Getting Down On Friday
Added 2021-07-09 12:23:39 +0000 UTCThis week, Hussein and Phoebe talk about two important online videos that went viral, made their protagonists the original "main characters" - but each one dealt with the virality, celebrity, surveillance and subsequent bullying in different ways - and what that might tell us about how we understand 'virality' now. We talk about the 'Star Wars Kid', video and Rebecca Black's "Friday", how they defined their respective eras of online, and how, at a time when everyone is a content creator, the only ways to escape the trappings of going viral - and becoming the "main character" are either to simply log off and disappear, or lean into online celebrity entirely. Neither are particularly desirable!
We also talk about Kyle Chayka's recent New Yorker Essay, "We All Have Main Character Energy Now", which you can read here: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/we-all-have-main-character-energy-now
Comments
I Love Chinese Food was the same guy? Well now it all makes sense.
Tovfly
2021-07-12 19:59:33 +0000 UTCoh my god
Ten Thousand Posts
2021-07-12 14:55:12 +0000 UTCThe real story of Friday wasn't Rebecca Black, but the producer who genuinely believed he was making hits, and seemed like a goofy harmless guy until everyone realised many of his songs were full of wildly inappropriate content and insensitive cultural references (Geishas in a video about Chinese food??), and went on a full meltdown after some of his now adult former 'stars' called him out for sexualising and exploiting them as teenagers leaving them traumatised. Apparently the song Friday only came into being because Blacks parents vetoed the first song he wrote for her, which was apparently far too sexual for a young teenager. Basically he was a massive nonce!
Rach
2021-07-12 07:44:40 +0000 UTCWhy is England playing in the Euros, anyway? Shouldn’t they have been transported to Oceania or something after Brexit? I mean, Pitcairn Island is possibly the only place more English than England. You know, on account of the inbreeding and pedophilia.
Elsie Hupp
2021-07-10 02:29:18 +0000 UTC
