Obviously, “Which Seat Should I Take?” alluded to the pressures that today’s youth have to make decisions about life and friends, often without the help of their parents who are too busy working to give their kids the kind of guidance they need.
Nice. (Little surprised, honestly, that no one’s ragging me for buying the EMF album. Granted, it was 1 cent plus shipping on Amazon, but c’mon, EMF.) Going down the list:
Raguleader - Bieber has something like three albums (not including remixes) and a concert schedule that isn’t getting any hype. So he’s definitely a minor leaguer (I mentioned this in the thread I started about him). But even that’s far more than Black has done so far. The hatred for him may be overblown, but at least you can see where it’s coming from.
ministryman - I see where you’re coming from, but question: Do you honestly believe this is a recent phenomenon? During the disco era, there were scores of flashes in the pan who cashed in on a craze and then faded out of existence, and then MTV practically invented the term “one hit wonder”. If Internet makes this easier, why haven’t there been more “success” stories like Black?
monkeylucifer - Uh…that’s not how a Rickroll works. You’re supposed to claim it’s something other than Rick Astley (traditionally explicit or underage sex, but it can be anything, really). Just saying “Hey, look at this thing!” doesn’t count. No, no need to thank me, that’s what this board is for. 
Blaster Master - Ah. I get it. Family builds up hype, a few viewers bite on it, then in turn a bunch more viewers bite on it, and it goes viral, and it just snowballs from there. Very similar to the William Hung case, actually. It’s important to note that while the Internet era makes it easier for no-talents to hit it big, there still has to be customers willing to swallow it hook, line, and sinker. Someone willingly paid for those four Hung albums. If they didn’t want to waste money on a no-talent bum, they were perfectly free to do so.
As for My Moment, yeah, totally generic, but her voice actually has improved. A lot. That’s what happens when you’re actually trying.
typoink - I could understand that if this was a commercial release, as in, something these armchair critics PAID for. They didn’t. Indifference, bewilderment, maybe even disappointment, justifiable. Rabid hatred, no. And the ones who did shell out on ITunes knew exactly what they were getting. A calm discussion about vanity projects and Black’s musical prospects would’ve been nice (not unlike a calm discussion about the not-Ground Zero not-mosque).
Tangent - Thanks for the links (I knew about the first one but never caught the second), but I wasn’t trying to make another thread saying “Wow, this really sucks! / There sure are a lot of parodies!”. I know that. (P.S. “Like to dislike ratio” has about as much credence as the stupid judges on America’s Got Talent, especially when you factor in the YouTube mob mentality.)
njtt - Not going to argue this. I was shooting for “game-changing megastar”, no more, no less. Substitute The Beatles or Madonna or Shania Twain if you like.
Well, I liked Unbelievable. It’s the only song of theirs I’ve ever heard, but I DID like it.
I had the cassingle. 
Wow…so did I, now that you mention it.
I’m not sure I’d call Bieber a minor leaguer, but he definitely hasn’t “crossed over” the way the rest of the world’s biggest musicians have. Bieber is basically stuck on teenybopper radio and YouTube, so most of the world has never heard “Baby.”
Contrast with Adele, whose “Rolling in the Deep” is EVERYWHERE.
Oh, they’re ludicrously overreacting, but that’s just MkI Standard Issue Internet, right there.
Everything that ironically “goes viral” seems to elicit a bunch of bile, for myriad reasons. People love trollin’. People love spraying vindictive rants. People get jealous.
I don’t think Rebecca Black has seen much more hate or mockery than most other ecelebrities, but in her case I think it’s harsher because there’s no counterpoint. It’s hard to think of anything positive to say about Friday. You can barely even give it the usual “at least she’s working hard and creating something!” because it’s apparent that the whole production was basically purchased by upper-middle-class parents as a gift for their snowflake.
It’s not her fault, but.
I have yet to see/hear Rebecca Black in any form and wouldn’t recognize her if she passed me by on the street. I only know her from people talking about her, usually in a derogatory manner, so needless to say I agree with the OP. What’s the point of ragging on someone when it’s not their fault they got famous? I will take issue with a couple of the OP’s points though.
This may apply to Rebecca Black, but there are plenty of brilliant, world-class artists on YouTube with no record deal, concert schedule or marketing who are most definitely NOT Amateurs.
This may not apply to Rebecca Black but there’s plenty of brilliant, professional-quality music on YouTube, from people with no record deals, concert schedules or marketing, made by artists who find YouTube a haven to share their music.
Well, by one definition of the word, they are indeed amateurs if they are not making money through their music.
Who said they weren’t making money from their music? You can have no record deal, concert schedule or marketing and still make money via CD Baby, amazon, and other outlets.
It’s also a wry commentary on the lack of choice that today’s kids have. If you notice when the automobile arrives, a four-seater, all four seats are taken. She can’t very well sit between the driver and the shotgun, so she must squeeze in the back. Thank you Obama 
I believe you are misapplying the blame. It’s obvious that the responsibility for her lack of choices is due to the irresponsible decisions made by the automotive industry (hence, a car representing her lack of choice).
I may as well admit it, I heard the song so many times that I actually started to like it.
I genuinely like “Friday”. It isn’t high art, but it is fun. There are way, way, way worse songs out there.
Good question…
Perhaps it’s the sheer number of wannabees that post videos to Youtube; you can only watch so much before your ears get tired.
I think that you will see more people head over to the Ark Factory to roll the dice. The four grand RB’s parents spent was, in retrospect, a good investment.
And it flies in the face of the old joke:
What did you do with the money?
What money?
The money your parents gave you for singing lessons.
Need to get back to own goddanged threads a little quicker. Anywheres…
I didn’t mean to insult any of the legitimate recording artists who are using YouTube as a vehicle or simply a way to get their foot in the door. Yes, I’ve read the stories about the wretched excesses of the RIAA; yes, I’ve seen official channels for several established pros (very good ones, too). Nontheless, YouTube is, at heart, a populist site (I know some megacorps are attempting to turn it into another soulless cash machine, but they’re fighting a 16-headed hydra here), where shakycam home videos rub shoulders with cheesy Mexican movie trailers. If this is ALL ya got, I ain’t payin’ retail for your next album, is all I’m saying.
Y’know what, maybe that’s what’s causing all the confusion here. The viewers see something that looks like an MTV music video, so they judge it like an actual production, not the overpriced on-a-lark project it is. You have this site that has legit music videos (most of them holdovers from the MTV era), and it’s simply impossible to convince this crowd that this isn’t one of them. (And then the nail in the coffin arrives in the form of approximately 75,000 misguided parodies, every single one of them missing the point that it’s only worth parodying if it’s big and successful. There’s a reason Weird Al Yankovic passed on this, guys.)
So in conclusion, the lesson is that the Internet can get really, really stupid at times. No surprise there, I guess.
Can I hijack this thread to ask a question.
In the video, are the other kids Rebecca Blacks actual friends, or just extras?
I would assume in a video they would cast extras, but the kids just look so bloody awkward, especially the two trying to dance standing on the back seat of the car. Surely they wouldn’t cast such goofy looking people, are they her real friends?
The point, though, is that it’s a meme. The meme isn’t “Rebecca Black”. The meme is “Rebecca Black sucks”. You never had one without the other – Rebecca Black was nothing and then she was epic suck, that’s it. This wasn’t a response to a popular thing – it was just a shitty thing that people loved to hate, so much so became incredibly popular because of how much people mocked it.
Why her? Why “Friday”? Granted it sucks, and is ridiculous, and has a lot of weak areas that are fun and easy to mock. Beyond that, though? If you could figure out how to make a meme stick, you’d be a gazillionaire. It just takes hold in certain areas of the internet, e.g. 4chan, and then people start posting it and reposting it, and it just catches on. It just takes one guy to link to a video on one of these big meme-generating imageboards and communities. Granted, tens of thousands of things get posted that never get up to meme status, and of popular memes, very few actually make it to public consciousness. 99.999% of attempted memes are unfunny and shit themselves; once in awhile something sticks, and the Internet basically decided it was fun to make fun of Rebecca Black.
(Don’t feel bad for her. She’s raking it in.)
Sorry. I will feel bad for anyone who had to leave school for bullying, no matter how much money they make. When a meme crosses the lines into death threats in real life, it’s not just a meme anymore. If I had her money, I’d be doing the exact same thing she is: making songs to point out that everyone who wants me dead is actually helping my career. It’s win-win: either that will upset them and get you more money, or they will understand it and stop, meaning you will be treated better.
buck: Yes, those are Black’s friends. She specifically got them to be extras in it. This is actually one of the best indications that she wasn’t really serious about this. This was just a vanity project.
That’s not to say that she didn’t want to become a pop singer. The ad was specifically stated that it might help you become the next pop star, and she is upfront about wanting to be one when she grew up. In fact, the reason the video was released on YouTube was that the company thought she stood the most chance of becoming popular. From what I can tell, Black herself did not expect the video to be published at first, and just wanted it as part of her resume, while also a fun thing for her and her friends. But when the company offered to make it public, claiming that she might be an Internet sensation, what aspiring singer in their right mind wouldn’t go for it?
Finally, my own opinion is that the video is amazingly good–for what was spent on it. In fact, that’s the problem. It’s too good for people to take it to be an amateur production, but too bad to be accepted as even bad pop. What’s annoying to me is that it wouldn’t have taken much to make it qualify as pop: just better use of Auto-Tune and telling Black to sing more naturally, and not in her nasal approximation of a pop voice. (She is a good enough singer for pop when she’s not trying to be.) If she was the good part of the video, I think people would have been more forgiving.
BTW, my real favorite part is that the way people are treating her means that the famous musicians and actors feel sorry for her. If she was famous for actually singing good pop, she wouldn’t get anywhere near the stuff she’s getting.
I find it funny the OP was posted on a Friday. Wait a second. I am replying on a Friday 
I mean really. Is she really any worse than any other pop singer? The hate of someone I don’t even know who has not committed an atrocious act against another is not worth the energy IMHO.
I haven’t seen her or heard her, AFAIK.
Is she the same chick there was a thread about a few weeks back on how she married some washed up country singer 3 times her age? And how she looked 35? If so, I guess I have seen her.
It would help me to judge her better if there were naked pics of her somewhere.