It’s Friday, Friday, had to write a blog on Friday. So what better person to write about today than Rebecca Black?
For those who haven’t heard of the 13-year-old singer, let me fill you in.
On a whim last year, Rebecca and her family ponied up $2,000 and gave it to Ark Music Records, a vanity music label that helps, for a price, wanna-be musical stars. As part of the package, Rebecca recorded a little slice of teeny-bop called “Friday.” And then this January, they slapped together a music video for YouTube, sharing with all the Internet the song’s lyrical profundity—including a recitation of the days of the week.
All good, right? I mean, teens post lots of stuff to YouTube every second, and almost all of it languishes in obscurity. And the fact that Rebecca was dreaming of one day being a singing star just means she shares something in common with, oh, 90% of the 12- to 15-year-olds in the country. She had no allusions of grandeur, no starry-eyed notions that it’d become a viral sensation. She figured that some friends and family would see it, and that’d be about it.
And for a while, she was right.
But guess what? It did become a viral sensation—for all the wrong reasons.
The post that really started it all, a quick blog missive from Comedy Central’s Tosh.0, slammed the song’s lyrics (written by the folks at Ark Music), imagining a conversation between singer and producer:
Rebecca Black: "Are you sure these are the lyrics you want me to sing?"
Producer: "What are you talking about?"
Rebecca Black: "This part where I just kinda slowly explain the ordering of the days of the week?"
Producer: "That's the hook, baby! We breakin' it down for the kids! They gonna know those days!!"
That spark set off an Internet inferno: Rebecca’s video has been seen more than 73 million times now, with YouTube recording about 3 million more views every day. More than 5,000 videos lampooning “Friday” share space with Rebecca’s official rendition, some snagging upwards of a million views themselves. Rebecca’s innocent little ditty has become the most despised video on YouTube, snagging a record 1.2 million “dislikes” and supplanting Justin Bieber’s “Baby.” Many have ripped the song, the video and Rebecca herself in the comments (one saying that “even deaf people are complaining”). The worst, she told Good Morning America, was the one that said, “I hope you cut yourself and I hope you get an eating disorder so you’ll look pretty, and I hope you go cut and die.”
She admitted on the show that she cried after reading some of the comments, and later told thedailybeast.com that “At times, it feels like I’m being cyberbullied.”
Rebecca’s strange plight inspired a little introspection on my part—particularly after reading about another YouTube video by another 13-year-old teen—one who said that she’s bullied every day at her Connecticut school. In the video, she holds up signs spelling out the words she hears other people call her—”fat,” “freak,” “ugly” and many we can’t print. “Think before you say things,” she says via another handmade sign. “It might save lives.”
Most of us would say the Connecticut girl is the victim of bullying. But what about Rebecca Black? As a 13-year-old girl who just wanted to make a video, should she be the subject of online hate? Or, because she obviously put the video out there to be seen and, presumably, commented on, does that open her up for whatever comes?
Back when I was in high school and college, the lines between a public and private figure were more delineated than they appear to be now. If you were a public figure, you were subject to satire. If you were a private individual, you were protected from defamation. If Saturday Night Live makes fun of Madonna, that’s satire: If it mocks my next-door neighbor, that’s defamation.
Unless, of course these days, my next-door neighbor posts a video on YouTube that goes viral. The online channel is filled with nobodies who became somebodies—public figures—through the process of the Internet’s viral nature: the double-rainbow guy, the lady who fell into the fountain while texting, the cute kid in “David After Dentist.”
Does posting a video on YouTube make you a de facto public figure? Or is it more a matter of pragmatism? Death threats or wishes, even directed at a Paris Hilton or Charlie Sheen, would be inappropriate … but when those issuing the threats are hidden in the nameless, faceless Internet, perhaps not much can be done. You can’t bring a suit against the World Wide Web.
Whether bullied or not, Rebecca seems to be taking the attention in stride. When Ark Music offered to take the video down, she refused—saying she didn’t want to give the haters the satisfaction. Whether by accident or design, she is a public figure now, and she’s leveraging her 15 minutes of fame on national talk shows and hoping to snag a record deal. “I think that’s an accomplishment,” Rebecca told The Daily Mail of “Friday.” “Even a person that doesn’t like it, it’s going to be stuck in their head. That’s the point of it, it’s a catchy song.”
All of which makes me think Rebecca’s going to be just fine, even if she doesn’t become a lasting star. The fact that she’s chosen to make lemonade out of the lemons she’s been given speaks well to her resiliency.
So what if the lemonade could fill a few swimming pools?
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