Last Thursday, a YouTube video called "Rebecca Black - Friday" had 3,000 views. On Friday, it had more than 7 million. When I passed out listening to it last night it had 9 million. As I listen to it today, it has 12 million. And tomorrow it will be so yesterday.
Let our children's textbooks show that in the winter of 2011, the millennial generation received their title in history thanks to a 13-year-old California girl and a renowned producer named "trizzy66." This upload is our mightiest metaphor for the merrymaking of the measureless mediocrity that makes up the 21st century.
The song tells the story of a young woman who wakes up at 7am on a Friday morning only to be faced with the weighty decision of picking which seat to take in her friend's convertible. For some presumably artistic reason, 45 minutes later, the middle schoolers are speeding on a highway looking forward to the weekend parties (note: though in the car, the indecisive Miss Black is still grappling with this whole "which seat do I take?" predicament). The lyrics, clearly based off of a Maya Angelou poem, feature the words "partyin'" 17 times, "fun" 20 times, and "yeah" 22 times.
The grammatically-gifted girl informs the listener that:
Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday
 / Today i-is Friday, Friday (Partyin')
 / We-we-we so excited
 / We so excited
 / We gonna have a ball today

 / Tomorrow is Saturday
 / And Sunday comes afterwards / I don't want this weekend to end
Now there's nothing deplorable here. But its overnight sensationalism is highly representative of the cultural climate and this most tangibly connected but emotionally disconnected demographic. The cute star and catchy song seem so void of value or substance or charisma that the result is this vibrantly vapid wasteland of emptiness masked in bling.
And speaking of bling, the "rap" portion that follows the previous verse is enough to make Wiz Khalifa look like Langston Hughes:
"So chillin' in the front seat (In the front seat) / 
In the back seat (In the back seat) / I'm drivin', cruisin' (Yeah, yeah) / 
Fast lanes, switchin' lanes
 / Wit' a car up on my side (Woo!)
 (C'mon) / Passin' by is a school bus in front of me / Makes tick tock, tick tock, wanna scream / 
Check my time, it's Friday, it's a weekend
 / We gonna have fun, c'mon, c'mon, y'all"
Hip-hop has traveled from the godfathers' cries for gender and race equality or rags-to-riches tales to a distortion of the American Dream wherein success is a Pimped ride racing death to reach a middle school house party.
It's Bieber Fever. It's McDonalds. It's The Jersey Shore and Hummers and Miley on salvia. It's creepy dudes with high-end technology making money from underage autotuned white girls and a crude caricature of black progress. It's the preteen girl lip-synching to Vanessa in High School Musical 4 as her dad looks up her latest illegal nudie pics -- perhaps the most disturbingly overlooked and fastest female fad to hit high schools in the past few years.
Just this week, we've gone from Carson roasting Lucy to The Situation roasting Trump. Stephanopoulus went from a White House cabinet member to hosting a "network news" special on the star of the worst/most-watched sitcom on TV. Can't success lie somewhere between winning world wars and #Winning Twitter followers? Can't romance lie somewhere between June Cleaver and two pornstar girlfriends? Is it really time for us to throw ourselves a party?
By 2008, Americans learned that greed actually isn't that good. Capitalism got stretched too far for families. The gap between the rich and the poor are reaching their extremes. We're outsourcing jobs to China and getting rid of union workers for machines. This is the natural progression if the goals are cash and convenience. Uncle Sam's invisible hand has curled into an obese fist. We are watching the American Dream on crack.
It's not black and white. But it is our inability to understand and acknowledge the shades of grey that defines this time in history. After all, it was our last President who told our current Vice President, "Joe, I don't do nuance."
I remember when my dad picked me up from school on a Tuesday in 5th grade because two towers near my house had been blown into the ground. I remember Newsweek calling us "Generation 9-11" and Time marking the moment "the end of the age of irony." But from what I've seen, it was hardly that irony had ceased to exist (Urban Outfitters 90's nostalgia tees can't sell themselves) but a devastating decrease in America's ability to comprehend it.
How could we? What can shock us? How can Colbert top Beck? How can Britney top Black? We don't know whether to laugh or cry anymore. Things are so bad they're good or so good they're bad. We have become a parody of ourselves. A perversion of our Founding Fathers. We are satire.
Tomorrow's Friday. A 20-year-old in Baghdad will try to make it back home in the hopes of being able to attend a community college while a 20-year-old at UCLA will ignorantly mock Asian immigrants on her webcam. A 13-year-old girl in Japan will drown before her mother's eyes while a 13-year-old girl in Anaheim Hills will beat on, high on the highway, borne ceaselessly into riches, red cups, and re-Tweets.
Follow Cody Brotter on Twitter: www.twitter.com/thecodyland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpIa3zoyAsQ
Lyrics to "Friday" by Rebecca Black: http://www.rebecca-black.net/rebecca-black-lyrics.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvUULsVR_cw
Gettin downstairs, talking to the cat, he knows what I did, HE KNOWS WHAT I DID
I pour my cereal, I spill some milk, my cat comes and licks it up, HE FORGIVES ME.
Sitting in my car, see some cum on my pants, I just ignore it, I JUST IGNORREEEE IT.
Get to work, load up reddit it, co workers kickin it in their cubicles, sneaking gone wild, WANKIN IN THE BATHROOM
ITS MONDAY MONDAY MONDAY
- by reddit user going2trees
If you're going to call us a new Lost Generation, at least have the decency to make a slightly more obscure reference, dude! Maybe you could rip off This Side of Paradise or something.
"You're better than the whole damn bunch of them, Rebecca Black."
"They know themselves, but that is all."
It is sad that people don't have to do much or have much talent to get famous these days, though. If The Beatles were considered a joke, at least when people took the time to listen to them they realized that they actually have substance to a lot of their music. 500 years from now if anyone looks back on this song they'll still think of it as a joke (I hope, or else we are doomed).
I agree how this generation's youth (despite unlimited info at their fingertips) intelligence has seemed to decline. A lot don't even know how to use proper grammar. Our education system is broken. "Role models" are dishonest and turning out to be something kids shouldn't look up to. At least GaGa is truthful about smoking weed and drinking and stands up for causes bigger than herself (gay rights). THAT'S credible. She's different (to say the least) and provocative, yes, but worthy of respect, imo. Miley? Pfffffffffffffft. But I digress. Anyways I hate having this song stuck in my head because regardless of the quality, you have to admit, it is catchy as hell >_<
FRIED EGG. FRIED EGG.
Viva the youtube generation, where kids are showing other kids how to be......kids. It can't be any worse than the ones we have now.
Rock and Roll: How awful it was for our kids to be destroyed by that deviant music that pushed our kids into sex. The Beatles: Before Ed Sullivan, they were considered by most a joke. Michael Jackson: How can we allow white kids to idolize that black man.
The American kids today are quicker, more socialized, and understand more about the world around them than any humans in history. They can find any info they need in a sec.
But in order to learn how to acquire this knowledge to thrive, it takes programs, time, effort and money. But the adults stole this money (that was earned by previous generations) in order to fund their lifestle and way of life. No problem to live well...if you can afford it. But now a school teacher is greedy at 60,000 a year, and yet how can a money manager survive on $250,000???
One party tells us we can't afford important programs, yet they put us in a war that cost us trillions. Meanwhile the other does absolutely nothing to stop the rich and foreigners from stealing our money, and sending our jobs overseas. And their leadership doesn't change?? Where's the accountability?
If you want to rail, rail on that generation like no tomorrow. Do I see that anywhere??? No accountability.
If anything that generation should be taxed at 75% because they've failed. Give the money to Ms. Black's. They have to be better than this one.
The first paragraph was supposed to say it's silly to judge a generation by a music type that you might find distasteful at the moment.....somewhere along those lines. LOL.
A few other points about how this generation of power brokers are not thinking about the youtubers anyways whe every other generation thought about their kids and how they're the ones to go after but the full length context has been lost on the cutting room floor. I just call it my young James Cameron moment. LOL