Justin Beiber’s Rise to Fame

Justin Beiber’s rise to fame started in a way that many would be shocked to hear. It all began with one accidental click.

Justin’s life began on a freezing cold morning in March in the snowy city of London, Ontario, Canada. His mother, Pattie Mallette, was just nineteen years old when she had her son. Justin grew up in a single-parent home, spending time with his mom and teaching himself to play a myriad of musical instruments including the guitar, drums, piano, and even the trumpet. Not yet confident in his musical abilities, he kept them to himself and mainly spent his time playing hockey and soccer, with the occasional game of chess.

When Justin was twelve years old, his then-hometown of Stratford, Ontario held a singing competition, open to anyone. His mom entered him, and he sang Ne-Yo’s song, “So Sick.” The future international music star placed second. Impressed with her son’s talented performance, Justin’s mom Pattie uploaded a rough video copy of the performance to the video sharing site, YouTube. She thought that maybe a few of her close friends and family might like to see it.

During the remainder of the year, Justin’s mom would upload a video to YouTube regularly. He sang cover songs from a large collection of R&B albums, and began to amass a fairly substantial collection of videos online. More and more people began to discover his videos, subscribing and becoming regular viewers. His popularity continued to climb on YouTube, as millions of people watched his video performances.

By 2008, Justin Beiber’s videos had become a smash hit on YouTube, but were essentially unknown to the professional music industry. A former marketing executive by the name of Scooter Braun was browsing the popular video sharing site one night, searching for videos by someone else entirely. This exectutive had never heard of Justin. Clicking on one of Justin’s videos by mistake, YouTube’s autoplay feature kicked in, and the music began to float from the man’s speaker system. Shocked and impressed by what he heard, he knew he needed to find out more about this young kid from Stratford, Ontario.

Braun set off on a journey to meet Justin in person, and traveled to the singer’s hometown. Upon arrival, he located the theater that Justin was scheduled to perform in, which just so happened to be located inside of his school. It was there that he was able to get in contact with Justin’s mom, Pattie. He talked to Pattie about how impressed he had been with Justin’s performances in his YouTube videos, and expressed his interest in signing Justin a record deal. Believe it or not, Justin’s mom was actually very hesitant about entrusting her son’s well-being to this stranger from the United States. Adding to her hesitation was the fact that Braun’s religious beliefs weren’t in line with the Christian standards she wanted her son to have. Eventually, after some prayer, and discussing the matter with some of her friends and a few more experienced individuals from her church, she decided to allow Justin to sign the deal.

Braun flew Justin to Atlanta, Georgia to record some demonstrational material which they could then use to get the young singer’s work in front of more music producers. Justin was thirteen years old.

Upon his arrival in Atlanta, Justin was asked to perform in front of the hit R&B singer and songwriter, Usher. After Usher heard Justin’s music, he proceeded to sign a record deal with Raymond Braun Media Group, in a joint-deal with Usher. Justin Timberlake had also wanted to sign Justin, but came in too late to the game. From that day forward, Scooter was Justin’s official manager.

Justin’s debut single was a song named “One Time.” It was broadcast on Canadian radio stations in July of 2009, and quickly rose to number twelve on the Canadian Hot 100 list. When American radio stations picked up the song, it rose rapidly to the number seventeen slot on the Billboard Hot 100. Justin was still recording his first album, which had not yet been released.

During Christmas of that year, Justin sang for the President and first lady of the United States of America, Barack and Michelle Obama, at the White House.

Beiber’s most popular song ever, “Baby” came out to much fanfare in January 2010. It topped out at number five in the U.S., hitting the top ten lists of seven other countries.

No discussion of Justin’s Beiber’s rise to fame would be complete without mentioning his tremendously effective use of social media. Justin would never have been discovered were it not for his YouTube channel. He recognizes this fact, and regularly uploads videos to his original channel to this day. He has also become one of the most followed people in the world on No discussion of Justin’s Beiber’s rise to fame would be complete without mentioning his tremendously effective use of social media. Justin would never have been discovered were it not for his YouTube channel. He recognizes this fact, and regularly uploads videos to his original channel to this day. He has also become one of the most followed people in the world on Twitter, and has been hailed as more influential in social media than Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama. Justin has set an example for celebrities and companies everywhere in his relaxed and open handling of media controversy using his Twitter account. Through it, he has maintained an open line of two-way communication with his fans and enemies alike. This mastery of the modern web has been a tremendous benefit to Justin’s reputation, especially when compared with the often improper use of social media tools by other celebrities and organizations. Today, Justin Beiber’s name is one of the most searched-for phrases on the internet.