Rebecca Black

As many people have seen, a young girl named Rebecca Black has become famous over the last few days,  due to her music video "Friday" (on Youtube.com), which is being widely proclaimed as "the worst song in the world" (the music video was not intended to be a joke at the time it was made).  More than just a "critique" of an artist however, this episode obviously demonstrates one of the things that's wrong with our society.  Per my viewing of the video on Youtube, and reading over a few news articles, I'm disgusted by the amount of venom and hate that's being directed towards this girl on the internet.  The bitter posts include such things as asking her to die, asking her to develop an eating disorder to become more attractive, calling her every obscene word you can think of, and at least one person begging "please kill me". Come on people, Rebecca is 13 years old!      


There's a certain point when "criticism" becomes less about the person being examined, and more about the person expressing him or herself. There's a difference between constructive criticism and a personal attack (yes, that's basic, but some people don't discriminate between the two). And I'm getting tired of the assertion that artists who put themselves out in public with a product, deserve whatever trouble comes their way. That's like saying that a person who walks through a bad neighborhood deserves to get mugged.  No rational person thinks that way (no matter how many times he says it).  Sure, insults are inevitable, but it's sad when people defend that as "freedom of speech" (when one's only defense for saying something is that he has the right to say it, probably he's put himself in a position which opposes his own common sense). More people could refrain from such personal attacks against decent persons, and say something pleasant instead, but that would take courage.  It's a lot easier to attack a 13-year old girl than it is to stand up against the many angry people in the world.  Indeed we have to marvel at the way some people feel superior, when they're calling a young girl the "C" word and apparently ridding themselves of some dark, inner demon.


It must be hard for people like Rebecca, to grow up in a world in which people's aggressiveness is so blatantly on display.  The internet has made the world a lot different from when I was growing up, and I feel certain that it's going to have repercussions on the collective emotional maturity of entire generations of people.  People will want to hide more (as seen already in the broad deterioration of social skills and the family unit) but I suppose some people will be toughened and made better by having to fend off the slander of weaker persons.  I don't envy Rebecca's position, but hopefully she'll be a good soldier and carry on.