Singer Justin Bieber

from New York City. “Who knew 12-year-olds had this much hate in them?”

Well, Kim Kardashian did.

The reality star received death threats from Bieber fans in early May after Bieber joked that she was his girlfriend when the two were photographed at the White House correspondents’ dinner.

Leuch’s tangle with the Bieber faithful began after he created “Shaved Bieber,” an application that can be added to a browser or downloaded as a Firefox add-on to cover up the words Bieber or Justin Bieber, and any photos with Bieber in their file names.

Leuch, director of research and development at web entities Rocketboom, Magma and Know Your Meme, created the application in about six hours and launched it two Mondays ago after a friend who’s an Internet researcher asked for an easy way to eradicate Bieber references from his online searches.

Leuch posted Shaved Bieber on the Free Art & Technology blog, for which he’s one of the creators, expecting people “to have a good laugh at it,” as well as to gather a little Internet buzz.

“I never expected this type of coverage . . . I never expected the death threats,” he said.

The first email he received was from a 15-year-old in Switzerland who said, “what you’re doing is going back to World War II all over again. Hitler wanting to erase Jews from society — you want to erase Justin Drew Bieber.”

Another irate fan tweeted, “I know many things about you and i know where you live. Just be aware. I might just appear behind you and shoot you with a gun.”

Another threatened to run away if her mother installed the application on her computer.

Bieber and his management haven’t commented yet, but Leuch hopes they’re getting a chuckle out of his creation.

Contrary to what the fans think, Leuch, 25, said he has nothing against Bieber and thinks it’s great he’s achieved such success at 16.

“I’m not one of the haters. I’m also not one of the Beliebers,” he said, referring to the term Bieber fans use.

The hate mail is still trickling in, but Leuch is taking it with a sense of humour.

“I get to say I died for my art.”