About
Rebecca Black is an amateur YouTube musician who soared into the public eye for her music video “Friday.” The song gained significant online notoriety in March 2011 for its monotonous lyrics accompanied by heavy use of auto-tune. According to Black’s profile on the Ark Music Factory website, she’s a 13-year-old aspiring entertainer who has “landed the lead role in her school musical, Oklahoma!”
Origin
The video clip was originally posted on YouTube in mid-February 2011. The music video gained notoriety during the second weekend in March, when the popular blog The Daily What posted the video on March 11th, 2011. From there, it was subsequently reblogged and shared on Tumblr, Twitter and various discussion forums. By March 15, the video had reached over 3 million views, by March 17, 10 million, with the single reaching the top 100 on iTunes.
According to CNN’s Marquees blog, the video was produced by Ark Music Factory, a California-based video company that was also behind similar teen-pop videos like Alana Lee’s “Butterflies” and Kaya’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Mind.”
The blog City Sound noted of the popularity the video has:
Is it sad? That depends on your point of view.
Is it hilarious that “Friday,” Ark Music Factory’s biggest hit, has gotten famous for being mercilessly made fun of on the internet? You bet it is.
As of March 16th, a Summer Tour is reportedly in the works.
Lyrics
The buzz arising from the video revolve mostly around the the content of the lyrics, such as:
Kickin’ in the front seat
Sittin’ in the back seat
Gotta make my mind up
Which seat can I take?
I got this, you got this
Now you know it
The break has notably been singled out:
Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday
Today is Friday, Friday (Partyin’)
…
Tomorrow is Saturday
And Sunday comes afterwards
Spread
On Twitter
On March 14th, 2011, “Rebecca Black” emerged to the top trending topics on Twitter:
Fried Egg
Clik here to view.
Several image macros have popped up with fried eggs photoshopped over Rebecca Black in reference to the way “Friday” sounds similar to “fried egg” in the song.
Interviews
The Daily Beast
On March 17th, Internet news blog The Daily Beast interviewed Rebecca and her production company Ark Music Factory about her unexpected online fame. According to the article, the 13 year old from Orange County, CA, was quite surprised by the negative reactions and hateful comments, but it didn’t faze her to pull her music video down from YouTube:
“Those hurtful comments really shocked me,” Black said yesterday in her first interview since the song came to dominate a certain quadrant of popular culture and crack the iTunes Top 100 singles chart this week, besting the likes of Bruno Mars and Justin Bieber. “At times, it feels like I’m being cyberbullied.”
…
Things, of course, got ugly with an outpouring of YouTube commenter Haterade that stunned Black and Ark Music gave her the choice to strike “Friday” from the site. Instead, she stuck to her guns. “I decided not to give the haters the satisfaction that they got me so bad I gave up,” Black said.
Good Morning America
On March 18th, Rebecca also appeared on ABC Good Morning America to share some of the hateful comments her video has drawn, as well as an acoustic performance of “Friday”:
Awkward Dancing Girl Speaks Out
Benni Crinkle, also known as the “awkward dancing friend”, uploaded this video on March 18 in response to the overwhelming number of animated GIFs of her making the rounds on Tumblr. The video was posted to Reddit on March 19th.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Derivatives
Deadmau5 remix
Unplugged Version
Chipmunk Version
Bob Dylan-like Version
Friday Movie Mashup
Friday, Baby (Jessica Black / Justin Beiber Acoustic Mashup)
Dimitri Finds Out Today is Friday
A meme cross-over with “Dimitri Finds Out About X”