieber was the last of its kind, and that as we move into more socially aware times, this treatment of young boys in the spotlight will be gone for good.

Related articles recommended by this author:

• So, is Justin Bieber’s viral song ‘Lost Myself at a Diddy Party’ actually real or not?

• Inside the complex relationship between Justin Bieber and his former mentor P Diddy

• Baby to Boyfriend: Justin Bieber’s all time biggest bops, ranked