On the morning of Friday, March 11th, Internet humor site The Daily What posted a link to “Friday,” a music video by Rebecca Black, a thirteen-year-old singer-songwriter from California. The song is a train wreck: nasal, flat, and auto-tuned vocals spewing absolute nonsense over a tinny backbeat of pre-canned drums and synthesizers. At one point the singer rhymes the word bowl with the word cereal. In four days, the video went from having less than three thousand views to six million. Blogs have declared the tune “the worst song ever recorded” and the general reaction on Youtube is “omg” and “wtf.”
wtf indeed. Our disbelief of the sincerity and severity of these moments is what drives us to watch: not only do we want to see the unbelievable, we want others to not believe it as well. How crazy. I know, right? There’s a reason why the majority of identity phishing sites lure with a caption of: “OMG you won’t believe what happens when…”
And yet when we view something as wretched as “Friday,” we can picture ourselves in that situation. Certainly, we have written melodramatic poems in our Xangas when we were fourteen years old, recorded dance routines, and drunk philosophized to a videophone—but when viewing “Friday,” we can make the claim that we never took it this far. Look how serious she is singing the days of the week and reiterating how the fun she’s having is the most fun fun. How ridiculous.
On the same day, the evening of Friday, March 11th, the Internet again rushed to inform others of the unbelievable: this time the circulation of video footage of Tokyo after being hit by an 8.9 magnitude earthquake—something we could never fathom happening to us. We cannot imagine a wall of water. Tomorrow is Saturday, and Sunday comes afterwards, as always.
I think this might be aesthetic blasphemy, but I actually kind of like the “Yeahs” from the crowd in the chorus.
I still prefer “Chocolate Rain” though. It’s the first video I think of when I hear the phrase, “viral video.” I think it was actually the first viral video I was aware of.
I wonder if everyone associates one specific video with the term “viral” or if it’s just me.
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