In the four years since Justin Bieber’s Justice, the two-time Grammy winner’s most recent full-length studio effort, a lot has happened. And not just in the Bieberverse, but in the world at large. While the demand for new music from Bieber was expectedly (and rightfully) high when he surprised fans on Friday with SWAG, his seventh album, there’s no denying that the traditional album rollout process circa 2021 no longer moves the needle in our increasingly perplexing, routinely fickle current climate.
Which is not to say that Bieber, a star no doubt big enough to lay claim to his own galaxy, ever really needs to worry about how the industry at large is operating at any given moment. After all, the 31-year-old superstar has been in rare pop company for the better part of the past 16 years, with numerous No. 1 albums and Hot 100 chart-toppers to his name.
Still, the weeks leading up to his new album found Bieber tapping into something we could all probably use more of, not to mention potentially providing a blueprint for other artists’ rollouts in the process. Vulnerability, with an occasional side of trolling, has been at the heart of Bieber’s recent social media activity, which generated no shortage of headlines attention in the days before SWAG.
Along the way, Bieber made a point to put petulant paparazzi in their place, resulting in a widely memed moment that ultimately found its way onto the album itself.
Below, we take a closer look at recent Bieber-related headlines. Welcome to SWAG, everyone. Let’s make it a vulnerable summer.
What did Justin Bieber say on Instagram?
Bieber generated several waves of heightened media attention with his activity on IG, where he’s currently known as Lil Bieber. This ranged from perplexing some fans with his comments about wife Hailey Bieber’s Vogue cover, to commemorating Father’s Day by declaring himself “a dad that’s not to be fucked with,” complete with copious employments of the middle finger emoji.
“Not sure I need to explain myself,” Bieber was seen telling an unspecified individual in a screenshot-captured (and IG-shared) text exchange. “That’s what my art is for.”
In another update, Bieber reflected on ending an unspecified friendship, writing, in part, “Your concern doesn’t come off as care. It’s just oppressive, weirdo.”
A text exchange with the incomparable Lil B was also made public on Bieber’s IG. The Based God can be heard on SWAG track “DADZ LOVE,” which opens with a plea for “less hating” and “more unity.”
Back in April, Bieber took to IG to extend an open invitation for fellow artists to join him in the studio. Drake, Big Sean, Bailey Zimmerman, and others were quick to respond, though it wasn’t immediately clear whether those reactions resulted in actual sessions. Bieber, however, is expected to be readying another new album, possibly launching as soon as later this year. Maybe Drake and others will land on that one.
What did Justin Bieber say to paparazzi?
Bieber has taken an interest in calling out intrusive paparazzi tactics as of late, at one point slamming them for not caring “about people” but instead caring about “only money.”
Fittingly, audio of Bieber’s paparazzi callouts is featured on SWAG tracks “Butterflies” and “Standing on Business.” The latter is a skit featuring Druski, who zeroed in on Bieber’s decision to “pronounce ‘business’” when telling a paparazzo “It’s not clocking to you that I’m standing on business, is it?” and getting memed in the process.
“I think that’s why he ain’t leave right there,” Druski joked.
Does Justin Bieber address any of this on SWAG?
Yes. On “Therapy Session,” another SWAG skit with Druski, Bieber brings the vulnerability of his IG into the studio, like so:
“I think that’s been a tough thing for me recently is feeling like I have had to go through a lot of my struggles as a human, as all of us do, really publicly. So people are always asking if I’m okay and that starts to really weigh on me. … It starts to make me feel like I’m the one with issues and everyone else is perfect.”
In the track, Bieber’s remarks come in after Druski points to instances of Bieber’s “trolling” on IG, arguing that he’s just “doing [social media] his own way.”
What does performance art have to do with any of this?
In 2025, the path toward truly breaking through the noise often feels more daunting than ever. Some, seemingly, have responded to such difficulties by leaning into negativity, often a surefire way to move the needle and crack the algorithm. The artist formerly known as Kanye West, for example, has long been theorized to operate with the apparent ethos of, in short, the biggest shock equates to the fastest and most consistent attention economy victories.
In fact, Ye himself has hinted at performance art, in general, as crucial to his work, even as recently as during his increasingly unfortunate Nazism-focused era. At one point, Ye nodded to I’m Still Here, a 2010 mockumentary directed by Casey Affleck and starring Joaquin Phoenix. In it, Joaquin’s staged (i.e. not real) retirement from acting is documented, as is the fallout from the Oscar winner’s decision to use reality as a stage for a quasi-fictional piece a la the late Andy Kaufman.
Bieber, thankfully, did not employ Nazism or anything even remotely related to such nonsense in his recent social media barrage. But his pre-SWAG Instagrammery did bring with it the positing of a theory that he was not just being remarkably candid on Instagram without dual intentions, i.e., some fans were convinced Bieber was very much operating in the performance art space.
Bieber wouldn’t have been alone in going this route. In addition to Ye, Joaquin, and Kaufman, other stars have also dabbled in this space, including Shia LaBeouf and Donald Glover.
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