WTF Fridays: The Late Edition

I'm not even under the wire on this one. The wire's be cut, rolled back onto the spindle, and stowed away in the shed next to the mower and the flags...!

Apologies for the late addition to WTF Fridays! Yesterday was all about hither and yonning. I got up early to drive Max the 45 minutes to his school for the Student Lead Conferences, wound up staying there two hours, then drove out to Garmisch for a grocery run. Lemme tellya, it sounded like a great idea--a Mummy and Max Day Out!--but after a few failed attempts at conversation and bonding in the car, I yielded to his desire to play his DS (and to be fair, he's allowed to play it on any trips longer than 30 minutes).

The day was sunny and blue, and once we landed, it turned out okay. But I was shattered when I got back, after having only slept 5 hours cumulatively the night before. Hubby graciously took the kids out to the park so I could stare at the wall for a while.

At any rate, it's probably a good thing I waited for this week's post because if I hadn't, I wouldn't have heard an interesting news item on hubby's MP3 player (which he plugs into some speakers in the kitchen whenever he's tidying up) that thoroughly piqued my ire. It was about a young girl named Rebecca Black and how she has recently caused a bit of a stir.

Haven't heard of her? Allow me to fill you in.

Rebecca is a teenager who, for poops, grins, and moist knickers and other reasons now lost in the froth of media frenzy, recorded a song called "Friday" and released it on YouTube where it became viral. Seriously, it got 44 million views in about a week, and quickly became known as "the song you love to hate".

Due to copyright limitations, I haven't been able to view the video she made to accompany the song, but I have heard it via podcast, and to be honest, it doesn't sound any worse or better than most pop teen music these days, which is to say it doesn't make me want to slit my throat and more or less than anything else the airwaves are spewing forth. It's annoying, saccharine-sweet, lacking in meaning and depth, and has all the appeal of a sugar cube being slowly scraped down a blackboard as a small lap dog yips in the background.

Black is only 13 years old...it's about what you can expect from a girl that age (well, maybe not me...I was writing science fiction and studying Mozart when I was 13, but I've never been ordinary). She sings lyrics like, "Partyin', partyin' (Yeah), Partyin', partyin' (Yeah), Fun, fun, fun, fun, Lookin' forward to the weekend"...not morally edifying, I grant you, but before you start criticising, consider singer Rhianna's break out hit, "Umbrella" which featured the astoundingly mind-melting lines, "Under my umbrella...ay ay...ella ella...ay ay..." and hit #1 for several weeks in the UK.

It is interesting to note that Black's parents paid $2,000 to Ark Music Factory to write and produce the song, then it was up to her to put in YouTube and see what happened.

It is sharply more interesting to note that since she did so, the Haters have come out of Satan's bowels to flame her like they've done to few others. I'm not just talking, "You suck...you can't sing...go back to Peoria..." These are death threats, curses on her life, and horrible oaths which made Black regret even trying something like this.

But the worst comment, according to Black, was this:

"I hope you cut yourself and I hope you get an eating disorder so you'll look pretty, and I hope you go cut and die."

Ouch. I can't blame Black's mum when she was quoted as saying, "I really could've killed a few people" after that comment. It would've made me so angry on behalf of my daughter that I think I would've spontaneously combusted.

Now, I don't see what she did as worse than, say, entering your daughter in a beauty contest or giving her singing lessons with a notion that she'll pursue musical theatre. Pay for her chance or increase the odds that she'll chew up the competition, and hope for the best. That part I don't have a problem with, actually. And all told, $2,000 isn't a huge wad of cash.

What gets me (and this is more of moral issue) is the notion that such small action can yield the same large results as those who have paid their dues. Consider that Britney Spears started off singing in church (which if you've ever had to sing at an 8.00am or midnight service is no mean trick) and in malls. She may not be dripping with talent, but she showed up consistently and worked for it. What she's done since then, of course, is a different matter, but as the saying goes, life is run by those who show up first thing in the morning.

Nearly every musical group I've come to enjoy or respect started off as band geeks, plunking away quietly at their guitars in their rooms after school, or lugging saxophones on and off the bus to the great amusement of bullies and smaller-minded primates, thinking, One day this will all be worth it...only to play on small college campuses or in dive bars, praying, straining, aching for that one chance to show someone what they could really do. And when success finally came--not in downpours but in dribbles--it was truly earned.

Now with recording agents who will write a fluffy little song for you and produce your warbled vocal track and turn it into something you'd hear thumping out of a night club on a Friday evening, there's no need for all that suffering and character building. Such agencies mass produce cookie-cutter online teen pop stars, flash in the pan musical acts who flame briefly like a roman candle, then fizzle out just as quickly. Quantity, not quality rules the music industry these days.

Ironically, Ms Brown has actually been discovered and is now recording an album. It looks like the $2,000 investment was worth it, although I doubt history will note that it was the hating of her mediocre talent that garnered attention and not really any singing elan. Still, if all she was after was a bit of fame and fortune, she's achieved her purpose.

Don't breathe too fast, Rebecca. Fifteen minutes goes by awfully fast in cyberland.