# Rebecca Black "Friday" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 25, 2011, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951 "2011-03-25T12:08:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951/81 "2011-03-26T01:56:23Z")
I think I’d like to see her tackle the important issue of what to wear by declaring that [nothing suits her like a suit.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_LUPyxYRPc)😃 ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951/82 "2011-03-26T02:09:26Z")
What is there to discuss about one of YouTube’s Most Discussed Videos of All Time? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Biggirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biggirl/32/3294_2.png) [@Biggirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biggirl)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951/83 "2011-03-26T02:34:06Z")
Aw, she’s cute as a button. That song is not any worse than Rihanna’s [S&M](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdS6HFQ_LUc) and a million times better than [Far East’s Like A G6](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4s6H4ku6ZY). ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951/84 "2011-03-26T03:06:23Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > Aw, she’s cute as a button. That song is not any worse than Rihanna’s [S&M](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdS6HFQ_LUc) and a million times better than [Far East’s Like A G6](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4s6H4ku6ZY). I only know “Like a G6” from _Glee_, and when that episode aired I spent most of the number trying to figure out the connection to [European politics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G6_%28EU%29). “I guess those are all countries where people drink a lot…” Wikipedia [set me straight](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Like_a_G6), not that the real explanation makes much sense! Anyway, there was [a piece in Salon](http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/03/21/songs_worse_friday_rebecca_black_lady_gaga_ke_ha/index.html) the other day about how plenty of popular songs are at least as dumb as “Friday”: > [@Salon](#): > > …when Rebecca sings about days of the week, she gets universally criticized. When Bieber sings the word “Baby” approximately 100 times, he gets nominated for a Grammy. At least “Friday” could be used in elementary schools as a learning tool. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951/85 "2011-03-26T03:19:43Z")
> [@Walmarticus](#): > > [mean sonofabitch] If you suck at something and do it in public, you’re gonna get mocked. She’s a much better meme than a musician. [/mean sob] Why? Why does a 13 year old girl, who presumably hasn’t tortured any small animals or children recently, have to be mocked? Can’t she just live her dream for 15 minutes?? ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Lendervedder](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_lendervedder/32/8488_2.png) [@Happy\_Lendervedder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Lendervedder)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951/86 "2011-03-26T03:23:41Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > Why? > > Why does a 13 year old girl, who presumably hasn’t tortured any small animals or children recently, have to be mocked? Can’t she just live her dream for 15 minutes?? Take away the mocking and you’ve taken away her 15 minutes. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951/87 "2011-03-26T03:53:03Z")
What makes this so goddamn irritating is Rebecca’s complete listlessness. There’s nomlife in her expression, voice, or physical performance at all. This is the kind of thing that kids do for each other. It shouldn’t be distributed to the general public. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951/88 "2011-03-26T04:34:56Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > What makes this so goddamn irritating is Rebecca’s complete listlessness. There’s nomlife in her expression, voice, or physical performance at all. This is the kind of thing that kids do for each other. It shouldn’t be distributed to the general public. It’s too bad you were held at gun point and forced to watch it. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951/89 "2011-03-26T05:20:59Z")
What and miss out on an internet touchstone? ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951/90 "2011-03-26T10:14:52Z")
> [@ArchiveGuy](#): > > Ladies and Gentlemen, that would be **Hello Goodbye** whose lyrics are exceptionally stupid and banal, which has no musical or peformance value whatsoever, and was made late enough in their careers that they had no good excuse. Accepted. Though I’d rather listen a hundred times to _Hello Goodbye_ than once more to _Friday_, this was definitely more embarrassing for a 25 years old McCartney than _Friday_ is for a 13 years old girl. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951/91 "2011-03-26T11:14:20Z")
> [@Tanbarkie](#): > > I find the level of hate this video is getting perplexing - especially since, at least among the people I’ve spoken with IRL, it seems to be largely coming from people who otherwise adore auto-tuned, four on the floor dance pop trash. Because, despite your disdain for the genre, there are in fact differing levels of quality within it. Exhibit: [Pack Up Your Troubles](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB0BwYivtLk) by Eliza Doolittle. It has a cheesy tune, vapid lyrics, and a touch of autotune. But she can sing, it’s very well produced, and thus it’s really entertaining. As well as being a virulent Ohrwurm. Ms Black’s outing has none of these at all. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951/92 "2011-03-26T11:14:47Z")
I think that “Teach me how to Dougie” song should also be added to the list of famous songs that are worse than “Friday”. The only times when the Dougie song is entertaining would be in the video where the guy gets hit by an ice cream truck(!), and when my co-workers were dancing in chem warfare gear to it (I work with eccentric people). Otherwise, it’s just some annoying bland song where this guy mumbles the same words over and over again. ---
**Author:** ![Hallucinex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ba9def/32.png) [@Hallucinex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hallucinex)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951/93 "2011-03-26T11:39:05Z")
One seventh of the rest of my life… ruined. ---
**Author:** ![enomaj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/59ef9b/32.png) [@enomaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enomaj)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951/94 "2011-03-26T13:21:14Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > Nah, they did have a scene together in California Girls. Snoop Dogg and his Gummi Bears face off against Katy and her girls, and Katy goes whipped cream akimbo on the Gummi Bears. > > It’s really a bizarre music video once you try to describe it. I stand corrected but Friday does look like you switched to BET for a minute and then back to the Disney Channel. I also think those lyrics are too awful not to be written on purpose. Probably a goof by the songwriters. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951/95 "2011-03-26T13:45:01Z")
> [@enomaj](#): > > I stand corrected but Friday does look like you switched to BET for a minute and then back to the Disney Channel. I also think those lyrics are too awful not to be written on purpose. Probably a goof by the songwriters. I do see that quite a bit though. Actually, I want to say I’ve even seen the inverse: Song done by a black performer which will have an interlude done by Justin Timberlake. But really, the “Guest Singer” thing seems pretty common in modern music. I even see it a lot in country music. Sometimes complete with a black guy rapping, if you are a fan of Big and Rich (Cowboy Troy pops up in their songs from time to time, and they show up in his stuff in turn). ---
**Author:** ![Curious3d](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Curious3d](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Curious3d)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951/96 "2011-03-26T13:45:41Z")
Did [Chocolate Rain](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA) kid take this much flak? I seem to remember people were more good-natured when commenting on his uh, performance. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951/97 "2011-03-26T14:07:27Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > Aw, she’s cute as a button. That song is not any worse than Rihanna’s [S&M](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdS6HFQ_LUc) and a million times better than [Far East’s Like A G6](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4s6H4ku6ZY). No, it is worse. It’s a LOT worse than any Rihanna song, and I’d argue the G6 song, while very stupid, at least has a better video. See, I don’t think people are slagging on Rebecca Black (well, people on Youtube and 4chan might be but they’d slag on Albert Schweitzer.) What makes people especially irritated about this song is that it’s an extraordinarily extreme case of the cynicism of manufactured pop music. All pop music’s manufactured, of course, to one degree or another, but usually there’s a level of quality in some regard that lets you enjoy the production and suspend your awareness of its artificiality. Watch one of those Done With Dolls videos - it’s all manufactured, but you at least get to enjoy the kids actually playing their own instruments with a reasonable level of skill, singing in human voices, and seeming to enjoy it. Or in the case of the already-posted example of Eliza Doolittle’s “Pack Up Your Troubles,” vapid though it might be, it’s a fun, well produced video and a reasonably catchy song. In the case of “Friday,” however, it’s so bad in every respect - shitty music, shitty lyrics, shitty video, and a really untalented star - and so horribly cliched and fake, with the rapper, the insane level of Autotune, the phony-baloney urban lines (“we so excited!”) that you can’t for a second pretend it isn’t wholly artificial. “Friday” is the music video version of vanity publishing, except in this case it’s like vanity publishing a 12-year-old’s Twilight fanfic. People are, I believe, reacting to that phoniness; we all swallow a lot of pop bullshit but this is pop bullshit taken five steps too far and so it’s getting hammered for that. I don’t think any intelligent person has a problem with Rebecca Black personally; we don’t really know anything about her, and anyway she’s 13 and just a child and so who knows what her personality actually is. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951/98 "2011-03-26T14:36:08Z")
Well, it _is_ vanity publishing. If her interviews are to be believed (and really, no reason not to believe them), they never really thought many folks would take interest in it. It was just a fun thing that her friends and family could watch online and be entertained by. It would have been a bit weird, taking that into account, if the whole thing had been Grammy quality. ---
**Author:** ![The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_wind_of_my_soul)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951/99 "2011-03-26T14:38:30Z")
> [@multimediac17](#): > > Wouldn’t it be amazing if she carved out a legitimate career for herself from this? I’m rooting for this. She sang without the aid of auto-tune on Good Morning America ([link](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aATA60Vq6xo)), and I would dare to say that while she’s no Christina Aguilera, she _can_ sing. A lot of what was wrong with that video wasn’t her fault (she didn’t write the song or overly-produce it), and what _was_ her fault (monotone acting and voice) can easily be worked on as she matures. ---
**Author:** ![Death\_of\_Rats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a6a055/32.png) [@Death\_of\_Rats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Death_of_Rats)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2011, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951/100 "2011-03-26T15:03:22Z")
> [@Pyper](#): > > How much “partyin’ partyin’” do sheltered 8th graders from Orange County really do on a Friday night? Based on the lyrics, I would guess that most of it is spent learning the order of the days of the week. Next year, she will start working on the proper pronuciation of them. 😃 New Rule: If your voice requires that much Auto-tune and you are not named T-pain, it is time to consider Chartered Accountancy as a future. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rebecca-black-friday/575951.md?page=6)