Thursday, March 31, 2011

Item #40: The Phenomenon of Rebecca Black

The recently circulating music video made by Rebecca Black, Friday, has at the time of this writing has received more than 68 million views on YouTube. That is incredible.

Rebecca Black’s Friday is an incredibly low budget music video production for a song called Friday, ‘sung’ by Rebecca Black. The lyrics can only be described as pedantic, the film common and ‘done’. There is no real value in this video: no musical talent, no entertainment appeal, no artistic element. Yet, it is a YouTube viral phenomenon. Rebecca Black is a YouTube viral phenomenon.

Or is she?

In watching this video and knowing a little bit about it’s making i.e.: funded by her parents, a few things are clear.

Rebecca Black is one confident little teenager.

Rebecca Black is one resourced little teenager.

Rebecca Black is one risk-taking little teenager.

This experience could go a couple of ways for her: the experience makes a fool of her for a short span of time and then is promptly forgotten, while she goes down in history infamously as ‘the girl who did that awful video back in 2011’.

Or, it could go another way. Her buzz continues, reporting in news media all over the world continues, everyone continues talking about her, she grows rich in the process and then somehow this spins into something bigger. She gets recognized as one with notoriety, with influence and therefore with commercial potential. Someone picks her up and begins working with her to develop her 'career'.

Either way, for plan or for fluke, for better or for worse, Rebecca Black is very likely to translate this buzz situation into ‘something’, into her start on the path to ‘be somebody’.

This is arguably the phenomenon of Rebecca Black. A confident, resourced, risk-talking little teenager.

Or is it?

Perhaps this is nothing more than the phenomenon of society in 2011.

A society that values and rewards confidence, without any criteria. Unmerited confidence. Confidence without substance. Confidence without talent. Blind, ignorant confidence.

A society that values and rewards resources, without any criteria. Resources mis-used. Resources mis-applied. Resources carelessly distributed.

A society that values and rewards risk-taking without any criteria. Risk-taking without calculation. Risk-taking without integrity. Risk-taking without consideration of impact.

This is the society that drove those YouTube music video views to over 68 million.

This is the society that has made Rebecca Black one of the top stories of March 2011.

This is the society that has turned Rebecca Black into a ‘known’ figure.

This is the society that may very likely make Rebecca Black rich and famous.

Perhaps Rebecca Black is not the phenomenon here. Perhaps it’s just the opposite. Rebecca Black is just a teenager with dubious talent. At this point anyway. For now. Who knows what she might have been with real training and meaningful assistance. This value and reward society is lending Rebecca Black is unfortunately not in response to her talent. It is in response only to her confidence, her resources and her risk-taking. It’s our society today that is the phenomenon. The things we value, we reward, we deem as the basis for success. That is the phenomenon.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Item #39: Make Fresh Tracks



My life philosophies. Now available in video format. This was fun.

Best to watch in small window. Resolution lost on upload for some reason.