Anne Frank was a teenager avant la lettre. Though the word did not come into use until the 1950s, Anne embodied it in the 1940s. She had crushes on boys the way 13-year-olds crush on boys. She had a troublesome relationship with her parents, whom she felt did not understand her. She idolized movie stars, and put their cut-out pictures up on her bedroom wall. She dreamt of being a model and making it big in Hollywood. If she was 13 today, Anne Frank would have been a belieber.

Justin Bieber visited the house where Anne was hidden almost 70 years after she was discovered. He was impressed and wrote in the guest book: “Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber”. The museum published his words on their Facebook-page.

Right away Dutch social networks exploded. Bieber’s appropriation of Anne was not welcomed, to say the least. He was accused of arrogance and naiveté at the same time. When the United States woke up, the chorus of disapproval continued on that side of the Atlantic. Global media joined hands in condemning Justin and his words. Another Biebergate was born – previous Bierbergates include a controversial quote on abortion, his laptop being stolen and his use of marihuana.

One might argue that this Biebergate is about Anne’s status as a saint. Perhaps, but the amount of Biebergates points us in a different direction. Bieber and his fans are subject to intense hatred. Anything he does is scrutinized. Any opportunity to smear him is grabbed with both hands. And any vilification of Justin is always deliberate.

I read his words in a different way. I think he wanted to introduce Anne Frank to his fans, to show them the connection, to get them interested in her life story. That is actually an admirable thing to do with one’s fame. Bieber lives for his fans. Being a belieber is about a sense of community. Bieber fans from all around the world are ridiculed for their object of fandom. Together, they stay strong. All that mockery has created a loyal group of people, that help each other out and that stick up for one another. And the more beliebers support each other, the more people hate them for it.

The outcry would not have been this severe if Bono had claimed Anne as a fan. No one would have shouted murder this way if Coldplay had done so, or Frank Ocean. There is something about the nature of the Bieber phenomenon that infuriates people. That nature is girls.

Girls’ choice of music has always been disdained. Teenybopper music has been subject to contempt from the moment the term was invented. Like with other genres that are considered the domain of women (magazines, soap operas, romcoms), girl culture is believed to be of lesser value. But this is about much more than a mere dislike of someone’s music, as the dislike manifest itself as pure hate. And we have a word for such gender specific hatred: misogyny. The response to Bieber’s words on Anne Frank is, thus, sexist.

The ease with which people judge and denounce Bieber scares me. Bieber needs to be ostracized, it seems, eradicated. And Anne Frank would have surely been repulsed by that as well.