On February 10th, 2011, the world was changed forever when a small production company uploaded
a video by an unknown aspiring singer.
A month later, the song would go viral.
It would gain millions of views overnight and become the most searched song of the year.
That song was Friday by Rebecca Black.
In March of 2011, Friday took the Internet by storm.
Listeners of the song rushed to the Internet to share their thoughts, which were overwhelmingly
negative.
The song was so hated and cringey that it became a viral meme, and the song found its
way into advertisements, talkshows, and even national news.
The song inspired numerous parodies, and it had the distinction of being called “the
worst song and worst video ever”.
Worse than the Glee cover.
Friday was an early example of how the Internet could take a completely ordinary person and
quickly turn them into a household name.
(Bed Intruder) However, it was also a sign of how vicious the Internet could be.
At one point, the comments were so nasty YouTube disabled them.
The song’s singer, Rebecca Black faced death threats for releasing the song, was told to
never sing again, and was one of the most hated people on the internet.
A poll from March 2011 showed 76% of Americans believed Black’s online bullying was justified.
All this is made worse by the fact that she was only 13 at the time.
At the time, Black described herself as a musical theatre kid who had recently started
the 8th grade.
She had an interest in singing and performing, and had just found out one of her school friends
had created a music video with a company called ARK Music Factory.
The friend had filmed the video at their school and some of their classmates were in the video
as extras.
Rebecca asked her mother if she could do the same and to her surprise, her mother agreed.
Ark Music Factory agreed to help Black record a song and music video and informed her it
had the potential to be monetized.
In all, the process cost Black’s family around 4,000 dollars.
Friday was actually Rebecca’s second choice for her song, since she wasn’t comfortable
with the subject matter in the first song the company offered.
She said she didn’t expect much from the experience other than to learn what the recording
process was like.
For the first few months, the video made little noise and only gained about a thousand views.
That was, until the video made it onto Tosh.0.
Tosh.0 was a television hub for commentary on viral videos in which comedian Daniel Tosh
would relentlessly make fun of the latest Internet sensations.
Black’s mother contacted ARK Music Factory and they offered to take the video down, but
Rebecca decided she would take the online criticism as it would be more embarrassing
to take the video down.
In days, Black had gone from a regular teenager to being contacted by Good Morning America
and Late Night talk shows Rebecca homeschooled for the remainder of
the schoolyear and was contacted by numerous managers.
The fame she received brought her international attention and opportunities to talk about
becoming an Internet meme.The song was covered by some of the most famous pop singers at
that time, including Justin Bieber and Katy Perry.
Rebecca Black also featured in Perry’s music video for her song Last Friday Night.
Despite bringing in tens of millions of views on the Internet, Friday didn’t really translate
into an actual music career.
Though she’d attended award shows, won a Teen Choice Award, and booked several hosting
gigs, it was because she was the Internet’s latest laughing stock.
It wasn’t because she’d taken many steps to becoming a legitimate singer.
Black describes the following year as one of the loneliest of her life.
Her team didn’t make much effort to meet her desires, and many of her friendships had
faded.
Though she had released a few singles, none of them were heavily promoted or successful.
Black announced she was working on a debut album that never came.
Instead, her team resorted to gimmicks like releasing Saturday in 2013, a follow up single
to Friday.
It was also her only single since Friday to chart on the Billboard Hot 100.
The song wasn’t taken seriously, but Black was praised for being able to poke fun at
herself and for the Electropop production on the song.
She also released My Moment, a hopeful pop song about her rise to fame.
It was clearly low-budget and the production was lacking, but Black seemed to be giving
being a singer an earnest attempt.
Still, My Moment didn’t do much for Rebeca’s pop career.
Comments uploaded in recent years attribute this to the hatred surrounding Rebecca Black
at the time rather than it actually being a bad song.
By the time she was 16, Rebcca fired her team.
She returned to public school and began uploading original music to YouTube, which she said
she enjoyed and was beneficial for her mental health.
In 2015, Black announced again she would release her first album by the end of the year.
She was around 18 at the time, and was continuing to grow an online following outside of Friday.
Between struggling to find producers and get free from her former label, the album never
came that year.
In the following two years, Rebecca Black released more singles, none of which found
much mainstream success Rebecca released her EP RE/BL in 2017.
The EP made clear references to her struggles with overnight fame and trying to find herself
both musically and personally.
She dedicated her song Heart Full of Scars to her fans.
The video debuted on YouTube to the over 1.5 million subscribers she had at the time.The
music in the EP sounded like the typical pop of that year, think Julia Michaels or Harry
Styles.
The EP didn’t do well at all, and many people didn’t even know it existed.
Even though the music itself wasn’t anything groundbreaking, fans did begin to notice Rebecca
clearly had a strong voice and was a talented singer.
In 2018, Rebecca Black made her biggest attempt to reintroduce herself to the public eye.
She auditioned for Fox's the Four, a reality singing competition.
Black sang NSYNC’s Bye, Bye Bye, a perfect nod to the fact that she was trying to shake
her association with Friday, and finally become a serious pop singer.
All 3 judges voted to pass her to the next round.
Sadly, Black was eliminated in the next round after losing a battle against another contestant.
Rebecca continued to release singles online and post regularly to her Instagram
2020 is when Rebecca’s bona fide redemption began.
In February, she returned to Instagram with a daring new look.
She posted pictures in red thigh high boots and showing off an edgier bob haircut, letting
fans know the old Rebecca Black had left the building.
In the spring of that year, she came out as part of the LGBTQ community, and the community
quickly accepted her into their pantheon of pop idols.
Most of those who remembered the aftermath of Friday were now in their 20s like Rebecca,
and had a more mature perspective on her rise to fame at such a young age.
Many of those same people are now also identified as part of the LGBTQ community.
Regardless, most agreed that Black was unfairly criticized and bullied, and regretted the
part they played in damaging the self-esteem of a 13 year old girl.
The Internet had changed in the decade since Friday was uploaded.
Though cyberbullying still exists, it’s significantly less accepted than it was in
2011, due to increased awareness and shifting Internet culture.
The same people who claimed they hated Rebecca Black a decade ago were willing to give her
a chance to reintroduce herself, as she had grown up over the past ten years just like
the rest of us.
Rebecca’s new music was vastly less mainstream than the pop she’d tried before.
However, it was perfect for a niche group of pop listeners who loved her edgier style
and electro and hyperpop sounds.
A long with her more experimental sound, Rebecca continued to experiment with her look and
dye her hair different colors.
Her personal style had become more provocative and alternative as she incorporated latex
and chains into her promotional looks.
Her fashion was also more queercoded, which made sense after her coming out, and fit the
style popular with many of her queer fans and musical collabortators.
It seemed that this version of Rebecca Black was the most authentic version yet.
She was open about her sexuality, and experimenting with her music and fashion much in the way
normal 20 somethings do.
Rebecca often posted about her relationships with with women, and her friendships with
other queer women.
Outside of music, Black’s social media provided much longed for representation of wlw relationships
and queer female frienships.
Her friendship with podcaster Amy Ordman also introduced her to a wider audience.
Black is also active on Instagram and Tiktok, where she posts regular life updates about
music, fashion, and dating for her fans to enjoy.
Rebecca Black’s new hyperpop sound led her to collaborate w with other artists like Dorian
Electra, Slayter, and 100 gecs, who not only make similar pop to what she was making, but
also have largely queer fanbases.
This so to speak legitimized Rebecca Black in the hypepop scene, and in the eyes of most
of her queer fans.
Rebecca Black was the last person anyone believed would become one of the Internet’s next
gay icons, or collaborate with both halves of 100 gecs.
It turned out after all this time, Rebecca Black was… cool?
Finally having the last word after a decade, Rebecca Black released the Friday remix.
It was produced by Dylan Brady of 100 gecs, and had features from 30H!3 and Big Freedia.
The original Friday had elements that would now be identified as hyperpopesque, and the
rising popularity of hyperpop had created a newfound respect for Friday.
It made perfect sense to revive the song on its anniversary to give the song its official
hyperpop christening, and to show that Rebecca Black fully embraced, and now had her own
control and power over the song.
Rebecca released her hyperpop EP, Rebecca Black Was Here in 2021.
The album was well-received, and reached a larger, yet more niche audience since she'd
finally established her sound.
Black said she spent her time making it the best she could and staying true to herself.
She didn’t shy away from talking about her queerness.
In her song Girlfriend, she mentions the emotional joyride that was reconnecting with an ex girlfriend
of hers.
The bubblegum pop sound a la Carly Rae Jepsen helped drive home the message.
The song was well-received by her queer fanbase, which was becoming the majoirty of her fans
at this point.
Rebecca said the song was liberating to write and it felt like an official reintroduction
of herself.
Black said when she began to push herself out of her comfort zone and make music she
liked rather than worry about making hit music, she felt more at peace.
She was finally proud of the music she was making, as it represented her newfound identity.
Her fans also embraced the music, and began to embrace this quote en quote new version
of Rebecca Black.
No longer was Rebecca writing generic pop in hopes of topping the charts and failing
at it.
Now, she was writing music that was true to her, and though it hasn’t topped any charts,
it has validated Black as a musician and gained her respect, something she’d spent the last
decade trying to do.
The Rebecca Black Was Here Tour began in January 2022 and seems to be off to a great start.The
American leg finished in January, and her European leg of the tour will begin in May.
Black is performing in smaller venues, and the shows look intimate and fun.
It seems to be Black at her truest, being herself and having fun with the crowd, all
the while performing music that feels like her.
She doesn’t look awkward or uncomfortable and appears to be at home amongst her fans.
Black no longer seems to be convincing her fans that she’s evolved, but simply showing
the proof onstage.
Black has said numerous times the most important lesson she learned in her experience was to
stay true to herself.
Whether that meant not being knocked down by Internet hate, or making music authentic
to her experiences, Black embraced it and did it.
She said through learning not to take herself so seriously, it eventually led others to
see her for who she was, and in turn, they took her seriously.
Her perseverance pushed her to be her authentic self, and find her true voice in music.
Rebecca has successfully rewritten the narrative about herself, by simply being herself.
Rather than the basic, untalented teen the Internet painted her as, Black has proven
to be a unique, creative, and daring artist as well as a voice for the LGBTQ community.
A lot of us can relate to feeling like the idea people have of us is wrong, or feeling
like one moment will define our entire lives.
It’s refreshing to see an instance where it’s not the case, and have proof that we
can continue to rewrite our narrative however we choose.
I can’t wait to see what the future holds for Rebecca Black.
I feel like the hyperpop look and sound fits her well.
I would definitely go see her if she did a concert near me.
What about you?
What do you think about Rebecca Blacks’ career?
Do you like her new music?
Let me know in the comments.
See you guys in my next one!