Hi!

I still feel really weird being back.
Okay, so there's this new internet video being called "The Worst Thing On The Internet". It's this girl's music video:

Rebecca Black is 13 years old and from Orange County, California.She is being blasted with criticism and internet-nastinesss due to the extreme autotuning, simple lyrics and just all around strangeness of her music video.
Look her up on Wikipedia for more info.

She is part of this music group called Ark Music Factory. Parents pay this company $2000 for professionals to write a song  and record a music video, in hopes that their children will become "discovered" and be pop stars. Black is the most famous artist they've  had.

So it all sounds good, except for the fact that the kids seem to be lacking in the uh, talent department. In most cases, I think the $2000 would have been better spent on vocal lessons. Watch this video of the "talented kids opening night", sans Autotune.

So Ark is one of the most controversial topics in pop culture right now. People say that they make a big deal of kids and parents who are just looking for attention, and in the meantime make a lot of money out of wannabe kids and their parents with deep wallets. What do you think? You can look at some of the other "music videos" from other similar kids as well.

In a way, it is working. Black is going to be appearing on national TV among other outlets. So she's becoming famous-but many people say it's for all the wrong reasons. After watching some of the videos, reading articles, and looking at the website, what do you think?
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/03/14/rebecca_black_friday_horror/
read this one^^
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Black
http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/03/14/rebecca-blacks-bizarrely-bad-video-for-friday-is-this-for-real/
http://blogs.reuters.com/fanfare/2011/03/16/teen-girls-pop-video-mercilessly-dissected-by-internet-masses/

My favorite article, however, is this one left on Graphjam by Brian H....

I think that most of you are missing the deep meaning and subtext in this video. Let us examine the lyrics and scenes from the video to discern these elusive but substantial messages hidden within Rebecca Black’s “Friday”

Lyrics:

Yeah, Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-Ark)

Oo-ooh-ooh, hoo yeah, yeah

Yeah, yeah

Yeah-ah-ah

Yeah-ah-ah

Yeah-ah-ah

Yeah-ah-ah

Yeah, yeah, yeah

[Rebecca Black - Verse 1]

7am, waking up in the morning

Gotta be fresh, gotta go downstairs

Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal

Seein’ everything, the time is goin’

Tickin’ on and on, everybody’s rushin’

Gotta get down to the bus stop

Gotta catch my bus, I see my friends (My friends)

Kickin’ in the front seat

Sittin’ in the back seat

Gotta make my mind up

Which seat can I take?

It’s Friday, Friday

Gotta get down on Friday

Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend

Friday, Friday

Gettin’ down on Friday

Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend

Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)

Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)

Fun, fun, fun, fun

Lookin’ forward to the weekend

[Rebecca Black - Verse 2]

7:45, we’re drivin’ on the highway

Cruisin’ so fast, I want time to fly

Fun, fun, think about fun

You know what it is

I got this, you got this

My friend is by my right

I got this, you got this

Now you know it

Kickin’ in the front seat

Sittin’ in the back seat

Gotta make my mind up

Which seat can I take?

[Chorus]

It’s Friday, Friday

Gotta get down on Friday

Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend

Friday, Friday

Rebecca Black Friday lyrics found on http://www.directlyrics.com/rebecca-black-friday-lyrics.html

Gettin’ down on Friday

Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend

Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)

Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)

Fun, fun, fun, fun

Lookin’ forward to the weekend

[Bridge]

Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday

Today i-is Friday, Friday (Partyin’)

We-we-we so excited

We so excited

We gonna have a ball today

Tomorrow is Saturday

And Sunday comes after…wards

I don’t want this weekend to end

[Rap Verse]

R-B, Rebecca Black

So chillin’ in the front seat (In the front seat)

In the back seat (In the back seat)

I’m drivin’, cruisin’ (Yeah, yeah)

Fast lanes, switchin’ lanes

Wit’ a car up on my side (Woo!)

(C’mon) Passin’ by is a school bus in front of me

Makes tick tock, tick tock, wanna scream

Check my time, it’s Friday, it’s a weekend

We gonna have fun, c’mon, c’mon, y’all

[Chorus]

It’s Friday, Friday

Gotta get down on Friday

Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend

Friday, Friday

Gettin’ down on Friday

Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend

Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)

Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)

Fun, fun, fun, fun

Lookin’ forward to the weekend

It’s Friday, Friday

Gotta get down on Friday

Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend

Friday, Friday

Gettin’ down on Friday

Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend

Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)

Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah)

Fun, fun, fun, fun

Lookin’ forward to the weekend.

Analysis:

The lyrics for the opening consist of two words: “oh” and “yeah.” These express the persona’s overall optimism towards life in a non-specific and meaningless way, which will be explored later in the song. They also serve to warm the listener up for the complex wordplay that follows.

These lyrics play over a simple calendar, in which the first date, Friday (without any hint as to which month or year) has the subheading “Ark Music Factory.” This conjures up images of the Noah’s Ark story, suggesting that Friday may be the only saving grace against the deluge that threatens to destroy the persona’s sanity every other day of the week (or at least severely depress her mood). The reasons for this are explained in the following notepad days.

On the notepad, Sunday references the need to study, Tuesday notes that there is still more homework to be done, and Wednesday hold nothing but music practice and the suggestion to “Listen to Wednesday’s Song,” suggesting some achievement pressures from her parents and, likely, some obsessive-compulsive traits due to the number of times the reminder on Monday was written. Shortly after Sunday’s note appears, the persona is animated on to the notepad, with a pencil shading effect, which shows how trapped the persona feels in her daily life, always focusing on school. Her ambivalence towards Monday (Just another Manic Monday), the feeling that Tuesday is simply “Gone with the Wind,” and the sad, sad sun tragically observing Thursday’s essay assignment suggests that the days of the week hold little meaning for her.

However, Friday’s notepad entry is showered with praise, and things finally begin to brighten up and change to color. As the video and lyrics then show her early morning routine, her voice, along with sounding robotic, is curiously detached from her mouth and every shot has a jerky quality, perhaps showing her disconnect from everything around her. The cruel reality of waking up at 7 A.M. and “everybody’s rushin” have taken their toll on her, making her bland optimism seem as routine as her daily life.

She only lights up when her friends show up in a convertible, indicative of their relative affluence and of their complete lack of parental guidance. None of the teenagers seem to have any intention of putting on their seatbelts. And of course, her fear and social paralysis brought about by her focus on school prevents her from making the simple choice of sitting in the only open seat in a five seat convertible.

As she discusses her love of Friday, with all of its parties and “getting down,” her friends all bob their heads in time to the music from the car speakers, as well as one boy in the backseat who simply cannot keep time to save his life. Most of the friends, based on this scene, actually seem ambivalent to Black’s character, as she does all of the talking and they simply listen and bob to the music, forcing smiles when they have to. Combined with the lyrical content, this scene casts a light on the side of Black’s character that wants to be the party girl and be popular, perhaps influenced by her choice of friends, who only speak to her when she mentions parties, responding with a hearty “Yeah!”

On their way to said party at 7:45, her driver well exceeding the speed limit and her friends dangerously standing up in the car on the highway, she breaks down a little, making sure that “my friend is by my right,” and that “I got this, you got this.” She clearly has heard of the dangers of alcohol and unprotected sex, and nervously assures herself that everything will be fine. She repeatedly thinking about the fun she’ll have as another coping strategy. She even points at the camera, suggesting that the viewer had better watch her back too, and wonders about which seat to take in a car that she is already in, obviously a mental mistake or, at worst, a hallucination.

The party scene itself seems threatening, with girls getting drawn off the screen with multiple boys tracking them, and Black herself getting hit on in her hallucinogenic haze. Apparently this fun was not what she had in mind. As her mind deteriorates even more, she repeats to herself what little she knows about life for certain: yesterday was Thursday; today is Saturday; tomorrow is Saturday; Sunday comes after that. the video shows her smiling face, ironically, flickering between an upright and about a 45 degree displacement to the left, another sign of mental atrophy. Her grammar and syntax also takes a hit: “we so excited” is missing a verb.

Interestingly, the choice of lighting in the following scene, blue and red, suggests an off-scene crackdown on the party. The black rapper’s scene following so close after can’t be a coincidence. Maybe he was the supplier of the alcohol or any illegal substances, or perhaps a child predator who happened to show up at the party after evading the cops, which may the mentioned cars he is switching lanes and driving fast to avoid. His urge to scream as he comes up to a school bus (running so late at night, it must be a sports team) supports the child predator theory, if that scream was one of ecstacy and not one of frustration for being late to deliver his drugs to the party.

The remainder of the video simply follows up on the storylines already established.

See what you were missing out on?

So what do you think?