A few hours ago, a 19 year old millionaire with 44 million Twitter followers posted a photo on Instagram that has the Internet’s collective nerd panties in a twist:
Just breathe. Take 5 seconds, and control your impulse to overreact to this and understand something very simple: you are being trolled.
Here are 5 reasons why:
1. Seriously. Are you that gullible?
You know what you you would find if you look up gullible in the dictionary? To paraphrase “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang,” a picture of you if you fall for this? NO, the definition of the word gullible, which you f@#$ing are.
No way in hell anyone puts Justin Bieber in a tentpole summer franchise movie. Remember the rumors about Justin Timberlake playing Jimmy Olsen in “Superman Returns”? Well, first, they were false, but second, Timberlake had an acting career. Alpha Dog, Southland Tales, his time on SNL and the Mickey Mouse Club? The Social Network? Sure, he’s a singer, but the guy does some acting. Bieber? Not so much.
So why would Zach Snyder cast him, or share a script with him? He wouldn’t.
2. Photoshopped
This is pretty obviously photoshopped. The differences in the lighting, etc, are pretty apparant. Plus you can kind of see either a finger or something else in the lower left of the “script” that isn’t in the foreground– you’d expect it to be with a mirror image. Not so much here.
3. Twitter
Several hours before posting this on Instagram, Bieber tweeted, “Off to do something funny or…die :)”
You be the judge. But he was calling his shot.
4. The script itself
First, I doubt there is a script yet for this film. I’m sure there’s a treatment, an early draft, (remember in Hall H at Comic Con just 2 months ago Zach Snyder said “We’re writing it now”) but nothing complete enought they’d let a potential actor walk away with. Much less a kid with more social media followers than sense.
Second, look at the subtitle, “Based on Batman: The Dark Knight Falls by Frank Miller and Klaus Jansen.”
If you’re going to troll, do it right. “The Dark Knight Falls” was issue 4 (of 4) of the collection commonly collected as “The Dark Knight Returns” in graphic novel format. I don’t think that single issue has enough content to base an entire film around.
Furthermore, Snyder has been clear this isn’t a direct adaptation of “The Dark Knight Returns,” but merely inspired by the dialogue, “ I want you to remember, Clark…in all the years to come…in your most private moments…I want you to remember…my hand…at your throat…I want…you to remember…the one man who beat you.” That’s it.
So no, it’s NOT based on that.
And FINALLY, if it WERE based on that, Bieber is an ass for instagramming that picture with #Robin, because Robin in “The Dark Knight Returns” is a 13 year old GIRL.
So this is all really a pretty easy ruse to see through.
5. Bieber
Hey, I don’t hate Justin Bieber, though I have more reason to than most. As a father of an 8 year old girl, I have heard far more Bieber than I care to. My lil girl loves “Baby” and “Beauty and the Beat” and so on. Truth? It’s not completely toxic for being generic manufactured bubble gum.
But Bieber is no longer the phenom he once was. He hasn’t had a song on the charts in a while, his concert attendance is down, and he is increasingly in the news for ridiculous antics like spitting on his fans, or being charged in paternity cases, or writing stupid things in the guestbook at the Anne Frank museum, or monkey mishandling. . .
He knows he’s on the downward slope of fame. Desperate for the attention he increasingly does not have any more, and (obviously) with nothing better to do on a Friday night than construct an elaborate troll, I almost feel bad for the kid. 19 years old, and he’s peaked. So, you get pranks like this.
Well, congrats, Justin. You got what you wanted: everyone is talking about you. You’re eclipsing Miley Cyrus, which is what you and your publicist probably wanted in anticipation of you having a new album coming out. I’m sure one of the songs will be your version of the following, commemorating your not-so-elaborate troll of nerddom.
So, nerds? Calm down. Don’t get baited by Bieber. Get back to whatever stuff you were normally doing on a Friday night. Me? I’m going to bed, safe in the knowledge that Justin Bieber is NOT in the new Superman/Batman movie.