Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj Video Review: No Gangnam Style, But This Will Go Viral

So, I finally stumbled upon the official video of Justin Bieber's "Beauty and a Beat (feat. Nicki Minaj)" and though I'm hardly a "Believer" -- nor a Nicki Minaj evangelist -- I was positively entertained by the water park-themed, feel-good, duo between the Canadian teen idol and the Trinidadian-born American rapper who is some kind of 21st century Lil' Kim. 

"Beauty and a Beat" starts with the disclosure that some of the footage was stolen from Justin Bieber and illegally uploaded by an online troll. Whether this is true or not is not the point, as the video wins at conveying an amateurish feeling that makes it look as though "Biebs" shot it himself with his iPhone (which he probably did, parts of it anyway).

The rest is pretty standard: a swimming pool full of teenagers singing and dancing along Bieber's auto tuned lyrics and Minaj's overproduced verses. The video, uploaded in mid-October, has already close to 90 million views (not "Gangnam Style" numbers, but actually the overall population of a whole country). Not bad for someone who was discovered on YouTube just four years ago. Again, Bieber's 30 million Twitter followers probably helped.