It hasn’t even been a week since we declared that “Justin Bieber’s Penis Is the Endpoint of All Journalism” and the international media had to sink to another, albeit different, low when it comes to the pop star. Amid reports that he was moving to a posh Atlanta neighborhood, news outlets from around the world picked up on a story about local residents organizing a protest to keep the Biebs out of their area.
It had all the makings of a great story: Upstanding citizens banding together to keep a controversial interloper from invading their territory and potentially influencing their impressionable children. Take, for example, this TMZ story, which says, “There’s a big protest scheduled for Monday morning thrown by residents who fear their kids will get mowed down by the pot-smoking, sizzurp-slurping speed demon.” There’s just one issue with the whole thing: It was a hoax, set up by a local radio show.
Rock 100.5’s the Regular Guys started it all with a Facebook page for the bogus “Buckhead Neighborhood Coalition” and an event page for the protest that included the too-good-to-be-true plea, “Please do not allow a child to ruin what we have worked so hard to obtain.” From there, TMZ, CNN, the BBC, and many more outlets covered the story and, according to one of the Regular Guys, only Creative Loafing smelled something fishy.
Aside from the media being made to look like idiots, the prank rightfully allowed Bieber to play victim. “Sad how media doesnt believe in fact checking anymore. report real things not fake things. wow,” he tweeted, and then added, “by the way…never even looked at that house. smh.”
Despite the media scrutiny, his latest legal troubles, the idiotic petition asking for his deportation from the U.S., and all the jokes made about the U.S. having to keep him now that Canada won the gold medals in men’s and women’s hockey, the kid is staying positive, thanks in part to the fact that he’ll turn 20 on Saturday. “Bday week. wish the world would learn to believe in the goodness in people and be kind to one another. together we can change the world :)”
U mad?
