Rebecca Black Beats Bieber and Britney
It’s official: Rebecca Black is more popular than both Justin Bieber and Britney Spears. By iTunes’ standards, that is. According to forbes.com, “Friday,” the 13-year-old’s debut single, “amassed a staggering number of downloads, reportedly topping 2 million” only a week after its release. The fun, fun, fun song gained near-instantaneous notoriety for being, well, really bad. As everyone with a computer is probably already aware, “Friday” deals with such prominent issues as choice of breakfast cereal and vehicular seating arrangements – on a Friday, of course. (Re)watch the video below, but be warned that the song is as addictive as it is lyrically uninspired.
More than anything, this shows the incredible, nebulous potential of interactive video-sharing sites. YouTube is inundated with content, much of it overlooked in favor of videos with the highest view count. But when something grabs viewers’ attention – such as a catchy song of unparalleled mediocrity – it has the potential to explode into prominence due to the social, accessible nature of such sites; parodies of Rebecca Black’s video, one of which was my first exposure to the viral sensation, are everywhere. And YouTube isn’t the only social media site suffering from “Friday”-overload. Twitter is all a chatter with mentions of Rebecca Black, who continues to be a trending topic.
Judging from the content of its website, Ark Music Factory – the company that produced “Friday” – is exactly what the name implies: a mass-marketing manufacturer of indistinguishable, pint-sized pop stars. The record label is currently promoting “Butterflies” by Alana Lee, “the girl who introduced Rebecca Black to Ark Music Factory.” As shown below, her song and video follow the same formula as “Friday:” simple, repetitive lyrics + peppy tween girl + incongruous appearance by older male rapper = viral success in the making.
