The Town of Odyssey

That is a list of people I have gender confused...
Really, there are a few more, but those are the most notable ones...

I am offended by that good sir, but I think I already told you.

Yes, I believe so... Knowing what you look like now, I am quite sure I won't make that mistake again.

I was reminded of this topic today.. Just how random it got. SO BUMP.

Funny, I've been meaning to post something here for a while myself. Stay tuned.

I'm tuned.

I saw something about a tour cancellation, so when I saw a new post here, I assumed that's what it was about. There's news to be tuned into again!

THE BIEBS IS ENRAGED!!!

This is a good opportunity to finally make a post I've been meaning to for a long time.

I'm sure everyone has realized this from the state of the thread, but I want to make an official declaration: The BNN news service has been discontinued. I may occasionally still make a post if there is some major story about something big, and people are free to post freelance reports of things they hear if they want, but there will be no further compilation posts of Bieber minutia. It has passed its purpose. It began as a response to Bieber news being everywhere, shoved in your face without looking for it, and that is no longer the case.

I started this thread because JB was all over the internet that fateful day in 2011, I literally could not get away from it anywhere except here, so I reacted by bringing the news here too. I was being 99% facetious because of how ridiculous it was that this was an actual news story, but 1% serious in that if it was literally everywhere else on the internet it felt like we needed to participate as well, even if it was just as a brief passing joke. But what happened next, the evolution of the thread, was entirely unexpected. After covering the original stories about the haircut a few tangential stories popped up so I posted about those because they were related. Then a few days in I had the 'realization' (100% facetiously this time) that if his haircut of all things was such important news to the world then everything else about him must be too. So I had the idea to post news reports on random stories about literally anything he did as a parody of paparazzi media that takes this stuff seriously. I planned to do it for about a month or so then the thread would die.

But what happened was I actually found some genuine meaning in the midst of the nonsense. I don't know if this thought was shared by anyone else or if it was just me and everyone else continued to see this as just a dumb joke of a thread, but I saw the potential for actual value to come out of this by using it to form a real time study of a child star's evolution as their fame grows. The stories I posted about gradually shifted from just random pointless things to ones that I felt actually 'mattered' in some way to this focus, stories about the way his fans acted, how he treated people, his relationships, trouble with the law, etc. It was legitimately interesting, at least to me, to follow a transformation that we were actually seeing play out right in front of us and document it. That's why I kept it going. If anyone else saw this deeper purpose as well cool, if it just stayed a big joke to you but you continued to find it funny that's cool too.

So thank you to everyone who participated in this thread, who were good sports about the ostensibly pointlessness of its longevity, and, possibly most importantly, to those of you who didn't approve of the thread but put up with it. I know there are some people that were really annoyed over the years that this thread would never die; I hope they eventually came to realize that I was trying to have it be something genuine by the end and that's why I kept it going. It wasn't just endless bumping of a dumb joke completely without substance, at least in my mind. I would definitely not have perpetuated something like that for so long.

I still remember in detail the act of making the original post that day, completely unaware of what it would lead to. It's been quite a journey.

This is probably one of the oddest super long threads on the ToO, but it is always interesting! I think the legacy of this thread lives on in that apparently the first thing The Doctor thought of when he saw engagement news was to head here!

If nothing else of value came from the existence of this thread, it was all worth it for bringing about one of the greatest ToO moments: when Shennifer recorded Aeva's song