I don’t know if you’ve noticed but the phrase “Justin Bieber” keeps popping up on television.

And I don’t know if you’ve noticed but whenever the phrase “Justin Bieber” pops up most people over a certain age automatically say “what’s that then?” whilst a 12-year-old tuts at your ignorance and tearfully bites your ankles off.

Even though I am passed my 1998 prime, I am usually up to date with the current pop trends. I know what a Lady GaGa is, I’ve eaten a caramel Aero, I’ve watched half an episode of Hollyoaks – because everyone has their limits. But for me, Justin Bieber seems to have just appeared one day, like a cyst.

Naturally if someone new, young and successful arrives on the scene I hate them; I don’t have to know anything about them but it is their popularity that instantly makes them unbearable.

It seems unfair and the ultimate irony that the more popular you are the more contempt is bred. This time, however, I am determined to enlighten myself, prove that I’m not quite passed it and that I can, as my CV says, communicate on many subjects at all levels.

Therefore, using everyone’s favourite cheeky friend Wikipedia, I’ve researched Justin Bieber to see how his rise to fame has happened so fast. Here, I was going to make a rather splendid pun by saying his rise to fame is hard to belieber.

However it transpires that the fans of Justin Bieber are called beliebers, so already a group of 12-year-old girls have beaten me – unbelieberble!

According to Wikipedia Justin was born in 1994 which is, of course, ridiculous. It doesn’t seem feasible that anyone who was born after 1990 isn’t a tiny baby.

He was discovered on YouTube and was signed up by Usher. (I don’t know what an Usher is either. Maybe next week.) He has had five top ten singles, all of which passed me by, and he is currently riding high in the US box office with Justine Bieber: Never Say Never in 3D.

According to some sources he is now more influential on social networking sites than Barrack Obama and David Cameron.

Having said that my Nan is probably more influential on social networking sites than David Cameron. My cat could give him a run for his money.

Justin doesn’t drink, he doesn’t smoke. He loves his fans, loves his mum ,has a lovely smile and just seems like a jolly nice chap. I can’t stand him.

The trouble is that whenever I meet someone and they are just genuinely nice people, paying me compliments, asking after my health, I automatically assume they want something.

So Justin’s appeal, though wholesome leads me to dislike him. His main charm is that he is the sort of person you could take home to meet your mother but I’m worried that if I took him home to meet my mother, she’d prefer him and I’d be left outside eating Sunday dinner with the cats.

Admittedly a backlash on the Bieber is unfair, but inevitable. There have been, what some would call vicious and hilarious, internet campaigns against him.

Lovingly he gave his fans the opportunity to pick the bonus country his tour would visit and all the evil Goths and Emos clubbed together online to choose North Korea.

Disturbingly there is a Facebook page designed around ways to destroy him but we can’t go around destroying people just because they are annoying, there aren’t enough hours in the day.

And if we do start, it might be difficult for the movement to gain momentum if the first victim is a 16-year-old boy. Besides which according to Wikipedia he died in the Battle of Waterloo in 1954. (Good old Wikipedia.)

To give the Bieber his credit, he has done extremely well at just 16. Regardless of whether or not he is another pop puppet for pre-teens to plaster their walls with, he must work very hard. When I was 16 I spent most of my time eating crisps and discovering the pleasures of scratching. That is no way to get your own record-breaking 3D film, unless it’s an art house pic.

Add to this, Justin might be the greatest thing to happen to music ever. He could be the next Elvis.

His music could combine the heart of jazz and swing, the angst of rock and roll and the heady sweetness of bird song for all you know.

It doesn’t. It’s appalling, but at least I gave him the courtesy of finding out he’s not very good instead of just assuming so.