© Slate/Getty ImagesMissing the similarities between Corey Haim and Justin Bieber? Just watch Me, Myself, and I.
The blond, slight, hockey-obsessed Canadian teenager flirts outrageously with the camera, knowing full well that it is his greatest friend and professional asset. The young man is not just handsome, he's downright pretty, with a delicate, androgynous beauty that drives the teenyboppers crazy but also, uncomfortably, makes him an object of erotic desire for adults as well. He's still several years away from being able to drink legally in his adopted country of the United States but he looks much, much younger, less like a late teenager on the cusp of manhood than a boyishly handsome middle-aged lesbian.
He is so popular with teenyboppers that his name has become synonymous with a subset of perpetually screaming teen, tween, or preteen girls. This is a gift and a curse: It gives him a massive, loyal, and devoted fan base but it also makes it difficult, if not prohibitively impossible, for him to be taken seriously. He is a popular subject of worship and derision, lusty adulation and glib mockery. Child stardom of this nature and ferocity and intensity is not something to be experienced or enjoyed: It is something to be survived and endured, and sometimes even that is asking too much.
The young man in question is not Justin Bieber. It's the late Corey Haim. The video is
Me, Myself, and I, a notorious, 40-minute long 1989 "video diary" the iconic former child star made following one of many stints in rehab to prove to the world that he was clean, sober, and ready for work. Instead the video helped finish the job Haim had already started of destroying a once promising career.
Comment: The elite should feel nervous. In times of catastrophe and societal collapse the population turns against its leaders.