We might be past flu season, but that didn\u2019t stop hordes of millennials and zoomers from catching a familiar illness this past weekend: Bieber Fever. Longtime fans of Canadian pop star Justin Bieber tuned in to watch (both in person and via YouTube livestream) his highly anticipated headlining performance at Coachella, the popular American music festival that takes place for two weekends in the California desert every year. Coachella headlining performances are massive deals for a musician\u2019s career, earning them millions of dollars<\/a> and a massive boost in cultural cachet, often cementing them as the new, or reigning, titans of the pop pantheon. But for Bieber, the opportunity signified something more. When he released Swag last year\u2014a behemoth of a double album that ended a yearslong break during which the singer almost became more known for his worrisome appearance and uncouth public behavior<\/a> than for his music\u2014to critical appreciation<\/a> (but not quite full-throated acclaim), onlookers who\u2019d been worried about his well-being breathed a sigh of relief. The next thing to do was to take Swag to the stage, a place Bieber hadn\u2019t visited at a large scale since canceling his \u201cJustice\u201d world tour early<\/a> in 2023 because of health issues. This Coachella performance was a huge comeback opportunity for Bieber, whose most recent televised display\u2014a Grammys showing so stripped down he did it in nothing but underwear<\/a>\u2014raised a few eyebrows. Beliebers had high expectations for his Coachella stage, and even Bieber agnostics were curious about what he would do.<\/p>\n But, when Bieber did finally take the stage on Saturday night, it quickly became clear that this would be the most divisive set at the entire festival.<\/p>\n At the height of his teenybopper fame, Bieber was known for involved pop performances<\/a> that included background dancers, a full onstage band, dance breaks, and serenades of individual lucky fans. On the Coachella main stage, though, Bieber opted to stand solo without dancers or a band, while dressed in a relaxed outfit<\/a>\u2014an oversize hoodie from his own budding clothing line, SKYLRK<\/a>, jean shorts, and black Loewe boots\u2014for a decidedly unadorned performance on a minimalist stage design that resembled a giant circular sofa<\/a>. Bieber sounded phenomenal, opting to sing Swag tracks for the first half of his set. In the run-up to his performance, fans had speculated whether Bieber, who has a complicated relationship with the early era of his career, would perform his landmark hits. To the audience\u2019s delight, he did\u2014in a way that no one had been expecting.<\/p>\n Instead of performing his older songs with musical accompaniment, he sang along to his own music videos. He did this in the most low-tech way possible, sitting at a stool and using a MacBook laptop that was patched in to mirror his laptop screen on a larger screen behind him. With a camera facing him as he scrolled, the audience was able to watch him and his screen as he proceeded to pull up his various tracks on YouTube. Thankfully, he had YouTube Premium, so the audience didn\u2019t have to sit through ads as Bieber searched for songs like \u201cBaby,\u201d scrubbed to specific sections of each track, and sang along for a snippet while the recording of his younger self crooned behind him. There was no dancing, no fanfare, no frills.<\/p>\n \n This content requires consent that you have not granted on Slate. To \n Learn more about this at Many likened<\/a> this throwback section of Bieber\u2019s time slot\u2014arguably the most anticipated part of his set\u2014to the internet meme of \u201cgay music video night<\/a>,\u201d a tongue-in-cheek reference to the long-standing phenomenon of queer people having their friends over only to wind up watching a series of (mostly pop) music videos. Whether this was a good thing or not depended on who you asked. Many online critics chastised Bieber not merely for the low-energy performance itself, but for what they saw as a gendered double standard. Bieber\u2019s showcase appeared almost laughably simple when juxtaposed with that of pop princess Sabrina Carpenter, another one of this year\u2019s Coachella headliners, who mounted a full-blown theatrical performance on Saturday that served as a meticulous homage to Old Hollywood, complete with an intricate set, costume changes, choreography, background dancers, and interludes\u2014both live and prerecorded\u2014with popular stars like Susan Sarandon and Will Ferrell<\/a>. For many disgruntled viewers, the question to ask was: If Bieber were a woman<\/a>, would he have gotten away with<\/a> sitting down and staging Bieber\u2019s Greatest Hits on YouTube<\/a> in front of thousands of live viewers, and even more remote spectators?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Read More<\/b>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n SNL Finally Found Its Kash Patel. It Could Only Have Been One Comedian. One of Literature\u2019s Darkest Novels Is Now a Netflix Show. It\u2019s Gripping, Heartbreaking\u2014and Unexpected. But, while it\u2019s undeniable that female performers are held to higher standards in some ways\u2014expected to dance harder, dress better, and do more\u2014these charges of sexism feel ignorant of Bieber\u2019s rise to fame. He was discovered on YouTube and, after signing a deal at 13 with Usher and Scooter Braun\u2019s record label, became a sensation seemingly overnight, all before even going through puberty. His success came at a cost of blood, sweat, and tears, as he was expected to offer multidimensional performances on the stage, and performances of grace off of it, to the mounting detriment of his physical and mental health. (Or, as culture journalist Kyndall Cunningham jokingly and lovingly put it on X<\/a>: He was \u201cdoing pop girl shit\u201d while also abusing substances.) The sky-high expectations placed on Bieber put an intense amount of pressure on a child who was, in hindsight, not ready to handle it. (To be fair, how many kids are?) Bieber already spent much of his childhood giving us the high-tier performances we\u2019ve come to expect of the Coachella stage since Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s famous 2018 \u201cBeychella\u201d performance raised the bar. After so many years spent fighting to reconcile a healthy future with those early years of toil\u2014a war that it has often looked like Bieber is losing\u2014it feels only fair that, nearly two decades into his career, he has earned a moment of pared-back catharsis, where he can reminisce on his own terms instead of performing on ours.<\/p>\n The whole thing also felt perfectly full circle. Bieber wouldn\u2019t have the life he has now if it weren\u2019t for his early start busking on the streets of Stratford, Ontario, and posting music covers to YouTube under the account name Kidrauhl. Most of his career highlights and lowlights, too, have erupted online. Bieber not only singing along to younger videos of himself, but also laughing at viral clips of himself running into glass doors, falling off stages, or creating memes that would go on to inspire today\u2019s cultural lexicon<\/a>, was beyond fitting for an artist shaped by the internet as much as he has been. It makes sense that, in a moment of reassessing his relationship to fame and music, Bieber would want to approach his career the way so many of his fans have: by pulling up YouTube to listen to a boy who, when all is said and done, just loves to make music.<\/span><\/p>\n
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\n <\/div>\nLana Schwartz<\/h4>\n
I Canceled My Spotify Subscription. You Might Laugh at How Obvious My Alternative Is.<\/h3>\n
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