ABSTRACT
In an interview following his July 28, 2015, appearance on the premier episode of Fox’s reality show Knock Knock Live, twenty-one-year-old pop artist Justin Bieber said one motivation for surprising superfan Ashley at her home in California with a luxury quinceañera celebration was that he wanted to “bless her” (Staff, “Watch Justin Bieber Bless”). Ashley, a huge Bieber fan who had been unable to celebrate her quinceañera at the expected age of fifteen due to a life-threatening bout of meningitis, credits Bieber’s song “Pray” as the inspirational anthem of her recovery. This contemporary consumer “blessing” occurring on a nationally broadcast “reality” television series illustrates a secular re-visioning resulting, in part, from the attention of contemporary American media.
