stfueverything:

This is not a story about Justin Bieber. It may sound like it, but it’s not, belieb – I mean, believe – me.

It’s a story about celebrity narcissism versus the awareness and sensitivity of history.

Here’s the crux: young, fluffy Mr. Bieber took his retinue of friends and bodyguards to visit the house of young Holocaust victim Anne Frank, in Amsterdam, Netherlands. After spending an hour or so inside, he made his way to the exit but stopped in the foyer before leaving to sign the museum guestbook. This was his memorable entry:

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

Now, here’s where we’ve got to decide what kind of story this is. Not earth-shattering, surely. Maybe even much ado about nothing (I’m sure I’ll hear from some commenters on that). Easily dismissed as the stupidity of youth, certainly. But given the gravity of where he’d just been, mixed with the profound vacuity of his comment, my knee-jerk response to this privileged, insulated, narcissistic pop star is this:

“Yes, Justin. Hopefully she would’ve have been a “belieber.” Had she not been captured by Nazis and dragged to a concentration camp with her family where she died at 16-years-old, maybe she would have been swooning to “Baby” or rocking out to that other ditty you did with Usher. Had she not been growing up Jewish at a time and place in history when Jews were so reviled and hated an entire government rose up to facilitate their demise, she wouldn’t have had to hide in an attic for two years in terror of the discovery that ultimately came; maybe she would’ve made it to a concert or packed her iPod with your discography. But, to be honest, Anne did say once, ‘We listen to the German station only for good music’ and mentioned in one diary passage how much she had liked the Mozart they heard on a radio broadcast… given that, it’s likely she would have been more into Adele or someone with a bit more depth, Justin. No diss, just sayin’.”

But all cringe-worthy satire aside, the reason this lightweight, seemingly insignificant story is a story is because it so painfully illustrates the disconnect between past and present culture. The distance between what history wrought and how our younger generations understand and interpret it. So far from the realities of the Holocaust, it appears the horrors that overwhelmed its victims and those who learned of them in the decades that followed have eluded contemporary generations, who seem to think a sacred place of historical importance is equivalent to the stardom of a young pop singer.

Does this make Bieber a villain? No. It makes him an insensitive, self-absorbed, undereducated pop celebrity who missed out on some understanding of what happened in the world before his arrival. At least enough to grasp the gravity of the place he’d just visited and the young girl who lived there and died at an age when girls of this era do appreciate his brand of pop.

Young Anne Frank; image @AnneFrank.org

So as bigger, more monumental, stories break the news, we’ll end this lesser but poignant one with this: Someone will likely illuminate Bieber after his faux pas; they’ll bring him up-to-speed on Holocaust awareness and sensitivity. But a suggestion to his handlers… or the handlers of any younger person taking the time to visit a place like the Anne Frank Museum: Don’t just drop in as if this were the Coca Cola Museum. It’s not a novelty or a fun publicity stop on a larger tour. It’s a place of great meaning to many. Educate them. Imbue them with an understanding of why they’re there and why this house exists to be visited in the first place. And why it’s important, if you’re going to leave something in the guestbook, to be sensitive and respectful.

But, by all accounts, Anne was a great girl, Justin; you at least got that right.