Since You Asked: What Is A "Rebecca Black"?

On Fridays, we take requests. A reader writes: “It’s sad that I rely on your blog so much in order to have relevant things to say in conversations about recent viral videos. And I understand — one day is pretty quick to come up with something to say about this amazing tome of teen angst that picked up seven million views yesterday. But come on.”

Well, that email was from 30 hours ago, and now it has 16 million views on YouTube. So here is what we know. 13-year-old amateur Rebecca Black’s song “Friday,” which was a song purchased and recorded for two grand from a vanity label, is about how the week sucks. It’s a celebration of the end of school and work, and indoctrination to a future nation of low-paid worker-slaves. That’s reasonable! Its intended audience will “get down on Fridays,” as she sings, until we repeal the eight-hour work-day and the five-day work-week. Oh wait, Walmart already did! So she’s right on time.

More things to know:

• The lyrics are just as insipid as any of the recent work by Lady Gaga and Katy Perry. (I would add Madonna to that list!)

• It’s giving us a good look at Internet scorn. Which she’s taking in great stride, suggesting that perhaps it’s not acceptable for strangers to be telling her to go kill herself.

• It’s also a terrible moment for aspiring young people, who will get their parents to sink money into vanity projects that won’t get 16 million hits on YouTube.

• She’s also quickly becoming a brand. And guess what? She’s going to be sticking around. It’s an axiom of the attention economy that negative attention is also fame-creating!

• That damn song is horribly catchy. Listen if you dare.

Do you have a question for Fridays? You can always hit us up at notes at theawl dot com.