How SoMe is Killing Real Music

First of all, I’d like to apologize for providing yet another opportunity in your day to be exposed to the “FRIDAY” phenomenon.

Since February 10th, when ARK Music Factory inflicted the social world with Rebecca Black’s musical debut “Friday” on YouTube, we’ve been stuck with FRIIIDAAAAY FRIIIDAAAY playing as the inescapable soundtrack to our lives. And by “we,” I mean the 60,997,359 of us - as of today - that have watched her YouTube video describing the days of the week.

Black, 13 years old, has quickly found her 15 minutes of fame via social media. Unlike the arguably talented Justin Bieber, who was also discovered on YouTube, Black isthe one we love to hate. Or as a Charlie Sheen Twitter impersonatortweeted famously: “Rebecca Black, we don’t hate you because you’re famous. You’re famous because we hate you.” This can be evidenced by the 1,078,915 dislikes compared to 129,515 likes on her music video on YouTube.

Some of those likes come from people like Lady Gaga, who proclaimed, via Twitter, that Black is a “genius.” The majority of viewers, however, are part of the viral crowd flocking to what everyone is buzzing about, and leaving disappointed.

CelebrityCafe.com posed the question I’ve been asking, “Why is she a viral phenomenon?” Their answer: “Because everyone has an opinion. From ABC to MTV interviews, the young teen is now a viral sensation bigger than that of the daily Justin Bieber news cycle.”

Rebecca Black is striking gold (over $62,000 so far) because of our social media criticism; our likes, dislikes, tweets and retweets are making her Jay Leno-worthy; SoMe Sharing is making her a “thousandaire.” (YouTube grants artists 68% of the proceeds earned from advertising on the site to artists and iTunes is selling her single.)

If Black’s insta-fame isn’t a testament to the power of social media, I don’t know what is. For all marketers that aspire to make something truly viral, there’s a lesson hiding within this “fried egg” sounding “Friday” video.

Her only redeeming quality may be that she’s donating her profits to Japan relief and to her school. So, maybe we ignore the sad fact that social media may enable talentless fame, and consider this phenomenon more of a fundraiser…