BitchBuzz: Exploding on the Internet

So, yeah -- it's a bit late. The column I usually send in on Wednesday to appear on Thursday was there, unsent, Thursday late. I would say I can't believe I did that, but it's all too believable with the hectic way things are. I take it as a reminder to slow down and pay attention. Never a bad idea.

Rebecca Black, Fame, & Exploding in PublicBy K.A. Laity
"Fame is a bee. / It has a song / It has a sting / Ah, too, it has a wing." - Emily Dickinson



There have been a couple of instructive internet memes this past week: Rebecca Black and The Greek Seaman. The former is a 13-year-old with well-to-do parents who paid for a professionally recorded music video, the latter a novice writer who attacked a reviewer who did not like her book. The two are seemingly unrelated but for the internet sensation they became, but if we dig a little further we will find some unsettling parallels.



You may count yourself lucky if you didn't get a friend on Facebook linking to "The Worst Music Video Ever" and asking for you to watch it and agree. First, it's not the worst ever (there is so much competition, but a rough internet agreement seems to have settled on Armi &Danni's "I Wanna Love you Tender"). Further, it's surely not any more (or less) annoying that Justin Bieber or a host of other teen sensations. I quizzed my students on why they thought Black was so much worse than any other but they simply shrugged and put it down to fatigue with Autotuned pop music. A valid point, but I think that's a tipping point we reached some time ago...

Read the rest at BBHQ.
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Published on April 02, 2011 04:07
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