Rethinking Rebecca Black
So, we've had to totally re-think our knee-jerk disdain for Rebecca Black. Like a sensible, but sorta cool older sister, NPR entertainment blog editor Linda Holmes has given us some much needed perspective on this whole thing. In a piece she wrote a couple weeks ago, Holmes valiantly leaps to the defense of the 13-year-old YouTube pariah, pointing out the fact that, while the song is unquestionably terrible, Black didn't write it.
Holmes also points out some of the more appalling thing people have posted about Black on the Internet:
Black said on Good Morning America that the worst comment she read once the Internet found this video on YouTube was this: "I hope you cut yourself, and I hope you get an eating disorder so you'll look pretty. And I hope you go cut and die." Cut and die. I have absolutely no problem believing that happened. It took about 30 seconds to find this comment on the Tosh.0 blog entry: "She has that awful Stepford Wives look on her face the whole time." And this one: "Can't sing bitch." And this one: "Rebecca Black is a whore." And those are at a Comedy Central blog. You don't even want to know what YouTube comments are like.Quick reminders: Thirteen years old. "Whore." "Bitch." "Cut and die."
The Internet is a cruel place!
Thing is, as long as Rebecca Black doesn't start running around courting TMZ and being obnoxious, maybe we should let her off the hook. As Holmes reminds us, this is a child whose parents were maybe a bit over-indulgent to allow her to do this in the first place. But is that her fault? No. It's like, hate the awful song. Hate the soulless hacks who wrote it and took money from these rubes—Black's parents—promising their daughter instant fame. Hate on the parents from not being more sensible. But don't hate on the kid. Not until she's spotted throwing temper tantrums and wrecking hotel rooms at the Chateau Marmont.
Read more: Ridiculed YouTube Singer Rebecca Black Grabs A Mountain Of Bull By The Horns [NPR.org]
