On May 15, the week Justin Bieber stopped trending on Twitter* and David Cameron became the new Prime Minister of the UK, Ali Weiss read this piece at The Paper Machete.

*Note: This piece is based partly on the odd fact that Justin Bieber suddenly stopped trending shortly after his appearance on Oprah. We now know that Twitter just happened to change its trending algorithm the next day, which explains the real reason the pop star ceased to trend. Science aside, the timing nonetheless blew my mind a little.

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This week saw a seismic shift in the earth’s socio-political crust. For a several hours on Tuesday, May 11, teen pop sensation Justin Bieber, the reigning king and supreme overlord of Twitter, omnipresent poster child of the top ten tweeted terms, trended no more.

In lieu of the Canadian star, one found a nebula of British terms. Tory. LibDem. UKelection. And of course, that hot young new kid the block: David Cameron.

Now, statistically we’ve seen Justin Bieber blips before. During the Health Care debate, Justin Bieber briefly vanished, overcome by terms like C-SPAN and baby killer. But soon enough, Justin Bieber was back, out-trending Joe Biden.  And it must be noted that Justin Bieber still topped “GE2010″ overall for the week. We must not underestimate the power of millions of fangirls.

But what made this week dramatically different is that, by the next day, Justin Bieber was permanently gone.

One could say that  Justin Bieber’s ousting by the Conservative / Liberal Democrat coalition has marked his final blow!  Since then, Justin Bieber’s involuntary resignation from trending, has sparked protest from an organized female tween faction. This group outright accuses Twitter of deliberately banning Justin Bieber. They demand a recount with full transparency.

For Americans, here’s what’s really mind-blowing about the day Justin Bieber trending died. Not only did David Cameron hit Justin Bieber with an out-trend from which he has yet to recover — he did it on the day, Tuesday May 11, that Justin Bieber appeared on Oprah.

This hits straight to my core, because Justin Bieber’s appearance on Oprah marked his official introduction to MY people. Until this day all I knew about Justin Bieber was that Justin Bieber trended, Justin Bieber was Usher’s protogee, and several of my female 11-year-old improv students put Justin Bieber in every scene. And, I guess Justin Bieber’s SNL and Funny or Die videos briefly scored my attention until I realized I could be watching Glee.

But an appearance on Oprah? New game. Now my leader is finally taking my hand and telling me, slowly and clearly cause she knows I’ve got laundry in the dryer, who the fuck this child is.

And on the day I learn? On the day Justin Bieber tugs at my heartstrings, with his single mom, and his special surprise for three cute little black girls with a daddy in Iraq? The day we boring, 30-plus white chicks finally gain the emotional motivation to Google Justin Bieber? Justin Bieber ceases to trend.

I, for one, will be culturally insignificant no more. I should also add, on a personal note, this all happened in the same week they announced plans to cancel both Law & Order and Hello Kitty, who is 36 now. I have nothing left to give; I almost called Christopher to cancel my appearance here today.

But in my moment of darkness I decided to devote the balance of this week to an intensive course of study on the next big thing. And that is David Cameron.

David Cameron might not be trending today, but just you watch. In David Cameron I have found MY Justin Bieber.

Both are exceedingly, boyishly attractive, non-American English speakers. Both receive uniformly glowing praise from a rabid fan base. Both are record-breakingly young for their respective posts. And both have met Barack Obama.

Both David Cameron and Justin Bieber suffer harsh criticism from haters left of the mainstream, who would point out that Justin Bieber’s music sucks — if you can even call it Justin Bieber’s music — and that David Cameron will preserve tax breaks for the upper classes while dismantling the National Health Service.

Exhibit A: Promise vs. Parody

It’s hard not to go dreamy over David Cameron. Just his name conjures up both David Cassidy and Kirk Cameron.

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David Cameron has a video on TED.com where he gives an Al-Gore-worthy slide show about how the internet and social media have put government and politics and public services back into the hands of the people. Hot. There’s a black power fist symbol on the “power to the people” slide! (2:51)

In one example David Cameron shows a slide of Chicago’s own everyblock crime map!  (9:10) I love you already David Cameron.  You’re an Oxford-educated royal descendant talkin’ about Chicago crime!  There’s David Cameron, all up in our map, like, “you can see this, looks a bit like a chef’s hat but actually that’s an assault, the one in blue. You can see what crime is committed where and YOU have the opportunity to hold your police force to account.”  I feel you, David Cameron.  Hey! We can totally cut spending on actual physical cops in bad neighborhoods and just choose not to live there, ’cause the Internet warned us!

Even though David Cameron is a conservative; David Cameron loves Barack Obama.  There is a video on Youtube of David Cameron at home, sipping coffee and reading the papers as Obama wins the election. In this video, David Cameron talks about how cool “BAR-ack” is. In person. Cause they had like so already met.

And, this week, Barack Obama talked about how cool David Cameron is, and he quoted Winston Churchill about their special relationship.  Cause, let’s face it, Gordon Brown may have stood for actual power in the hands of the working class, but really he just reminded us all of that embarrassing DVD thing Obama did. Now we have a fresh start.

Obama is David Cameron’s Usher.

David Cameron and Barack Obama are like samesies.  This week, they both met with the grandpa-hot Hamid Karzai. I guess he’s LA Reid in the analogy, and the record industry is the Taliban. But I digress.

This is just really a great time for girl to get super into global politics and here’s the biggest reason why:

Can we please discuss David Cameron’s gorgeous wife, a former fashion executive named Samantha?  YAY!

I like to imagine she “takes tea with a best friend Carrie who writes for the Guardian and a barrister named Miranda, and dear Charlotte who’s married a Jew and adopted a Paki….”

Samantha Cameron already made the cover of Harper’s Bazar a few years ago. I now live for the day when Samantha Cameron and Michelle Obama come together on a manicured lawn somewhere. The Huffington Post will roadblock its site with a twenty-minute interstitial slide show set to a last-minute Lady Gaga / Beyoncé recording made especially for the occasion, which will outsell Justin Bieber’s entire catalog in one hour.

So let’s not miss the boat on this dreamboat. Let’s stay tuned to David Cameron. Let’s trend David Cameron. And as he suggests on TED, let’s watch David Cameron. Closely.