Yes, yes, the song is awful, and internet commenters are mean, and she’s very inspiring, etc. But what about the technology?
That seems to me to be the interesting part. Because while a lot of people are going on about the crappiness of the video, it seems clear that this would not have become the internet meme it is unless it crossed some threshold for plausibly professional production (embarrassing webcam karaoke might be mocked, but not to this degree). Certainly when I first saw the video last weekend, having never heard of Rebecca Black, I simply assumed that she was some new tween sensation whose handlers had created an unutterably condescending and awful new product to sell to prepubescent dopes.
But it turns out that the video is basically a high-class version of the karaoke booths at Six Flags where you can pay to be videotaped in front of a green screen. Sure, the edge-detection effect that opens the video is lame, and all the fake depth of field stuff is off-putting, and the autotuning is obvious. But isn’t it… believable? Isn’t it kind of amazing how well a fly-by-night effects company was able to ape what was the state of the art in pop music videos not so long ago? Perhaps I’m wrong about the costs, but the utter disposability of the song — and Black’s acknowledgement that she didn’t like it even while recording it — indicates that this was not a huge investment for her family. In other words: I suspect we’re looking at a budget in the low single-digit thousands of dollars.
Maybe I’m wrong and this is a case of fantastically rich parents and/or some strange social failure that forestalled any effort at quality control. But preliminarily, I’m pretty impressed by the level of polish that can now be achieved without — clearly — anybody involved being able to muster the enthusiasm to give a damn.
I’d say the interesting part of this story is how the video achieved the exact effect that it was supposed to. She did get discovered. Hundreds of millions of people now know who she is. And, yes, there were huge problems that came with the success. It is a cautionary devil’s bargain story come to life.