“Fun. Fun. Think about fun. You know what it i-is”. – Rebecca Black, “Friday”.
Fun? What? Fun? Wait. Fun? Why?! Um. ”Fun? Fun? Think about…fun?”
Sure, I know what that is. It’s…? "I need to find my Dictionary.."
Ok, so dictionary.com defines 'fun' as “something that provides mirth or amusement”.
Um? That circular definition is not my idea of fun. As if. I really do not have time to find me any mirth right now, nor do I have any extra space left in my mind to “think about fun”. Stuff that stupid, stupid song and that horrid little girl! Why is it in my head? I don’t even know. Why? OmG!!!
*internalised anguish to the tune of “Friday” ensues*
Well, that was fun! See? That was a very (hypothetical) appropriate (and sour) adult reaction to the 'thought provoking' lyrical content of stupid (sweet?) little 13-year-old teeny-bopper Rebecca Black’s debut single “Friday”—that number that we all know and just love to hate.
You’re probably “rushin'” around; all busy ‘being busy’ and stuff. And, you might not feel like you’ve got the mental capacity to be having any 'fun' at present. But, take a second to think about it: 'fun'. It’s a pretty nice thought—and you do know what it is!
You can find fun. You can buy fun. You can sell fun. You can try fun. You can take fun. You can make fun. You can even be fun. The access list is endless, yet ever debatable. Do you really know what ‘fun’ is?
Pursuits of 'fun' can be social or solitary, healthy or unhealthy, cheap or expensive, short, long, nice or nasty—you know that. Unfortunately, in our busy, busy world, ‘making fun’ of others often appears to be the most efficient way to achieve our own sense of 'fun' with little cost to our own sense of worth—especially if we’re a part of a large and harmonious group of ‘fun makers’ with access to an easy target who isn’t likely to strike back when put into a compromising position.
Of course, in our efforts to be the mature adults that we should be, we usually don’t make overt fun of anyone around us without good reason—such behaviour is considered to be immature and frowned upon as unacceptable in our society [and we have reputations to uphold so that our resumes don’t require updating!].
So, what do we do? We personalise entertainment! By that I mean we actively choose (unless we’re led by others) to persecute certain characters in the media, usually on the basis of their shoddy work, what they look like or the things that they say. It’s fast, easy, preferably communal and totally anonymous—zero hesitation or subsequent guilt involved! [People with heaps of fame and fortune don’t need social acceptance to feel happy or have their own 'fun' anyway, right?].
Now, take a second to think about who or what we usually target so collectively. And, where is the 'fun' in 'making fun'? There isn’t much 'fun' left to work with once you’ve stripped teen-pop down and exposed its subjects—they're children (biologically at least).
The persecution of 'teen-pop' personalities, like Rebecca Black, not-so-beautifully illustrates how music can unite people and create a not-so-well-reasoned sense of community. Her mundane lyrics, heavily auto-tuned singing, rather ridiculous and evidently lip-synched music-video, all combined to make her song “Friday” so bad that it was, in a sense, good—going viral on Youtube and social media websites on March 11, 2011, just a month after it was released. Still, the backlash that flavoured the hysteria led me to believe that the real issue exists in the fact that “Friday” was so good that it was destined to be considered bad. Indeed, most music critics and viewers dubbed it “the worst song ever” and she received death-threats, even though its content was pleasantly innocuous and followed appropriate ‘teen-pop’ conventions perfectly.
Why should anyone want to hate or mock Rebecca Black? Could those people actually be mocking themselves?
We, We, We So(Un)Authentic:
Being an instance of ‘teen-pop’, “Friday” should have sold like teen spirit. Specifically designed for teen consumption in the usual top-down manner, the production was aptly generic, synthetic and ultra-catchy, thus loyal to the conventions of its genre. It was expected to become commercially successful because lots of people would like it (partially due to necessary over-promotion). Meanwhile, poor [yes, poor!] little Rebecca Black ticked almost all of the boxes required to become a successful teen-pop-star commodity—a bright voice, lovely-looks and unrelenting enthusiasm, only sex-appeal was lacking. Obviously performing from a script, she couldn’t have known that her disposal (a seemingly necessary part of the 'teen-pop-star' journey) would occur so early on in her 'career'.
Unfortunately, her every attempt at individuality and attitude failed—instead of sounding trendy, self-reference in the form of “we-we-we” just made her sound like an inarticulate (and possibly incontinent) retard and she looked like a girl who had been ripped straight off the set of High School Musical. It all seemed so fake and mechanical, apart from her pimple, though that is only one point of view.
In a failed attempt at universality, the production had Black presenting a whole bunch of things that we'd obviously seen and heard of before with (an unnecessary amount of) rather theatrical enthusiasm. It's not as if anything she said was that implausible (watching her get into a car driven by another 13-year-old is another matter). Seriously, her grip on common logic appeared to excel well above that of Jenna Rose in “ My Jeans” (she sang about adoring jeans, yet wore basically everything apart from jeans throughout most of the clip!) but her perpetually beaming face, repetition of phrase endings, use of girly inflections and repeated stating of the obvious, e.g. “To-day-it-is-Fri-day”...in a song called “Fri-day”, made it all seem quite silly. Despite her confidence and excitement, a lot of people just couldn't take her seriously (seriously).
The teeny-bopper storyline and presentation were likely to be deemed bland, formulaic and offensively typical by some at least, with redundant phrases like “Crusin' so fast, I want time to fly” accompanying a clearly simulated car ride. I'm sure that more than a few people might have felt that they could get much more creative at home with GarageBand themselves, and we had probably heard enough songs about that blessed weekday already, e.g. “Friday I’m In Love”, “Friday on My Mind”, etc. Yet, Katy Perry would soon release “Last Friday Night – T.G.I.F”, featuring Black in the video, and we wouldn't judge her half as badly...
We-We-We So (In)Appropriate:
Rebecca Black was getting excited about what? The weekend? Really? Just the weekend with her girlfriends? Nothing else? Yes. Rebecca Black was only singing about how much she was looking forward to some harmless weekend fun with her friends. That's very different to Katy Perry's pop-tart take on a 'Friday', in which she thanks 'God' for nights of heavy-drinking, law-breaking, menage a trois' and Barbie-doll abuse. Perry's 'Friday fable' seems equally (if not more) ridiculous, but we seem to grant her permission and some amount of respect, despite her vulgarity because she is, presumably, a more level-headed adult.
I won't judge you for wondering which seat to take on this very weighty issue but it seems as if Rebecca Black appeared to be so 'good’ and naively forthright about her routine sources of excitement that she must have been stupid too. In contrast to mainstream pop-star Katy and sexier 'teen-stars' like Miley Cyrus (who likes to tell us about shaking her drastically underage hips at parties...in the USA), there really was nothing extreme, scandalous or even remotely interesting about outlining the days of the week or telling us how she woke up in the morning to eat cereal out of a bowl before she went to school (unless you're someone who is very sensitive to homophones or seriously fussy about breakfast food).
You can't really say that singing about breakfast, friends, school and fun isn't appropriate for a 13-year-old to be doing—it’s obviously more appropriate than listening to Miley sing about how she “Can’t Be Tamed” while dressed like an half-clothed Hippogriff in a cage [not that Hippogriffs really wear their feathers…]—but the inoffensive content didn't turn out to be appreciated at face-value by the wider audience on the internet, especially not in combination with the unconvincing video clip. Although young Miley’s unsuitably mature presentations are commonly criticised, the wider public seemed to find Rebecca Black’s mundane presentation much more unacceptable—maybe it left too much to the imagination?
We-We-We-So (Mis)Appropriate:
The “Friday” video-clip was almost immediately upstaged by parodies, dubs and remixes that derided, sexualised, spiritualised, masculinised and even politicised the content and Rebecca Black as a person (though some effortful cover versions did appear online and on TV too). Effectively, she accidentally became the most popular scapegoat for anyone’s, and almost everyone’s, ‘Friday-it-is’. Why?
Well, ok, yes. This seriously ‘older’ man (who looked something like Usher) did make a cameo in the clip. But, that commonly happens in videos these days! Everyone wants to get a cool-looking guy to do a bit of rapping in their clip! So, Rebecca Black had a rappist—wait—rapper in her video. You saw it. He rapped about a school bus. Nothing suss—it was quite studious! He was never depicted in same take anyway; he just knew her name and pursued her (supposed) bus [though I think she was riding in a car that her 13-year-old friend was driving, but I’m not sure…]. Totally normal. Well, pretty Normal. Maybe normal? O.M.G. She is only 13—could that be abnormal???
Some of the lyrics were also a little ambiguous, despite Black’s very purposeful articulation. Sure, we all understood that she 'got up' on a Friday to consume her cereal and everything but what on earth did she mean by “Getting down on Friday”? That became a point of serious philosophical debate throughout the cyber and physical worlds (and remains so to this very day). I suppose she meant to say that she likes to ‘get down and boogie’ (a.k.a. dance) with her friends on a Friday, but what if she actually meant that she was prone to falling ill on Fridays? [You know that “getting down with the sickness” type of thing?] Or, was she trying to tell us that Friday is the day that she uses to recover from Thursday [which, according to her, precedes Friday]? Maybe she actually has to get down from her tree-house to retrieve supplies from the kitchen on a Friday, because that is the last day of the week [though I thought that Saturday was technically the last day of the week]? Or, did she really mean to say that she actually gets up to shadier things on Fridays [Some people pick up on subliminal messages as soon as they hear them!]???
That there, is some serious scandal! But hey, you know what all this it is, because she said “[we] know what-it-is”. .. [Honestly though, I don’t think I do know what-it-is...No, I’m not afraid to say it! I do not know what her version of 'fun' is or what would compel a man to rap about a young girl on a school-bus. I do not know why I should "think-about-fun" and I do not know how to or why to or where to “get down on Friday”, though I do like the dancing idea!].
As you can see, the wider public found their own reasons to question, criticise and alienate ‘squeaky-clean’ little Rebecca Black—literally too: she’s been accused of having the voice of a Robot/Martian many times. Rebecca Black didn’t really get to ‘own’ her song—it kind of ‘owned’ her instead. And, we all just got “so excited (so excited)” by our mockery! Yes, I’ll admit that I had a lot of “fun” devising the last few paragraphs that I’ve written and some of the parodies out there are absolute gold!, e.g. the very appropriate “Gang Fight” version (a comical case of bad lip-reading),“Friday In HELL” (where everything, including Rebecca Black is mutated and on fire), “Good Friday” (by Jesus!), “Saturday” (by a man!), a backwards version that makes it sound like she is actually singing about 'Henna' and a lovely death-metal version that removes the ‘twang’ that characterises her original voice (they must have removed the auto-tuning or given the original backing vocalists the front-job).
But, I actually think that the way that people, now including myself, deride ambitious young people like Rebecca Black is pretty disgusting and unnecessary. Parodies that place her in hell or say things like “I get slutty on Friday” are pretty pointless and just plain mean, however unsurprising. Why should a single video-clip, that is obviously fictitious, give us any reason to question the mental aptitude of another human being, especially one that is so young? Why do we make other threats and personal criticisms based on the lyrics and actions that someone didn’t even write on their own? Why should we dismiss Rebecca Black so fast and stunt her enthusiasm? Maybe we shouldn’t underestimate her. Maybe we should give her a chance, give her some room to grow? Maybe we are unauthentic, inappropriate and being plain stupid ourselves.
We-We-We So Corrupting:
The case of Rebecca Black highlights a problem that is inherent in 'teen-pop' and, increasingly, our society in general. We have come to expect and even encourage failure in others, especially teens in entertainment, almost always —it’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy for them and us. (Teen-pop personalities are east targets because the genre is designed to give maximum focus to the performer who appeals directly to the audience for personal interest, during their adolescence—a very sensitive developmental period). Black’s imminent ‘fall from grace’ began routinely with standard complaints, e.g. her voice is auto-tuned, she lip-synchs, those words are not her own. However, the personal criticisms that followed were more unusual for our times. They indicated that, although her performance was age-appropriate, it was incongruous with the expectations of the audience (our society). We seem to expect maturity and heat (for lack of a better word) from entertainers, though that is also something that we’re quick to criticise—can we ever be satisfied?
The harsher comments and parodies out there demonstrate that “Friday” hit the wrong audience and more than a few people decided that Rebecca Black was a weak, mindless, frigid, plain and immature little girl. She was said to exhibit a kind of “anti-charisma”, probably because her public persona was just too optimistic, too perfect and too safe—we couldn’t believe it.
Why couldn’t we take her seriously? What was so wrong about her and what she said? It’s obviously our problem, not hers—but she is suffering the consequences.
To me, Rebecca Black actually looks like a potentially good role-model for younger girls to identify with and try to emulate, while “Friday” seems like a perfect product for members of that target-audience. The diverse audience that makes up the internet is the problem—anyone apart from young girls can become an active (and selectively anonymous) part of it, whether they like what they’re viewing or not.
As I’ve implied before, hate brings people together, just as music does. Collective dislike can bring 'fun', just as dancing does, and music criticism, on the web especially, can become particularly anti-social. Sites like Youtube give audience members extra power, comfort and a weird sense of intimacy with the personalities that they are viewing. We often view the content in our own homes; in the company of people we can be open and honest which rather slyly allows our opinions to travel further and faster than we care or are able to fathom at the time we’re stating them—we can zoom in on the faults and often share swift judgements with the click of a button.
As social beings, most people like to be agreeable. So, when a ‘hating’ trend starts, it quickly becomes infectious. I know that my initial reaction to “Friday” was at least half-positive. I thought it was really cute and was glad to be viewing something so pleasantly innocent and 'fun'! Rebecca Black’s voice wasn’t half-bad (even if it was auto-tuned!) and she seemed like a breath of fresh air in teen-pop—I definitely would have idolised her about a decade ago (especially because she had dark hair and olive skin!). In fact, I didn’t pay attention to any flaws at all until I started paying attention to other people who were pointing them out! Only then did the catchiness begin to play on my mind—“Friday” became an ‘ear-worm’ that haunted me for the rest of the weekend and I jokingly lamented that it would probably lead to a brain haemorrhage. Only then did I playfully take offence to my mother claiming that Rebecca Black was “cooler than me!” —I spawned a sarcastic Facebook status update in my defence: “Mum thinks Rebecca Black is cooler than me *fun, fun, fun*”, which grabbed the attention of my friends, so that I felt satisfactorily involved and entertaining. Only then did I care to take part in discussing what it really meant to “get down on Friday”. I laughed with my friends, at myself and, most unintentionally, at Rebecca Black.
Rebecca Black and her dignity would have fared a lot better if “Friday” hadn’t initially been released on the Web. The web audience is just too powerful, diverse and critical for a necessarily inexperienced performer to withstand without being fiercely derided, by some at least—anonymity and over-information spawn very 'Negative Nancies'! Unlike earlier 'teen-pop-stars', poor Rebecca Black was subject to very definite criticism (in the form of written and refreshable text, not just word of mouth) from the word go—this explains why commenting has been disabled on the official “Friday” video webpage. How would you feel knowing that much of the active world was laughing at you for being the face of a project that someone else constructed for you to get you closer to your dream? Would you feel sick? Sad? Discouraged? Misunderstood? Would you be seeking out a rock to hide behind or looking for a getaway car? (That last thought should be difficult for a 13-year-old to uphold…)
Rebecca Black’s story certainly shows us that life just isn’t fair. It's full of struggles and people trying to kick you down when all you want to do is fly — especially if you come off as a little desperate to get your wings going. Apart from what I’ve said above, the '”Friday” saga' highlights the very serious issues of authority and insecurity in performer-audience relations. Now a scapegoat, Rebecca Black is obviously powerless and vulnerable. But, why did she become a scapegoat in the first place? We’ve already established that criticising her is pretty typical and mostly unnecessary [I bet many critics will eventually love this song, if they don’t already, and chant along like 13-year-old girls all over again, even if they’re not girls...] but why has she been derided so much more than anyone else (even Jenna Rose who can’t match her clothes!)? Well, I think she actually may have offended the audience. Yes, I know that sounds bizarre and alien and extreme, but think about it. She crossed a line. She questioned our pride, knowledge and authority as adults! This song might be a nice English language teaching tool but who was she to come out of nowhere and try to delineate the days of the week for all of us?! How insulting! And, forcing us to consider the banal concept of 'fun'? How shallow!
See? People got scared. Rebecca Black took the initiative (well, was given the task) to reacquaint everyone with the idea of harmless 'fun'. But, some people just couldn’t take that because they feel like they don't have time for 'fun'. This girl seems to have made a lot of people feel plain stupid. So, they've retaliated and called her stupid. Have they simply been projecting their own feelings of insecurity and inadequacy? We’ve all been taught to know that 'fun' is a useless, childish waste of time that only leads to guilt-ravaged Monday mornings, and life can get so busy that we can easily forget the insightful words of Mary Poppins at the most inappropriate times: “when you find the fun *snap*, [any] job’s a game”! But isn't there more to it?
Well, that’s enough thought about 'fun' for now. With any luck, you’ll be feeling totally rattled and all indecisive about which seat to take on the '”Friday” roller-coaster'—it is still running [I hope that the many ‘brackets’ contained in this article will help you to decide upon your point of view!]. I hope I’ve highlighted the fact that we, and our opinions, play a vital part in determining the fate of 'teen-pop-stars' like Rebecca Black and that, sometimes, it can be useful to reflect upon what you find 'fun' and why. I sincerely hope that her next single does not echo the paranoia contained in Lindsay Lohan’s “Rumors”, though I honestly won’t be surprised if it does.
I recommend that you take a break [“gotta have your bowl, gotta have cereal”] now to “think about fun”, and try to find it again. Seriously. Throwing away your adult cares for just a moment might allow you to discover that all that Rebecca Black meant by “getting down on Friday” was that she likes to have 'fun'. I hope you look forward to trying it, and to giving Rebecca a second chance too — she deserves one more moment.
Adele. A name that has been rolling off the tongues of many people that I know in recent months, for all the right reasons. What a set of lungs. What a soothing and almighty sound. What a dignified and inspiring performer. What a life lived up to now. (Whoa, this is sounding deep already...)
