Bieber Is Getting Better at Apologies

Just when you think all is quiet on the Bieber front, you get blindsided with a leaked video of a young Bieber making racist jokes. Ah, Justin Bieber. Where did you go wrong? The fact that Justin Bieber was 15 years old in the video has been used as a basis for not judging him based on it. We all did stupid things when we were younger. Some of us broke our parents' vase, some of us lied about going to a party, and apparently some of us told racist jokes. That shouldn't affect the here and now. Especially considering Justin Bieber has apologized for the video in a surprisingly earnest way.

However, the larger issue of the recent Bieber scandal is not the fact that Bieber made a few bad racist jokes when he was a teenager. It's the fact that none of us are surprised anymore. It's getting to the point that if you look up the word scandal in a dictionary, you'll probably find a picture of Justin Bieber rather than a picture of Olivia Pope. Bieber has had to hand out so many apologies that they're starting to fall on deaf ears. When is he going to stop saying he's story and start acting like he's sorry?

On the grand scale of Bieber apologies, his most recent one ranks pretty high. It sounds genuine, it makes good points, and he hasn't yet done anything to go back on it — mainly because he only just gave it. As far as issuing apologizes goes, Bieber can (and has) done a lot worse.

Justin Bieber Apologizes to Bill Clinton

What He Did: Back in 2013, when we were all still young and relatively innocent to how far Bieber could fall, a tape was leaked of Justin Bieber bashing Bill Clinton by pouring cleaning fluid on a picture of the former president and saying, "F*** Bill Clinton." Because... who knows?

What He Said: Bieber called Clinton personally to make amends after the video went public and then later tweeted about the conversation, because the apology didn't happen if the whole world doesn't know about it.

What We Think: The apology did nothing to explain the video. Like, at all.

Justin Bieber Apologizes to ARgentina

What He Did: 2013 was certainly a banner year for a young pop star like Justin Bieber. During a concert in Argentina, Bieber debased the Argentinean national flag by using it as a mop until stagehands came to take it away from him. Sure, he just wanted the thing off the stage, but there were so many better, less offensive ways to do that.

What He Said: Bieber issued his apology for the incident via Twitter via several since-deleted Tweets. He claimed the flag had been thrown on stage and he had mistaken it for a short that he was trying to clear away before anyone got hurt. He went on to say, "I would never do anything to disrespect Argentina or the people of Argentina or the fans. I'm so sorry for anyone who took my actions the wrong way and I hope you can forgive this mistake."

What We Think: At least he explained himself that time.

Justin Bieber Apologizes to China

What He Did: After skipping the country to visit Japan with his mother, Bieber saw a very nice looking shrine and decided to pay his respects there. The building was the controversial Yasukuni war shrine and paying his respects there was essentially the equivalent of flipping off his Chinese fan base.

What He Said: Bieber immediately realized he dun goofed and posted a picture of the media article that first reported on his shrine visit along with this genuine apology: "While in Japan I asked my driver to pull over for which I saw a beautiful shrine. I was mislead to think the Shrines were only a place of prayer. To anyone I have offended I am extremely sorry. I love you China and I love you Japan."

What We Think: Ignorance is better than malicious intent. Sometimes.

Justin Bieber Apologizes to the World

What He Did: It would take far too long to summarize all the numerous things that Justin Bieber had done to get him to this point. Let's just say there's a reason Bieber is on the list of most hated men in America and leave it at that.

What He Said: In 2014, it came out that Bieber was ready to turn his life around and rehabilitate his image. The news came from a source instead of from Bieber himself, but some of us got our hopes up that the source was valid.

What We Think: Since then, Bieber has done very little besides prove he's got no plan to be a better version of himself, but, hey, at least he's getting good at giving apologies.