Like a hatchling emerging from an egg splattered against the neighbor’s house, Canadian chickenhawk Justin Bieber has been showing new signs of maturity, relative to Justin Bieber. He recently paid a visit to his Aunt Ellen, where he was very polite and didn’t act out, and later he sent her the nicest video of himself crying. He also just turned 21, a magical time when a boy becomes a man, and he celebrates by enjoying his first-ever sip of legally permissible alcohol while spinning shirtless beneath a hail of sparklers.
But most importantly, Bieber is about to undergo that most honored rite of passage into adulthood—the celebrity roast—where the many comedians who are vaguely familiar with his persona will gather to make jokes about each other’s dicks, while Justin Bieber laughs to show that he understands sex. Occasionally they will also direct their barbs in his direction, creating the impression that Bieber is a man fully aware of his many failings. And Bieber is preparing for this the way any man would: by pestering Seth Rogen on Twitter.
Unfortunately for Bieber, Rogen may be less than enthusiastic about playing court jester to his clapping prince, given that Rogen has made it clear he thinks Bieber is “a piece of shit”—and not in the fraternal, gently chiding way of the Comedy Central Roast. Rogen genuinely thinks Bieber is a “motherfucker” and a “dick,” as he explained to Howard Stern last year, all stemming from an encounter on a German talk show where Bieber asked to meet Rogen, then acted like Justin Bieber about it.
But as Bieber explained in his recent apology video, acting like Justin Bieber is just how kids like him deal with the enormous pressure of having literally anything you want at your beck and call. As he is a man now, he understands that sort of self-absorbed behavior is unacceptable, which is why he spent yesterday filling Rogen’s @ replies with more than 100,000 retweets of his demands to have Rogen roast him, then created a #WeWantSeth hashtag for his fans to use when harassing Rogen. In a year that has included being repeatedly threatened over his American Sniper comments and the Sony hack, Rogen now has reason to hate the Internet.
Finally, in his greatest hour of desperation, Bieber sent Rogen a link to a song he created with Diplo and Skrillex, using a similar tactic as U.S. troops who are trying to drive out barricaded enemies.
For his part, Rogen has yet to respond to any of Bieber’s entreaties, which suggests that either the roast is being set up for his “surprise” appearance, or that Rogen has better things to do, such as literally anything.