Today is Friday (although you are probably not reading this on a Friday), hence I am reminded once again of the famously horrid song “Friday” by Rebecca Black. Her YouTube video became a hit, with more than 167 million views. Of the more than 3 million reviews the video received, 87 percent of them were “dislikes”. Yet, despite the juvenile message and blatantly idiotic lyrics, I find myself singing “Friday, Friday, gonna get down on Friday, fun fun fun fun” as I walk out of the office.
So how did Rebecca Black do it? It seems that more and more stars are being made not because of the quality of their work, but the sheer horribleness of it. Remember the Numa Numa kid? At least in my memory, he was one of the first “big time” YouTube stars, even appearing on talk shows. His fame has all but died out now, except for the occasional R&B song that has picked up the notes of the Moldovian tune he rocked out to. Now, here is the real question at hand: is the fame worth it if you are famous because of being the most horrible at something? I guess it worked for William Hung. . . sort of!
Rebecca Black certainly doesn’t think her fame a bad thing, as her second single called, “My Moment” attests. In this follow up to “Friday”, her lyrics say it all: “Were you the one who said that I would be nothing/well, I’m about to prove you wrong. . . I’m not stopping for you/no matter what you do. . . so take it just as far as you can/but trusting in yourself, forget everyone else. . . Haters, said I’ll see you later. . . I hope you are happy cause I’m ’bout to blow up.” Certainly fame can be a powerful motivator. Even if you are famous because you are bad at being famous.
I think Rebecca Black has well established that her current fame is more important than whatever else should happen in the future. But that begs the question, will her fame actually last? And in 20 years, when she looks back on her teenage fame, how will she feel? Her teenage brain has chosen fame over pride, which is understandable for someone in their youth. However, I doubt that she will feel the same, in five, ten, twenty, or even fifty years. Like many one-hit wonders before her, people will forget and she will have a minimal level of fame. And what’s more, the one-hit wonder she produced wasn’t even a wonder. It was more of one-hit blunder. (I’m sure I’m not the first to pen that term as it relates to Rebecca Black!) Just imagine what archaeologists would think in three-hundred years if they uncovered a video from the 21st Century, and instead of some incredibly talented artist like Yo-yo Ma, they found a video of Rebecca Black instead?
Basically, the moral of the story is this: fame can only take you so far. Especially in regards to Youtube fame, which seems even more fleeting than the average fame. If she is willing to scrap reputation and pride for fame, then by all means, have at it Rebecca Black! But history shows that unless she starts to add some real talent and skills to those music videos, or at least a snappier personality, her fame won’t last much longer than it takes for the next catchy song about “Friday” to be released.
I kind of have the feeling that you are making fun of her… IMHO she really has nothing to be ashamed of at all! She’s just doing what she wants to do.
Not to mention that, She might be “famous for being bad” right now, but thats mostly because the producers of Friday messed with her voice with Autotune… IMHO she’s actually pretty good. She’s really just HIGHLY underrated.
By making new songs, and continuing with her career, she’s not scrapping her reputation, she’s BUILDING it, proving to the doubting people that she can sing.
It’s easy to make fun of Friday, but I don’t think people have seriously asked why it’s popular. She’s not any worse than Britney Spears, Katy Perry, or Lady Gaga(you don’t sing born this way leaving the office), yet she is criticized more than all of them combined. While she is just as famous without having an entertainment industry juggernaut hawking her image. So maybe kids are tired of hyper-serialized androgynous pop stars, and she seems accessible with a message they can relate to. She is also handling the situation with a commendable amount of dignity and self- respect many celebrities twice her age couldn’t pull-off. Let her have fun, and I’m sure she’ll rightly look back at this time of her life with pride.
How did she do it? Getting it to go around in your head? The real answer from a professional, is that it’s musical structure resembles many elements of a hit song. That along with the rhythm, makes it fun to sing. The singing and lyrics aren’t great, but they are “ok”, and just what’s needed to carry that song. You forget that haters and bullies, especially of school age, will often gather when they see other haters hating. Think about that, because it’s true. Next, you’ve forgotten that her video was getting a fairly positive response but not many views, up until a popular blogger wrote an article saying he didn’t think it was good in so many words. This drew quick negative attention to it. Causing many to thumb it down. The red bar being long, attracted more haters and more negativity. Haters are like sharks and they keep gathering with the site of blood. Proof of this, is that after friday, just the site of her in a video saying hello would get mostly thumbed down. Proving people were not rating the music, but instead her. The reasons were often based in jealousy, and typically coming from females who desperately were trying to stop her from having any chance of attaining fame in a positive light.
Again friday doesn’t have the best singing, but it also isn’t the worst. There are dozens of already famous artists out there who can’t even sing as well as Rebecca can. Many auto tuned rappers and even worse. But beyond friday, she recorded my moment which sounded tons better and finally allowed us to hear her voice without being buried under effects. It only had a couple filter like effects in spots to give it a modern sound like say Gaga. However, many people confused that with AT, even though it wasn’t.
It’s quite obvious that under heavy criticism, they she not only worked much harder to deliver better vocals, but they spent a lot more work to do a better job recording her. However in the childish minds of haters, they could care less about that. For them, it’s like a party to show up at. I’ve worked around studios and singers for a long time, and while My Moment isn’t up to par with say Mariah, it’s as good or better than many other artists out there.
As for “pride”, you’ve also missed the fact that many famous people formed an interest in her, including someone interested in spending lots of money on a recording contract. That along with meeting celebs, including Katy Perry and many others. I don’t see how a 14 year old girl could grow up and be anything less than proud of that.