If Justin Bieber Were My Terrible, Golden Son

by Mallory Ortberg · March 16, 2016

If Justin Bieber were my son, I would have a Cobb salad for lunch every day, and a big goblet of iced tea beside it. If the tea were sweetened or flavored in any way, I would send it back. I would never drink tap water.

If Justin Bieber were my son, I would say, “Well, then, maybe I need to speak to your manager” at least once a day.

If Justin Bieber were my son – my terrible, horrible son – I would never allow him to face consequences for his actions. I would bail him out of everything, including actual jail, and shield him from 100% of consequences and self-reflection.

If Justin Bieber were my son, my glorious, my awful son, I’d carry a big green handbag with me wherever I went and be the world’s biggest bitch. I’d wear a lot of bracelets and have long red fingernails and they’d clangle against each other when I walked or gestured. The bracelets, not the fingernails.

If Justin Bieber were my golden-skinned son, I would buy all my perfume from the Duty Free magazine on international flights in business class.

If Justin Bieber were my nightmare son, I would cradle him to sleep every night in the soft crescent of the moon, and I would gun-murder any star that orbited too close to him.

If Justin Bieber were my son, I would be strong enough to beat up Jack White in a bar fight, and Jack White would know it and fear me. I would have incredible upper-body strength and no regrets.

If Justin Bieber were my downy, tousle-hearted son, I would still not know the difference between the words “libel” and “slander.” This would not stop me from using them interchangeably and often.

If Justin Bieber were my son, I would refer to every woman he ever dated as his “friend.” “Where’s your friend, Justin?” “Oh, that’s Justin’s little friend.” “Justin’s in St. Bart’s with that brunette friend until Wednesday.”

If Justin Bieber were my darling son, I’d say things like “Of course you’re right, baby” and “We’re leaving” and “We’re willing to walk over this” and “Well, those people are just plain trash” all the time.

If Justin Bieber were my son, I would always be three or four fashionable diets behind everyone else. I would still be talking about South Beach; the word “paleo” would mean nothing to me.

If Justin Bieber were my son, I would spend a lot of time making sure everyone saw that I had two phones, one for work and one for something else. One would be an iPhone. I don’t know what the other one would be. I would have a different stance for holding each phone; you would know which phone I was on based on how I shifted my weight on each leg.

If Justin Bieber were my great gallumphing boy, I would outrun imposter syndrome with a giant rocking-horse and throw salt on the very concept of self-doubt so that it withered and died at my feet.

If Justin Bieber were my son, I would eat M&Ms individually, carefully selecting each one with my glossy unbreakable fingernails, instead of suctioning my mouth over my open palm and tossing them into the back of my throat like I do now.

If Justin Bieber were my colt-offspring, I would be able to understand and communicate with most bugs, and they would sometimes obey me. Not always. But sometimes.

If Justin Bieber were my son, I would reward his good behavior with sardines, like how they give one to the dolphins at Sea World every time they do a trick.

If Justin Bieber were my son, I would always have half of a re-wrapped burrito from Chipotle in my purse, just in case someone needed it. I would be prepared for any emergency. Nothing would catch me off-guard. My center of gravity would be spread over my entire body, and the devil himself could not knock me over. My eyebrows would be stronger than God.

If Justin Bieber were my sweet precious boy-child and I his deathless mother, we would dress as Venus and Cupid for every single costume party we got invited to, forever. I would not let him bring his phone to those parties. He would love me more than anything in the whole entire world, and I would never die.

[Image via]

Mallory is an Editor of The Toast.

144 Comments

    1. Perdita McLeod +83

      Me reading this article was a back-and-forth between this -exact- face and cackles of surprised and delighted laughter.

      Mallory. You perfect, peculiar genius. NEVER STOP.

    2. sadreceptionist +8

      Sometimes I tip too hard to get the last few out and little broken M&M shells fall into my face. Suction method works best for me now.

  3. ppyajunebug +141

    MALLORY

    If Justin Bieber were my great gallumphing boy, I would outrun imposter syndrome with a giant rocking-horse and throw salt on the very concept of self-doubt so that it withered and died at my feet.

    I want to embroider this on a sampler to hang in my office

  4. dancingbees99 +348

    If I were Justin Bieber, and you were my mother, I would softly sing-whisper, “My mama don’t like you, and she likes everyone” to literally everyone you met.

  6. Sedna (on her phone) +82

    I am getting a serious Mallory Archer vibe from this whole piece. Maybe it’s the Cobb salad?
    Regardless. I am entirely here for it.

    2. eliana23 +19

      she’s a magnificent unicorn princess sometimes, most of the time, and then she pours sparkles out with her words and wows us all

  11. beakbreath +220

    I am confident Mallory could best Jack White in a bar fight right now, just as she is.

    1. MothsAndStars +36

      This is what I came here to say! In fact, I have no doubt that every last one of us could handily take down that wispy SOB.

      1. Beth +16

        I saw him in a Trader Joe’s and he was shockingly tall. I wouldn’t want to fight him, wispy though he may be.

        1. ScarlettHairdye +70

          Tall means he has a high center of gravity and would be easy to topple. Get in low and go for the knee and he would crumple like a collapsing grain silo.

          3. Unreadaethel +28

            My favorite part of this is the point at which it looks like it’s just going to tip over, but then it just keeps crumbling.

      2. eva +1

        Have you seen Jack White after he’s been in a fight vs the other guy who he was fighting? But Mallory could probably take him.

    3. itcamefromjapan +13

      I have been a die-hard White Stripes fan for 13 years, and nothing in this world would make me happier than seeing Mallory take Jack White in a bar fight.

  12. ehmgeebee +153

    This is the opposite of everything, absolutely everything, that I hope for regarding my unborn son and our relationship, and yet… I am a little bit smitten by this unapologetic catastrophe of a woman.

  15. Siana720 +39

    I hope to use every one of these descriptors for my future offspring. Within their earshot.

    (I am not planning to produce offspring, but if I do, the verbiage will be spectacular).

  16. jamampoline +22

    “If Justin Bieber were my nightmare son, I would cradle him to sleep every night in the soft crescent of the moon, and I would gun-murder any star that orbited too close to him.”

    … I am really feeling a genderflipped Lonesome Dove remake right now

    1. lemonack +13

      oh my god can we

      can it still be eight hours long so that you can get good and properly drunk during it

    2. majenglish +3

      And I know it’s not what you meant, but now I’m singing that Garth Brooks song, switching the pronouns as I go.

  17. geekcrackteam +47

    I’m actually coming around on Justin Bieber. He seems to have gone away and had that catastrophic realisation that all 20 year olds have about how much of an asshole they were at 17. I’ve only just come through it and figured out how to be a sort of person, and I didn’t have to go through it all with the worlds media looking at me.

    Plus he’s super adorable with James Corden.

    1. EnchiladaTaco +96

      The age range is older, but I am now good friends with a guy who was the absolute worst until a few years ago. When another friend of ours drunkenly told him “you do know that EnchiladaTaco haaaaaaaaaaated you for a long time” he said “I was awful, and I don’t blame her.” I wish the same quiet awakening to Bieber; he deserves the same chance to evolve the rest of us have.

      1. geekcrackteam +74

        These days I seem to be having an awakening to how much of an asshole I am about every 2 years. I think back on how I was at times and the people who didn’t like me and think yeah fair enough.

        I ignored Justin Bieber for a long time, but since he disappeared for a while I was looking at all of his shenanigans and I thought ‘Most of us would have behaved exactly the same way if we got rich and famous at 14 and also were being hounded by the media constantly.’

        1. bookwormV +26

          This sort of thing makes me really worry I am a massive arsehole and just haven’t noticed, as I tend to think I was okay as a teenager/in my early 20s; I mean, I was fairly depressed and found it hard to make friends, but I stayed at home with books and did my homework and got drunk enough to throw up/have a hangover exactly once. But what if I was terrible and just haven’t realised yet because I’m still terrible?

          1. MaladyDee +39

            nah, take it from someone else who was a pretty quiet teenager most of the time. Some teens are just boring, and their life lessons have more to do with learning to get out more, instead of learning how to be less terrible.

          2. geekcrackteam +8

            I’m going to take a guess and say you weren’t an asshole; I was terrified of anyone ever seeing the real me, so I played a character of someone who was super confident and out-going, and a total loudmouth who would drink heavily to get over all the social anxiety. So I was loud, know it all, and usually drunk. Super annoying.

    2. Alli525 +39

      I really hoped that GQ article that came out recently would show us a much nicer, smarter, Justin 3.0 … alas. His music is catchy but I really don’t see him turning over a new leaf yet – at least not enough for me to be willing to tolerate him :/

      1. geekcrackteam +30

        I mean, he’s still a white dude in his early 20s, he’s definitely not a perfect citizen yet. But he does seem to be showing some self-awareness and conducting his life in a more private way.

        Plus the music is a lot better now and that makes everything easier.

    3. Hoolia +91

      Last week Justin Bieber had a concert here and the traffic was so bad that I couldn’t get to the Women in Structural Engineering meeting I wanted to attend, so I not only still dislike him, I am personally aggrieved by him.

      1. KLmesoftly +38

        If you’re in Seattle, I blew off that same WSE meeting to attend said concert! The traffic was horrific, but he danced around wearing a flannel shirt with a second identical flannel shirt tied around his waist, plus a kilt, so I have no complaints.

        1. inkwashed +11

          and if Hoolia wasn’t in Seattle, the fact that WSE meetings and JB concerts were on the same night in multiple cities is an incredibly amusing coincidence!

      2. ScarlettHairdye +23

        He then apparently ordered 20 pizzas from Big Marios and didn’t tip.

        He made it incredibly difficult to get to my rehearsal that evening so I am also personally aggrieved by him.

      3. Perdita McLeod +4

        YEP my commute was a total shit-show that day and it was 100% the Bieb’s fault. He ruins everything.

  18. sausagedog +73

    I always have and always will eat M&Ms individually, which I think means I need to do some soul searching.

    re: the commandment of insects, I am now thinking that the dear son Justin is just a lot of bugs, per The Mummy? Please discuss.

    1. askelade +87

      I always eat M&Ms in pairs, and I have a complicated algorithm by which I decide which color to pair with which color, given whatever hand of M&Ms I have in front of me.

      2. MothsAndStars +42

        I go by same-color pairs, and then the algorithm kicks in when there are odd numbers.

          1. GinnyQ9 +23

            One time, I was eating M&Ms at work and had them all lined up by color, according to the same-color pairs and the algorithm (which for me is when there’s an odd number, I bite the M&M in half so it’s still all same-colors), and my boss came in. When he saw my arrangement, he asked, “So, how do you eat them?” and I said, “Evenly.”

            At the time, I felt that this was the absolute wrong thing to say if I was trying to convince my boss I *wasn’t* neurotic. Now, it’s good to know that I am not alone in this weirdness.

      3. caatness +13

        That algorithm can perform magic. It has to be handled carefully because the colors… they mean things.

      4. majenglish +2

        I have to put mine into complete color sets, and eat them 6 at a time as such. Once I’ve sorted them in to the total possible number of complete sets, I either give away or throw away the rest.

        People are weird.

        1. askelade +5

          Please henceforth put your remainder M&Ms into a mason jar and mail it first-class to me when it is full. Thank you.

    2. emmysuhweeks +37

      Iiiii dump all mine out, sort them out by colors, eat the extras of each color until I am left with ROY G. BIV (or as close as possible) rainbows of equal amounts and then eat them by rainbow row.

      But then I also have OCD.

      1. perianwen +35

        M&Ms are always for eating in patterns – whatever pattern that happens to be. I make long chains of colours in a repeating pattern, eat the extras, and then eat the chain from the outside in, one from each side.

      3. kallitropos +2

        I do this too! I don’t have OCD, but my mom was a preschool teacher. They’re very into sorting.

    3. Elizabeth +44

      I eat them one by one as they emerge from the bag, but only via an M&M war where I take two M&Ms and squeeze them together until one cracks. The cracked one gets eaten; the intact one lives to fight another round. And so on until there is a “winner.”

      1. emmysuhweeks +38

        This is fantastic and I may borrow it.

        ONE M&M TO RULE THEM ALL AND IN THE DARKNESS BIND THEM.

      3. Jamila +4

        I AM WITH YOU ON THE M&M WAR. Although sometimes I play favorites, and will slightly melt one by holding it in my hand a few seconds before the match. He is going DOWN.

    4. tragicallyludicrous +14

      I only ever eat peanut ones because the peanut-butter ones (my real favorite) aren’t available in this country, but I do eat them individually. I like to crack them open with my back teeth and focus on the chocolate and the peanut one at a time. You can’t do that if you eat them en masse.

      1. Unreadaethel +11

        If you apply a great deal of concentration, you can do this with the regular ones, and remove the candy shells and leave the chocolate to eat as a large mass at the end. It’s incredibly tedious, but also very rewarding.

        1. MothsAndStars +8

          I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO DOES THIS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

          Ohmygod this is the best day ever.

          (you can also sort of peel off half the candy shell with your teeth and then suck out all the filling, leaving you with half an empty candy shell and a deep feeling of satisfaction. Or so I’ve been told)

          1. Unreadaethel +14

            Let me tell you, this has been an emotionally draining day, and coming back to re-read this post and its comments is a soothing balm to my soul, especially the part of my soul that needs to hang out with other weird M&M-algorithm people.

      1. dorianneemmerton +8

        I get why Rape Culture Anthem Thicke should be above Biebs, but, well, #1 is an actual domestic abuser, so…

    2. sarachim +10

      Are these really the worst celebrities in Canada? Because everyone until #5 is somewhere between “eh, their music’s not great but they seem like okay people” to “how did you put Captain Kirk on a list of worst people, you robot?” It seems like there are only four genuinely unpleasant people in all of Canada.

  20. StoatCat +157

    If you were Justin Bieber’s mother, you would be required to have a Kate Gosselin haircut at all times, even while sleeping. When you are angered, your hair will become progressively more pointy and unyielding. You will hide your true thoughts, feelings and being from others with a pair of oversized designer sunglasses so big they will mask everything you project but your mouth and the words you spill from it.

    Your car’s stick-figure family will consist of a single giant stick figure with Justin’s signature lesbian haircut and “#blessed” in stickers.

    You will lease a brand-new car and exchange it for the newest model every year. You will excoriate every passenger for muddying it with their dirty peasant shoes. You will segue from admonishing others over the cost of your lease, to explaining how good a deal it actually is all things considered, to mocking people who buy cars outright. “I mean, the car loses 50% of its resale value as soon as you drive it off! You’d be stupid to make that deal,” you will say, and the person in the car with you will have nothing to say in response. You will turn on the CD player to fill the silence. The song is “Baby.” You turn it up. Both of you have earned this moment.

  21. bucklemeswash +137

    If Justin Bieber were my son, I would rock him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And as I rocked him I would sing,
    I’ll love you forever
    I’ll like you for always
    As long as I’m living
    My baby you’ll be.

      1. bucklemeswash +20

        I tried to link it to the Children’s Stories Made Horrific version of Love You Forever, but I fail at internet and am thus unworthy of the Biebs.

          2. Unreadaethel +2

            It didn’t work when I did it in email, and my a href tag defaulted to just [“” “target _blank”], which was unhelpful, so I had to actually edit it from the post itself.

          3. LibraryLasz +2

            Intensedebate’s markup is the most inconvenient thing.

            Intensedebate in general, really, I do wish the Toast would switch to Disqus or anything else.

  23. tabbylavalamp +95

    If Justin Bieber were my amber-hued gift to the world, I would present him with a deluxe leather-bound gilded dictionary that had the word “No” carefully edited to mean “A word that only applies when said to non-famous people.”

  24. askelade +29

    Guys I’m recuperating from some kind of post-apocalyptic plague-fluenza and that Cobb salad picture is NAUSEOUS.

  25. worseforless +64

    I would love any excuse to have a cobb salad and a goblet of unsweetened, unflavored iced tea every single lunch because at heart, I will always be a child who’s dad went into debt over a country club membership.

    (Also “Where Are U Now” “What Do You Mean” and “Sorry” were three perfect pop songs, I will hear no argument about this.)

  27. autumnlorayne +55

    I am intensely, weirdly grateful for the clarification re: bracelets versus fingernails because that was a very disturbing visual. *shudders deeply*

    1. terb +10

      One of my mother’s few concessions to femininity is ridiculously long fingernails which she taps on teacups, tabletops and each other, a habit I have inherited.

      don’t know where I’m going with this, I was unperturbed by that sentence and don’t meet me maybe?

      1. autumnlorayne +12

        Tapping: fine, i’m not a fan, but I can live with it. Clangle-ing??!? No. Please no. It makes me think of babadook and voice-stealing Buffy villains and that one book where the aliens didn’t realize that human finger-bones have more than just webbing between them and cut a human’s palm between the bones as a punishment for something, and the human was in incredible pain and never really healed, and could feel the air between the bones.

        I may possibly have taken this a bit farther than was warranted by the actual text.

          1. autumnlorayne +11

            It’s called The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell, and it tore me apart and then put me back together again. I completely recommend it.

          2. thebellewitch +5

            THAT BOOK IS SO MESSED UP. Good, I think, but the only parts I remember now are the totally distressing things like the hand-cutting.

          3. vividshivers +8

            oh god yes I read your comment and while I had forgotten the exact details of how that happens, the moment I read that my brain immediately went “SPARROW”

            which maybe does not sound significant to normal people who have brains that remember things from books, but I am not one of those

            I’ve only read it once but it is one of my all time favorite books, would second this recommendation hands down (trust that there is SO MUCH MORE to it than that particular horror)

  28. swordsnspindles +32

    I have literally no knowledge about Justin Bieber and/or his immediate family, except that I harbour vague disdain for him, so I’m assuming this piece is alluding to things that have actually occured around them. It scares me. Mallory, it scares me.

  29. emmysuhweeks +43

    Why is this strangely appealing? Maybe I just want eyebrows stronger than God.

  31. Unreadaethel +59

    If Justin Bieber were my son, I would always have half of a re-wrapped burrito from Chipotle in my purse, just in case someone needed it. I would be prepared for any emergency. Nothing would catch me off-guard. My center of gravity would be spread over my entire body, and the devil himself could not knock me over. My eyebrows would be stronger than God.

    I MISSED YOU SO MUCH, MALLORY

    1. ScarlettHairdye +8

      I feel like this is at least 50% me already except for the Justin Bieber part.

  32. Cake_4_All +26

    My method of eating M&Ms is dictated by current levels of stress.

    Good Day- individually suck chocolate off and eat peanut (because of course we’re talking peanut M&Ms, they’re the only ones worth eating!!)

    Bad Day- Open up that bag, pretend it’s a pig trough and eat my feeling awaaay.

  33. thewhelk +18

    Get me Todd Haynes* to do a treatment once he’s done with that Marlon Brando/ James Dean S&M biopic

    Signed,

    The Preisdent Of Movies

    * actually I,’m pretty sure this movie is just Savage Grace without the Hugh Dancy threesome

        1. femaelstrom +3

          What’s the point of Savage Grace without the Hugh Dancy threesome?*

          *I have never seen Savage Grace but I know everything that I need to know about it.

    2. dorianneemmerton +2

      WHY DID YOU REMINDME OF THIS MOVIE now I have to once again scrub the image of Julianne Moore with boiling hot water in my mind.

  38. sophiakiona +23

    “If Justin Bieber were my darling son, I’d say things like “Of course you’re right, baby” and “We’re leaving” and “We’re willing to walk over this” and “Well, those people are just plain trash” all the time.”

    Of all the “if blank were your blank”s so far, I think this might be the one that most strongly appeals to me and what I want out of life.

    2. jaaaneishere +5

      It really is. I make my brother play it in the car and then we holler at each other about how good it is.

  40. plspassthePinot +51

    CALLING SOMEONES SIG OTHER THEIR “FRIEND” IS THE SHADIEST THING I CAN SOMEHOW NEVER FIND OUT HOW TO RESPOND TO AND IT IS INFURIATING

    (esp as someone w a long time bf, old people do this all the time SURE you all got married when you were 19 but LOOK HOW THAT TURNED OUT)

    1. theshehulkchef +39

      My grandma always referred to my partner as my “best friend” even after we got engaged and it drove me crazy until I heard from a cousin that her logic was “a best friend means a lot more than a fiance, don’t you think?” and then I melted

    2. eva +6

      This also confused the crap out of me as a child. I could never tell which women were dating one another and which were just friends so I sort of assumed all single women over 30 were dating one another.

  42. Holly +11

    “If Justin Bieber were my son, I would be strong enough to beat up Jack White in a bar fight, and Jack White would know it and fear me. I would have incredible upper-body strength and no regrets.”
    THIS IS ALL I HAVE EVER WANTED FROM LIFE.

  43. theshehulkchef +13

    I feel like “If Justin Bieber were my colt-offspring, I would be able to understand and communicate with most bugs, and they would sometimes obey me. Not always. But sometimes.” is the equivalent of that line in a long list of instructions that says “ignore instructions 2-10” after #1 is “read all of this before proceeding” just to see if you were paying attention

  48. majenglish

    I've been mumbling Ritah Skeetah-Biebah to myself for a solid 3 minutes. It's really quite soothing.