Beverley Cheng's Blog

Rebecca Black. Alexandra Wallace. (Better known as the broad from UCLA who had some insensitive words to say about the Asian population at her school). These two names had no meaning to anyone just over two weeks ago. Now they are two of the most widely talked about names due to their videos that were posted on youtube.com.

Rebecca Black was founded by Ark Entertainment, a music production group that seeks young teens and hopes to turn them into pop stars. Although the attention, media and gossip was there, it was for all the WRONG reasons. Rebecca Black’s video and song “Friday,” sparked so much attention that within a couple days there was over 18 million hits on Youtube. But viewers were watching and listening to it for the greatness of the song, but rather for its awful lyrics, hilarious video, and overall terrible production. Parody’s, news articles, replies, remixes and quotes from celebrities such as Simon Cowell were the result of Rebecca’s song.

Alexandra Wallace on the other hand posted a video of her frustrations with the Asian population at her school. Although she “meant for it to be funny,” it came off as insensitive, racist, and embarrassing for herself. On Youtube, thousands of viewers replied to her rant with videos of their own; some furious, some making fun of her and her ignorant video. It became such a large issue that she decided to leave UCLA to avoid anymore harassment and ‘being ostracized from an entire community.’

These two examples just go to show how much power there is in any social media. Youtube.com is the largest video website and within such a short period of time, it had the power to turn two unsuspecting girls into the most talked about subjects. This can be tied in with marketing, because it is so important to realize that with one wrong move, you can market yourself and your brand in a completely negative light. These two videos going viral in a small matter of time had the ability to change both Rebecca’s and Alexandra’s life and personal brand.

xB.