On balance, Justin Bieber is a worse influence on teenagers than Miley Cyrus

I, being the lowest ranked amongst those who signed up, will be the first challenge for our brave challenger and I intend to do my very best to stop him in his tracks right here. So, about this topic… When my opponent suggested this topic, my first thought was “oh, well Miley has been in some trouble. It should be fairly easy to argue she’s worse than Bieber as a role model” but upon researching, I was surprised at the lack of tangible evidence there was against her. So, I’ve changed my approach completely and will instead focus on two points, so without further ado… The arguments. ARGUMENTS SOMETHING TO ASPIRE TO Justin Beiber (rags to riches) versus Miley Cyrus (achy breaky millionaire) My first argument is that Justin Beiber is, while not my personal cup of tea music-wise, actually quite talented. He is self-taught with several instruments (piano, drums, guitar, trumpet) [VIDEO 1 . http://www.youtube.com...]. Furthermore, he is an example of someone who grew up in a low-income home and went on to become extremely rich and famous. He gained this talent through hard work and struggle (and luck, of course. ) See this quote from Beiber: “I grew up below the poverty line; I didn't have as much as other people did. I think it made me stronger as a person, it built my character. Now I have a 4.0 grade point average and I want to go to college, and just become a better person. ” Cyrus on the other hand grew up with a silver spoon in her mouth. While it’s true she had to work to get the role in Hannah Montana, she had the resources available to her to make that oh so much easier. Evidence of this is the fact all five of Cyrus’s siblings are at the very least in the public eye with Noah Cyrus an established actor and Trace Cyrus an established musician. With a vast majority of the population of the western world being economically closer to Bieber’s pre-fame days than Cyrus’s and the obvious hard-work he put into developing musical skills despite the tribulations that come with being part of a low-income family, Bieber is a better influence than Cyrus. THE CAREER TRANSITION Bieber, still singing about kissing versus Hannah Montana, whose dancing with molly. My next argument is quite abstract and probably completely fallacious somehow, but I must put it forward anyway. Let’s look at the career of Bieber briefly; this young talented, good-looking kid gets discovered, blows up and becomes one of the most loved/hated people in the whole world (mostly by/due to obnoxious, ignorant fans). Now he is, by all predictions, on the path to meltdown. (And I’ll speak more of this in my rebuttals). Music wise however, he hasn’t progressed very much. I’m painfully listening to ‘Heartbreaker’, his leaked new single (see my dedication to researching this topic. ) It’s bloody awful, but it’s pretty tame lyric wise. It’s the same sort of song he has been doing since ‘Baby. ’ Young person love/lust pop songs. Now, let’s look at the career transition of Miley Cyrus and why, I believe, her continued transition into more adult behaviour and lyrics far exceed Justin Bieber in terms of being a bad influence. Her major break and most recognised contribution to pop culture is obviously Hannah Montana. This is a show whose demographic is clearly young girls, I’m guessing, between 8 and 14. She filmed nearly 100 episodes of the show alone, plus movies and albums and merchandise out the wazoo. She made Disney a LOT of money. The show ended in 2011 and Cyrus has moved on to the aforementioned more mature projects. However, the show is still being played by Disney. Children aged 8 to 14 are still watching it. Then, they’re going on their iPads and they’re watching this [VIDEO 2 . http://www.youtube.com...]. It’s a bit weird and not PARTICULARLY offensive (unless you’re offended by terrible music like I am) but it is a party anthem and it has strong undertones of sex, drugs and alcohol (even though it’s blatantly obvious that she would not repeatedly use the slang term for ecstasy ‘Molly’ in the hook of her song. ) Also, is it just me or does she look extremely hot in that white tight outfit? Rawr. Anyway, I’ll conclude this point. Justin Bieber is just doing the same thing he has always done music wise. His music is non-offensive lyrically, with very tame themes about love, commitment and heartbreak. Miley Cyrus has the means of building a huge, huge fanbase of tween girls and is now moving onto more adult content in her music. In this way Miley Cyrus is a worse influence than Justin Bieber. REBUTTALS Justin’s Grand Theft Auto style crime spree SPEEDING: I’ll drop this one. Bieber fans might just be stupid enough to see him getting caught speeding in his car and copy him. FIGHTING: I contest this, on the basis that Bieber fans are almost certainly not being harassed to the point of madness by hordes of jerk paparazzi and if they were and they did take a leaf out of his book and lash out, I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. DRUGS: Oh lighten up. So Bieber may have done some drugs. The fact is, we have no idea what sort of level of drug use he is into. He might smoke a bit of pot or he might be a full-blown meth addict. His ‘people’ are keeping it almost completely under wraps. He has nothing on Miley [. http://www.dailymail.co.uk...]. I personally love smoking a bit of pot, but this article demonstrates once again how dangerous it is that Miley Cyrus has a huge tween fan base. To summarise it (in case you don’t want to read) Miley thinks marijuana is better than alcohol and she wears a bag with marijuana leaves on it. That’s almost openly advocating smoking weed. Justin ‘the groper’ Bieber? This almost certainly is an isolated incident. Try as I might I cannot find a single other example of Bieber groping anyone. Whether it’s intentional or simply a badly timed photo, remains to be seen. Justin’s reputation? This is another tenuous point. Certainly if you compound a few isolated incidents and massively exaggerate their frequency as your evidence does, you might be able to paint Bieber as a… let me find this quote… “drug using, aggressive driving, street fighting thug” (I laughed really hard reading that) but we all know this is far from the truth. Bieber might be on the path to melt down but punching a paparazzi jerk, speeding (in Dubai was it? ) and maybe smoking some pot hardly make him Ozzy Osbourne. Doing the research for this debate has been extremely painful, as the sources I’ve had to sift through are nothing short of evil. These poor kids get used like cheap whores to make headlines. Every single person who works at TMZ should be lined up and given 10 lashes. I assert that you have repeatedly committed a fallacy with your portrayal of Bieber, that your selective use of incidents is what is often referred to as “Misleading Vividness”. You need only look here: . http://www.looktothestars.org... to see that Bieber does a lot of good things including, and I quote, “On Valentine’s Day, 2011, Justin surprised six-year-old fan and brain cancer sufferer Avalanna Routh by flying her to New York, where he spent the afternoon playing board games and eating cupcakes with her. ” That warms the cockles of my heart. CONCLUSIONI really don't think either of these kids are particularly bad influences having done a fair bit of research in preparation for this debate. The difference is that Cyrus has a strong Disney background and if she continues down the path she's seemingly taking, the tween fans might be exposed to some questionable content. I will be focusing more (argh) on the content of these two stars music in my next arguments since I believe that is the crux of this debate. I will leave it at that for now. Over to you, good sir.