Justin Bieber

Wow, I never thought I would write a daily note about Justin Bieber, but here it is.   First off, let me state that I do not like Justin Bieber's music.  Never have been a fan and will probably never be a fan.  None of my daughters (ages 11, 16, 18) like him either.

OK, with that out of the way, why do I want to talk about him?  Well, I'm using him as an example of the dichotomy present not only in public figures, but, in many respects, in all of us.  There are two versions of each of us, our inner "real" person and the outer "public" person.  Celebrities like Justin Bieber are under a lot more scrutiny than the average person.  They are photographed continually and every word they say is somehow broadcast to the world at large.  As our world has become increasing mobile and digital these photos and words are almost instantly available around the world.  Justin Bieber currently has the most Twitter follows (39,444,187 at last count) and has submitted over 22,200 updates.  What he says, in jest or anger, is read around the world.  Because of this close attention he has very little time to be the "real" Justin Bieber and as a result the pressure sometimes spills over into the public Justin and he does some really stupid things.

For most of us, however, the dichotomy is not as severe, nor do we need to maintain that "public" persona for as long.  We don't have people listening to everything we do, nor do we have people being killed while trying to take our picture.  We can easily switch into and out of our public persona with little effort and many people do not even notice.  (For the record, if you ever see me start talking fast and acting like I've taken too much caffeine, that means I am nervous as heck and my public persona - the care free gregarious Don - has come out to play.)

The vast majority of us have that switching between real and public personas down to a fine art.  So much so that many of us do not even know that we are doing it.  My father was a very quiet, introverted individual, who could walk into a room and make friends with everyone there.  It seemed "natural", but having grown up with him I realized that this was a major hurdle for him.  My Dad only needed to be that public persona for short periods of time so it had little to no effect on the real person behind the façade.  But in the case of those who live in the public spotlight the pressure must be a lot higher and a lot more prevalent as they are forced to subvert their own life in favour of the persona that everyone expects.

So, how many of you are "real" with your friends and how many of you just project a new persona and keep the real you inside?