Pop Psychology: With 16-year-old Canadian singer Shawn Mendes, have we …

The experimental genetic breeding program started by the Ontario government in the mid-1990s continues to pay dividends. With the early model “Bieber” unit starting to show signs of wear — scientists assure us they’ve worked out the kinks in subsequent models — the program’s latest success is Shawn Mendes, a 16-year-old wunderkind from Toronto who has thicker hair, more soaring vocals and skin that is actually impervious to tattoo ink. Mendes was recently named one of Time’s most influential teenagers of 2014, which is almost as big an honour as being nominated for Choice Viner at the Teen Choice Awards last August. All that and his first single, “Life of the Party,” just cracked Billboard’s Top 10 in Canada. What’s made this potent mix of all the attractive kids from Degrassi and just a pinch of Shania Twain so influential? The National Post’s David Berry went deep into the bowels of a top-secret facility in Pickering to find out.

Reading suggestion: Listen to Shawn Mendes’ Life of the Party below, then scroll down to follow along with the lyrics.  

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