For a long time,
I thought that the best thing to do was just,
"Okay, I'm gonna run as far away from this thing as I can
and not mention it.
And maybe if I don't talk about it,
people will forget."
But nobody forgets.
The father you try to run away from something,
the faster it's gonna just catch you.
When I was 13, I made this song called "Friday."
♪ Friday, Friday ♪
I don't even know if I knew what to expect.
"Friday" hit 167 million views on YouTube.
I didn't think that that was gonna be the thing
that started everything.
Nobody wants to feel like
the entire world is laughing at them.
♪ Then I shave my legs ♪
♪ Just kidding, I'm a bird ♪
♪ Which one is my right hand? ♪
♪ Which one is my left hand? ♪
♪ It's Saturday, Saturday ♪
♪ Yesterday was Friday ♪
Have you cried at all throughout all of this
or are you just strong?
I think I was just so much more sad
than I wanted to admit that that was what had happened.
I'm gonna give myself an opportunity
to write my own story now.
Okay, let's go.
♪♪
I started one, actually, before you guys got here,
and it's fucking sick.
-Oh, really? -Yeah, it's really, really cool.
-Mm. -Yeah.
[ Vocalizing ]
Ooh.
Hi. My name's Rebecca Black, and I'm a singer/songwriter/actress.
I've been actually really wanting to write something
-that's, like... -Fun.
...fun and, like, a bop.
I started performing when I was 3 years old.
I think my parents were really
just trying to find something for me to do,
and it turned into something
that I happened to really, really love.
I started in dance class,
which turned into performance groups and singing and music,
and I just never stopped.
A friend of mine had done this song and music video,
whole thing, and she gave me the info.
I mean, the concept was kind of came up with by them.
I basically just went in and recorded my vocals
and then they did what they wanted with them.
And same thing with the video. To me, it was like,
"Oh, this is something to do over winter break.
And, like, you know, I'm lucky enough to be able to do it
with my parents supporting me."
And, basically, they gave me a song called "Friday."
Without me really hearing anything, it went online.
-♪ Partyin', partyin' ♪ -♪ Yeah ♪
Everybody in the video, all the kids are people
that were friends of mine at school.
I rounded up 10 or 15 of them, and, I mean, it was truly filmed
at my dad's house in, like, the driveway.
So I didn't see a single version of the video before it went out.
I was super critical of myself.
I just remember the first thing that I saw
was, like, this huge zit on my face.
And I just remember thinking, like,
"Hmm, okay, so that's what I look like on camera.
Interesting. Don't know how I feel about that."
I had no expectations for what the video was gonna do.
The most that I expected was that, like, it'll go out,
and then my grandma will maybe see it
and then I'll move on with my life.
And then about a month after the video went up,
one day, it was a Friday, I was on my way home from school
and I remember getting, like, an e-mail.
Somebody had commented,
"Hey, I just saw this on Tosh.0.
This song sucks, but you're gonna be big,"
or, "It's gonna be big," or something like that.
I just remember I, like, sprinted home
and got on my computer immediately
to see what the hell was happening.
I see the views on this video.
There's this huge spike in them.
And then, obviously, you see views,
you keep scrolling, and you look at the comments.
When I saw the comments on the video
was immediately when I knew what was happening.
And as soon as I saw those comments
was when I knew what kind of attention the video was getting,
which wasn't necessarily at all good.
Nobody wants to feel like the entire world
is laughing at them, no matter what age you're at.
I think I was just so much more sad than I wanted to admit
that that was what had happened.
Rebecca Black has everyone and their mother talking.
Her music video went viral
after it was blasted as the worst song ever.
♪ It's Thursday, Thursday ♪
Pretty immediately,
all different kinds of media outlets were like --
I mean, the only thing that they could do
was, really, e-mail my mom.
It's like feeling like this naive, little, little girl
in a world of adults that fully knew what they're doing.
Me trying to navigate that
with no experience as to how that goes,
I was just so malleable.
How do you handle that? Is it tough?
I cried, you know, but I'm 13.
At the same time, there were so many cool,
legitimately awesome things that were happening
that totally helped the entire experience.
Being able to work with people who are my idols still.
I was in the Katy Perry music video for "Last Friday Night,"
which was one of the most fun experiences of my life.
Your Choice Action Movie...
I got to be a part of the Teen Choice Awards
and go to places like the Grammys.
When something so extreme happens at such a young age,
the first thing, you try to make sense of it,
and I've always been able to laugh at myself.
Well, the choice between the front seat and the back seat
is actually a metaphor for American foreign policy.
At that point, I had let go of any sort of manager or agent
or whatever I'd had, and I was doing it on my own.
I started my YouTube channel when I was 16 and decided, like,
"Okay, I'm going to take matters into my own hands here.
I'm gonna give myself an opportunity
to write my own story now."
I'm just so grateful for that song.
It's amazing what that song and I have been through
emotionally over the past decade.
I think kids of my generation really connect with that more
than anything, is they want to know what's coming from you,
not what has, you know, been warped through
rounds and rounds of notes and edits.
Over the years, I've been able to build an audience for myself.
That has definitely taken a lot of time to build.
For me, one thing that I found that I kind of bring through
all of the music I've been doing
is I have really found that being as honest as I can
and not sugarcoating things really helps.
I've definitely had lot of shit to get out of my system,
like, whether it has to do with "Friday" or not.
-Hi, guys. -I'm Josh.
-Hello. Nice to meet you. -How are you, cutie pie?
-Good to see you. -I'm good. Good to see you.
-Okay. -Snacks and water.
[ Vocalizing ]
-I fuck. -She fuck with it.
-You like? -She fuck with it.
I think it can be cool.
It's hard for people in general,
but, like, taking a second...
Like, I don't know. It'd be cool.
Like, let me take a fucking minute here.
-Yeah, give me a fucking minute. -Yeah. Give me a minute.
-Yeah. -♪ I just slow them down ♪
-♪ So I can finally catch my ♪ -Yeah.
Anything that I was trying to do would just get cut so short
or would never fully happen because people,
for whatever reason, don't want to work with me.
But, I mean, the only answer that I can give to,
"Why didn't you just stop?"
is, shit, like, why don't we all just stop then?
Why doesn't anyone just stop?
I've never really stopped writing,
but I came out with, in 2019, "Anyway" and "Do You?"
I'd come out with some songs that I really, really love.
♪ Do you ♪
♪ Do you know the things you do to me? ♪
I just put out two songs called "Self Sabotage" and "Closer."
These are songs that were built from the ground up by ideas
that were my own and my own physical experiences
and sound ideas.
They were a very big turn in the way
that I was able to make my own music,
because I finally felt like I had enough under my belt
to be able to take charge in my own way.
Recently, something that I've been trying
to do a lot more is be as honest
with what my actual mental health journey looks like,
because I've seen how
people being open with it has helped me.
These songs that are about to come out and the songs
that are coming after, it feels
like I finally found what I have to say
and the position that I am coming from.
You just don't want that wing upward.
I don't want it to be, like, a cute cat eye.
-Like, I like a bitchy. -Yeah.
Like, I mean, your eyeliner is perfect.
I was a 13-year-old girl who, like, tried something,
and I was trying to be creative.
I think that's what all kids should be able to do.
Rolling Stone and Billboard,
as they did their decade wrap-ups for the 2010s,
time after time again, "Friday" was mentioned
along with, like, the creation of Spotify
being another big music moment.
What day is it?
♪ It's Friday, Friday ♪
"Friday" is something that I still perform
because everybody knows the lyrics,
whether they like to admit it or not.
I hear it. [ Chuckles ]
And people have fun with it.
It's now something that is nostalgic.
It's cold.
Do you like this bra with it?
-I kind of do, actually. -I think it's cool.
You can't really pick out, like, one thing in your life
that has caused everything.
There's so many aspects.
And so for me, yeah, I had this crazy viral thing happen,
but there's things that I have to deal
with that many other people have to deal with.
-Oh, hello. -Hey, ba-body.
Okay, I'm sorry, body-bo-hottie, yeah.
Really good.
Go ahead and star that right now.
Already did.
The ironic thing throughout all of this for me
has been music started as my safe space,
and then, of course, this crazy thing happened
that really shook some things up.
And I knew as soon as I was -- I had turned 18
and, you know, graduated high school
that I would be out of the house,
and I was gonna figure out music for myself.
And I think if you have some line that you're driven to,
you should have a right to be able to do it
as long as it's something that isn't hurting anybody.
If somebody won't see, you know, past "Friday"
for the rest of their lives, okay, that's okay.
I can't do anything about that.
I just hope to continue to release music
that I'm really, really proud of and that people resonate with
and to just continue to push myself
to make it 10% better every time.