When Rebecca Black’s family hired Ark Music Factory to produce a music video for their daughter, they were thrilled. Hoping to capitalize on Black’s youthful appeal and her small collection of eerily dorky friends, they supposed that maybe even SHE can become a pop superstar- or at the very least- use the video on some sort of acting resume or something for acceptance into a state college. So after the family spit out their 5 grand or so, Ark put the single together, dropped the beat, coined the association with some awkward middle aged black man, and placed the video on YouTube, expecting nothing over 10,000 views and extra money to go drinking on a weekend alcohol binge.
We know their game. They do this with a hundred prepubescent boys and girls, banking on that one Rebecca Black who can claim the Justin Beiber fanfare and catapult the company into making millions. They didn’t necessarily expect it to occur with Rebbecca Black. As a matter of fact, if it NEVER happened, they still made coin producing independant videos for desperate girls and boys hoping to become popular. A look at Ark Music Factory’s YouTube channel only compliments their “gotta-catch-em-all” Pokemon mentality. Gotta sign them all!
The legal trouble over who owns the rights to the video and legalities of the situation only brings forward the true fact of music culture in light of YouTube and self-marketing- nobody has any idea what the fuck is going on.
There is music pre-Rebecca Black and music post-Rebecca Black. We have stepped into a new realm of disposable music- a world where shitting into a microphone might be a legitimately solid musical idea- a world where Rebecca Black is more famous than YOU.
This is a bold statement. I can go into the music industry ins and outs of the last twenty years, and the rise of the internet that has brought torrenting and illegal downloading to the forefront, as well as the conceptual framework to releasing music for free and building a fanbase based solely on image and marketing power. All this was relatively discreet, until now- until Rebecca Black was being tweeted by your grandmother and “Friday” was viewed 300 million times. What a world.
It’s not to say that music will lose its quality and bands will all try to be parodies of themselves and others. Music will continue in many forms throughout history and will always remain. But in a music culture post-Black, we have a nature of music marketing diluted by a pretension that irony is not superficial, that releasing shit is more than passive and a way to gain momentum.
Does Rebecca Black have longevity? No, probably not. But could another artist come and do the same thing and somehow revert to being a quality artist?
This question remains to be answered. But the internet has allowed for anyone, and I do mean ANYONE, to become a celebrity. And if they are smart, if they follow the motions and dodge and weave when appropriate, they can turn their 30 seconds of fame into a legitimate career path. This has always been the case, but since this new situation, it becomes clear how truly EASY it is for EVERYONE. You. Your sister. Rebecca Black.
There are YouTube channels sprouting up with 14 year old girls playing cover songs getting 25,000+ subscribers. Are these girls artists? I guess. Are they musicians? I suppose. Do they now have a very real possibility of becoming superstars? And will it be based solely on talent or how awful their Youtube debut is?
I am equally disheartened and fascinated by a music culture that can allow Rebecca Black to become a famous individual. Whether Rebecca Black fades into obscurity is not the point. The fact that she can fade at ALL is a testament to where we are with music and where the internet has truly taken us- to the seedy underbelly of allowing us ALL to truly have a chance at fame.