Who is this Girl, and Why Should I Care?

She's Rebecca Black, and thanks to social media, she has gone from obscurity to becoming something of a global sensation in the last 2 weeks.

This OD came across Rebecca Black earlier this week on Twitter.  It was and remains one of Twitter's top global hashtags. (OD+NT will offer more on tagging and hashtags in a later post, but CCs, Curious Cats, can go here for an introduction.)

Rebecca Black is a 13 year old tween from Anaheim, CA who, with the help of LA record company, Ark Music Factory, recorded a song entitled, "Friday," which is about hanging out with friends and looking forward to the weekend.

Nothing unusual about that, you say, and OD says, "Stick around."

Rebecca Black's video was shot at her father's house this January then edited and uploaded onto YouTube on February 11, 2011.  In the first month "Friday" was viewed about 3,000 times.  That's not a bad reception, but still nothing interesting.  

But wait, it gets better.

On March 11th, Daniel Tosh of the Comedy Central series, "Tosh.O", posted the "Friday" music video on his blog under the title, "Songwriting Isn't For Everyone."  Tosh wasn't necessarily slamming Miss Black's talent so much as poking fun at the song's absurd lyrics.  Tosh.O's blog offers the following dialogue:

Rebecca Black: "Are you sure these are the lyrics you want me to sing?"

Producer: "What are you talking about?"

Rebecca Black: "This part where I just kinda slowly explain the ordering of the days of the week?"

Producer: "That's the hook, baby!  We breakin' it down for the kids!  They gonna know those days!!"

But other Old Dogs should judge for themselves.  Here's the video in question:

Then something began to happen.  During the next week, this video got 18 million hits on YouTube.  

Then, in the next week the number roughly doubles.  As OD is writing, the YouTube tally stands at 38 million!  That's right.  Rebecca Black's "Friday" is one of YouTube's all time top streams.  

With this much attention, people must love the song.  NO WAY!  YouTube's rating survey shows roughly 8.5 people dislike this video for every 1 who likes it!   There seems to be a full spate of negative comments about the song and the video on the web, but there are also some admirers. 

Music idol, Lady Gaga, has come out as a fan of Rebecca Black despite the fact that "Friday" has now gotten more YouTube views than LG's newest hit, "Born This Way."  (Lady Gaga's video might be too much for ODs.  This link is for reference purposes only.)

Then last evening, Black was Jay Leno's guest and performed her song on The Tonight Show.  Hey, wasn't last night a school night?

So, the real question is, "What makes this girl famous and this song go viral?"   

The answer to that question is way above this OD's pay grade!