Justin bieber.

So did their mothers.
“Justin, my daughter Elizabeth is going to your show tonight!” shouted one woman, shoving girls out of the way to push her cellphone camera in Mr. Bieber’s face. “Want a play date with her, Justin?”
A shriek, presumably from the mortified Elizabeth: “Mom!”
Justin, blessed with excellent mop-top hair, gamely pushed through his jet lag to produce a camera-ready smile. Then his mother, Pattie Mallette, rescued him: she and his entourage hustled him into a van and sped away.
“The mothers are the worst,” Ms. Mallette said later, sitting in a hotel lobby armchair, reflecting on parenting one of the few teenagers in America who, for his own safety, can hang out at a mall only when others are in school.
A baby-faced fawn, Justin has become ridiculously successful at an age so tender that his preferred mode of greeting is a hug.
But as he takes his place in the venerable line of Leifs and Shauns who have ruled the Tiger Beat princedom, he is also a creature of this era: a talented boy discovered first by fans on YouTube, then cannily marketed to them through a fresh influx of studiedly raw videos on the Web site.
In contrast to stars like Kelly Clarkson, who sprang from “American Idol,” or Disney factory best sellers like Miley Cyrus, Justin, his fans passionately believe, is homemade. Long before he released his EP, “My World,” in mid-November, the YouTube videos attracted millions of views.
“My World,” a low-calorie confection of R & B pop tunes swirled through with head-bobbing urgency and hip-hop grace notes, made its debut at No. 6 on the Billboard charts, with four singles in the Top 100.
At every stop on Justin’s recent tour, his charisma, high energy and sweet gawkiness ignited explosions of cellphone camera flashes, glinting on orthodontia. Over one weekend last month, he set off a squealfest at Madison Square Garden, taped a performance for Dick Clark’s New Year’s Eve special in Las Vegas, performed in Chicago and then sang for President and Mrs. Obama in Washington.
Until recently, Justin was a regular boy who played hockey and soccer in Stratford, Ontario (population 30,000). He taught himself piano, guitar and trumpet, took drum lessons and yowled pop tunes while he brushed his teeth. He lived in low-income housing with Ms. Mallette, who prayed that God would use her son as a modern Prophet Samuel, a voice to his generation.
A youth pastor, perhaps? Or even a singer on a Christian label, she thought?
So when an Atlanta-based hip-hop manager named Scooter Braun called nearly two years ago, Ms. Mallette was confused. “I prayed, ‘God, you don’t want this Jewish kid to be Justin’s man, do you?’ ” she recalled.
NOW Justin and his mother live in Atlanta. He is tutored privately and takes vocal lessons, the costs underwritten by Island Def Jam records and the silky R & B superstar Usher. His new family includes hovercrafts like Mr. Braun and Ryan Good, a former assistant to Usher, whom the singer handpicked to be Justin’s road manager and “swagger coach” — sharpening his moves, his attitude and his wardrobe.
In a phone interview, Usher said he, too, takes a familial role: “Sometimes he’s like a little brother or a son to me.”
“I understand the pressure to be in that position,” added Usher, a former boy wonder. “But I had a chance to ramp up my success, where this has happened to him abruptly. So Scooter, Ryan, myself: we tag-team him.”
Riding herd on any teenager presents challenges. Controlling one who happens to be the name on a new franchise presents challenges of another magnitude. “When we’re on tour, I can’t exactly ground him,” said Ms. Mallette, 34, a petite, tough-minded woman.
Since arriving in Providence on a red-eye flight from Los Angeles, where Justin had performed at a mall for reportedly 20,000 screamers, tension had been building. His publicity schedule had lockstep demands. But the adolescent was becoming overtired.
In the interview at the radio station, Justin, pale with fatigue, still tried to affect a streetwise jauntiness: “ ’Sup, man?” he said, greeting the disc jockey.
The announcer asked whether he preferred arenas like Madison Square Garden or small venues like Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel, site of that night’s show. Isn’t it nicer to see fans up close and personal?
Justin praised the wonders of Madison Square Garden. The announcer caught his eye. Adroitly, Justin tacked. It turns out that he really likes small halls, too. Both kinds, actually.

On to Lupo’s, for a preconcert meet and greet. It was nearly 6 p.m. and though it was a school day, the first girls in a line that now wound around the block had been singing his hits there since 8:45 a.m.
Upstairs at the theater, Justin grabbed a pen and signed 50 posters in under three minutes.
Then he flipped on his smile — invisible braces, courtesy of Scooter Braun’s mother, an orthodontist — and 50 lucky 92 PRO-FM listeners were photographed with him. “He is so hot,” gasped Kailee Peixoto, 10, her face a reddening frieze of adulation and incredulity.
Afterward, as Justin scrambled into the van, a mere glimpse of the back of his head set off shrieks from fans: Music to your ears, Justin?
“No!” he said, retreating to his smart phone, thumbs flying.
“Yes!” admonished Mr. Good, 24, the swagger coach.
Mr. Good explained his role: “Usher thought I would be a good influence on him — kind of cool, you know, positive.” A tall, lanky man in a gray knit cap, scarf knotted with affectless affect, Mr. Good is Justin’s guide to style. He selects Justin’s wardrobe, including tween-friendly turquoise hoodies and baseball caps.
“Lots of artists go through ‘refinement boot camp,’ ” Mr. Good said. “Justin’s a sponge, a bright kid. But he’s still just 15.” In recent months, he said, Justin’s voice has already dropped a half step. He still likes to skateboard through airports and play video games moments before he goes onstage.
And he does not like to listen to his mother. Eager for preconcert downtime, Justin leaped out of the van and charged through the hotel lobby.
Ms. Mallette chased after him. “Justin needs to stop or he’s losing that phone,” she said, addressing her son, herself and his bodyguard, Kenny Hamilton. “He won’t listen to me! Don’t let him on the elevator, Kenny, unless he gets off that phone.”
But Justin was done with the poised, humble good boy. Staring fixedly at his phone, he ignored her. The elevator doors closed, leaving mother, son and bodyguard to the privacy of their own glare-off.
Later, in the hotel lobby, Ms. Mallette acknowledged the strain. “No 15-year-old wants to be around his mother 24/7,” she said. “And no mother wants to be around her 15-year-old 24/7, either.”
As a teenager herself, she dreamed of becoming an actress, plans thwarted when she became pregnant at 18. She raised Justin alone, although he remains in touch with his father. Ms. Mallette said she worked low-paying office jobs to make ends meet.
A scrappy athlete and chess player, Justin kept his musical passions to himself. At 12, he entered a local talent contest, coming in second. For family and friends who missed the competition, he uploaded videos on YouTube.
That summer, Justin opened his guitar case and started busking in front of a Stratford theater. He earned nearly $3,000.
“He took us on our first vacation ever,” Ms. Mallette said. “We went to Disneyland.”
Meanwhile, the YouTube videos — Justin singing covers of Usher and Chris Brown — took on a life of their own. Scooter Braun, searching for another singer’s videos, mistakenly clicked on Justin’s.
Mr. Braun, 28, is a hip-hop industry marketer, known most recently for discovering the rapper Asher Roth. He is also a first-class noodge. To find Justin, he searched archives for photos of the theater where Justin had been videotaped busking. He tracked down Justin’s school, calling board members, imploring them to contact Ms. Mallette.
She had not envisioned a future in mainstream pop music for him. “I said: ‘God, I gave him to you. You could send me a Christian man, a Christian label!’ ” She said she prayed with her church elders, who gave permission to proceed.
Mr. Braun had a strategy: “I wanted to build him up more on YouTube first,” he said. “We supplied more content. I said: ‘Justin, sing like there’s no one in the room. But let’s not use expensive cameras.’ We’ll give it to kids, let them do the work, so that they feel like it’s theirs.”
Then he flew Justin to Atlanta to record demos.
In the studio parking lot, Justin bumped into his idol, Usher. He offered to sing for him on the spot. Usher was amused, but he took a pass.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbABZ0MuqKk