Ritualistic, Stylized Human Sacrifice - With Cooperation From the Victim...

One of the more scalding episodes of South Park from a while back had society gaining power and sustenance off of the melt-down of Britney Spears.  At one point in time, one of the characters explains how societies have always had ritual sacrifices to appease the masses, and that ours was no different.  He went on to explain that we required a sacrifice of a young star on occasion to satiate our lust for sacrifice, and that Britney was just the most recent target. 

It seems to me that the most recent sacrifice has stepped up to fill the role.  Justin Bieber is doing everything that he can to firmly install himself into the role of “human sacrifice du jour.” He’s done this himself, by being a total prick that spits on his fans, drives drunk, and street races in what he assumes is a consequence free environment. It’s almost like he wants people to hate him (if that is, indeed, his goal, he’s doing a bang-up job).   

Given his money and fame, it may very well be a consequence free environment, at least in his estimation, and at least in the criminal justice aspect of it, but it is only consequence-free in that aspect, alone.  There are more consequences to these things than just legal trouble.  I can already see the talking heads lining up, slavering in an almost Pavlovian manner, ready for their next sacrifice.  You can already see the self-righteousness, and the gloating, gleeful nature in which they are reporting his downfall.

I don’t have a lot of love for Justin Bieber, so don’t get me wrong.  I think he is a messed up soup sandwich of a person, who spits on the very people that caused him to become famous, who uses illicit drugs and lives a careless life doing careless things like the child he is.  I also think the music that he “creates” is pure shit. 

However, I’m not willing to see him sacrificed like Britney and so many others have been.  I can only hope that he realizes that in this banquet of life that he he’s been living, gorging himself on the fame and fortune that his talent has afforded him, that he may very well be the main course.  I can only hope that someone in his life, who loves him, can get through to him that what he is doing is not consequence free, and that it will catch up with him in the end. 

It is inevitable as the changing seasons, however, that he won’t change, and that it will, indeed, catch up with him at some time, and the slavering, Pavlovian media will be there to make sure none of us miss a bit of it.