It’s been more than three months since Rebecca Black’s “Friday” appeared on YouTube, which means that it’s now totally passé. By August it will be revived on some nostalgia kick, and come fall PBR-swilling hipsters will revive it as a retro item, yammering about how they were into “Friday” back when it was still Thursday. But right now you can’t see it at all, because the video that racked up more YouTube hits than Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber has been removed from YouTube. This is one maneuver in a legal dispute between Rebecca Black’s lawyers and Ark Music, the sort-of-a-studio where Rebecca recorded the song. Apparently Ark was no more prepared for the success of “Friday” than Rebecca was, and when the song took off they neglected to go through the usual contractual formalities before they started marketing ringtones and other spinoffs.
This is yet another sordid example of why it’s called show business, not show art, and Rebecca is learning way too much about what it’s like to be publicly reviled and exploited at way too early an age. She’s just a 13-year-old kid, fer crissakes. What’s more, she seems like a reasonably nice, normal teenage girl. Showbiz is a more appropriate venue for creatures like Taylor Momsen. I bet Momsen actually gets off on this sort of legal mud-wrestling.
4 comments
What a shame. Now we’re just left with spoofs.
The original definitely beats the spoofs, just because they honestly thought they were making a decent little video. A lack of self-awareness on that level makes for pure comedy magic.
I was most disturbed by the 30-something rapper that appears 3/4 of the way through the video. Is he her boyfriend? Does he need to notify the police when he moves into a new neighborhood?
You know what REALLY disturbs me? That jvon made it at least 3/4 of the way through the video.