Over the weekend, photos of teen sensation Justin Bieber emerged which allegedly showed him smoking pot aka marijuana. Since then, disturbing bloody images have appeared on Twitter, to show wounds self-inflicted by Justin Bieber fans. Apparently, “Beliebers” are cutting themselves and posting pictures via Twitter in protest against their favourite star’s alleged weed-smoking.
Worrying picture after worrying picture of self-inflicted bleeding cuts on arms went up with creepy messages such as, “You stop using drugs and we’ll stop cutting #cutforbieber” and “@justinbieber Sorry if I scared you honey, it’s just that I would do anything for you #cutforbieber”. And the hashtag #cutforbieber began to trend on Twitter as dozens of gory images flooded the interwebs:
Here’s the thing though.
The trend might have been started as a joke on forum website 4chan. Oh you know 4chan. One of the top 50 most visited sites on the interwebs that’s filled with everything and anything that’s gross, funny, racist, depressing, or illegal. It’s also filled with interwebs trolls. Someone from 4Chan initially suggested that fans cut themselves in protests and it appears that some of the first few #cutforbieber pictures uploaded onto Twitter were just old pictures taken from self-harm websites.
Also known as, troll.
So to them, it may have seemed like creating an internet prank targeting at the “Belieber phenomenon” was a good idea. But perhaps they have forgotten that these are teenage kids they’re dealing with. Extremely gullible teenage kids. Extremely gullible and vulnerable teenage kids.
In fact, if we’re lucky they’re teenagers. If we’re not, then they could be 10 years old maybe, 11?
Yup. Cutting is not something to joke about because there are people who are genuinely suffering from self-harm. And clearly, these young “Belieber”s will do anything for him. Even if it’s as painful and repulsive as #cutforbieber.
Sigh. Justin’s definitely going to flip when he wakes up and sees this Twitter trend, which has since dominated worldwide trends.
