Think Your Life's Hard? Try Having the Same Name as Justin Bieber

BY Josiah HughesPublished Oct 8, 2010

Though he's greatly maligned by most people who actually enjoy music, the cultural impact that pop star Justin Bieber has had in the last year is truly unbeliebable unbelievable. The Ontario native has millions of fans worldwide and continues to attract both the obsession of teenage girls and the scorn of pretty much everyone else. If you think you're the Bieb's No. 1 detractor, however, compare your life to that of a Florida man cursed with having the same name.

According to an article from First Coast News, Jacksonville, FL's Justin Bieber is a normal, if a little nerdy, married dude who enjoys arcade games and pinball. Since Bieber fever took over, however, he's been banned from both Facebook and Ping under the assumption that he's using a fake name.

"I guess their policy is ban first, ask questions never," Bieber said of Apple-based social network Ping.

In addition to his social networking woes, the Florida Bieber gets between two and ten fan letters every day. "It does not keep me awake at night, but I feel bad for little girls who want to send messages to their hero and it gets to this," he said, pointing at himself. "I wish some of those fan letters had checks made out to Justin Bieber."

Worse than that, Bieber's phone number is constantly being leaked to fan sites, resulting in the phone ringing off the hook. Even when he changed his number and put the listing under his wife's maiden name, the teenage minions managed to hunt him down, alongside some high-profile artists looking for the pop sensation.

"Artists saying, 'I am going to be working with you this weekend.' I say, 'no, you're not, you don't want to sing with me,'" he explained.


 Still, there is a silver lining in that people finally know how to pronounce his name. "Before everyone said Justin Byber," he said. "I do get a lot of giggles when I swipe my card at the store. The usual response is, 'Oh, you poor thing.'"

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