Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
First there was Beiberfever, and now, the Black Plague.
And as much as I tried to put off watching the video that has made Rebecca Black infamous, Friday jokes permeated my existence so much so that I conceded.
Criticism apart, if you can hand one thing to Rebecca Black is that her video is the epitome of viral; you can literally watch the number of views climbing every second.
But Black has become infamous for all the wrong reasons, her 'single' Friday apart from gathering two million dislikes, is also being tooted as the 'worst song ever', raking in hurtful criticism and scathing reviews.
That's a bit over the top when you consider Black is just 13, not even in high school. And, now she has become one of the world's most cyber-bullied teen, stung with the acid tongue of hundreds of people worldwide. So, life for Rebecca Black is not all fun, fun, fun, fun.
I'm not going to lie; the heavily auto-tuned, senseless lyrics don't help her cause. I would stand up for her hadn't she started singing about her cereal. But some of the comments about her are just too much. No one has the right to tell her to 'cut herself' or 'get an eating disorder' or to send her death threats. She's just a teenager; hardly able to keep her normal life together, without the need to battle with virtual harassment.
But rubbish lyrics or not, Friday has undoubtedly made Rebecca Black a star. She's already had her song being repeatedly played on the radio, made it to the Billboard charts, appeared on Jay Leno, has a publicist and manager and an official website. From an eighth grader to an internet sensation to the music industry's newest spotlight stasher, Black shouldn't be wondering about which seat she should take; if she keeps it up and makes a single for every day of the week, she'll have a private jet all to herself.
As Black herself puts it, 'she's not the best singer, but she's not the worst singer either'. And, she's already planning a debut album, one of her songs being entitled 'LOL'. So, it doesn't look like Black is backing down.
Unscathed by criticism and ridicule, the teenager appears to keep her head high and continue to produce digitally-synthesized records, hoping to rake in 92 million views like Friday did.
So as the face of the new generation, Black continues to sing about internet jokes, getting to the bus stop and driving cars. And, as for all the internet prowlers, ready with their biting remarks; they're waiting and watching, gleefully chanting We so excited.
So the real question is - should we let this happen? Can we really let a mere 13-year-old take on the big, bad world and thrust her into the spotlight to be laughed at, for our own sadistic entertainment? Do we have a right to unleash ravenous, vicious critics on to someone who willingly sells her voice? Should we let anyone become a singer and patch their voices up with auto-tune and let them sell records?
I think there's very little we can do anymore. Rebecca Black is in it too far. Bad vocals or not, there's no backing out now. If there's one thing she should be proud of is her superpower of deflecting so much hatred. But, nevertheless, if she doesn't change her game, she's not going to keep a hold on the last strands of support she has from her few followers and other musicians.
At the end of the day, she made the gamble, she seems to like the attention, she chose to face the music, she continues to do so - so Rebecca Black, you better be ready, because you're sure to be looking forward to a lot more than just the weekend.
FRIDAY is a song written by Clarence Jey and Patrice Wilson, and performed by Rebecca Black, a 13-year-old American singer. It was released as a single on March 14.
The music video for the song became a viral hit due to criticism of the song's lyrics, the use of Auto-Tune on Black's vocals, and the content of the video. On March 11 the video's view count on YouTube was about 4,000. As of this week it had over 95 million views, over 1.9 million comments, and over 1.9 million 'dislikes' from YouTube.
It has been noted that as of April 10 the video was receiving an average rate of 500 comments a minute, approximately two million dislikes, and around two million comments (mostly criticisms) which are all world records for a Youtube video.
