Arranged Delirium

The lack of a web edition of the Red and Black really reflects poorly on the school, especially now that we have a Communications Major and people will be shopping the school who are interested in journalism. Long overdue. What’s the problem?

Are you trying to kill my brain cells, too, by posting this video on your blog??? I will not succumb. I’m not going to watch it. Your description was depressing enough. :=)

I’m not sure - I’d guess its just a limitation on time and folks not getting around to it. I know that sometimes the staff just has problems finding folks to write the articles for the print version! So, my guess is that it something like that driving it. But, it would have been lice to have an online version so that I could have linked to it…

Maybe we can offer some ITL help and get this done as a project next year!

Haha - I applaud your intelligence shrlckhlms. Well played!

Regarding your addendum: Did you hear Tori’s Honors Day speech? This was a main theme. She used an example of two people ostensibly together separately texting on their phones. Genuine, personal interactions are going by the wayside.

OK, so I have done quite a bit of researching regarding this song. I fully blame Ark. They wrote the song, and it sucks. She was given the choice to record this or another song. I’m curious to know how bad the other song was, since she chose this.

That said, the internet’s wrath is a lot for a 13-year-old. Though, if this interview is anything to go on, she seems to be taking it okay. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjFIzWjT5I4

She also sings a few words of the National Anthem, and honestly, I kind of liked it. It wasn’t nearly as awful as “Friday”.

Hey Aaron - I watched that interview. She seems relatively well adjusted for someone taking such harsh criticism. I’ve been thinking too about why folks are so harsh about it and I wonder if it isn’t a stronger reaction in general to the vapid nature of today’s pop culture. Maybe we’ve finally just dumbed it down too much!

Definitely agree on the loss of IQ levels, brain cells, etc. by listening to this redundant mess masquerading as a song.

I know that when my little brother saw this video for the first time, he refused to believe that it was NOT a parody. He kept looking for evidence that it had come from MadTV or SNL. That did get me wondering if the song was purposefully written to be so remarkably idiotic that people would inevitably start talking about it. After all, negative attention is better than no attention at all, and good business people know this. But that begs the question of why poor Rebecca would willingly agree to sing and star in the music video for this song in the first place… Did she and her parents and anyone else involved in the making of this video actually believe the song would be legitimately well-received and successful on its own? Or did the fact that the song was terrible simply remain the “elephant in the room” while the recording team was making the video?

Also, I found some info on the man who wrote the song, “Friday”. His name is Patrice Wilson. You can read what he has to say here: http://blog.zap2it.com/pop2it/2011/03/patrice-wilson-the-man-behind-rebecca-blacks-friday.html

Toddler music is FAR superior, especially if it comes from the Imagination Movers!!

I agree completely with all of the blatant concerns already mentioned.

However, I think a huge problem in the video is not only the lyrics, but the fact that a THIRTEEN year old girl is going to “party” on a friday night.  I believe this is another contribution to the negative media that seems to be influencing adolescents to act like adults when they are still children.  Shame on her parents for letting her be a poster child for this.

Yes.  She is dressing like she is a college kid.  It’s a really terrible song, not sung well at all from what I can tell, and did anyone else notice that no one in the car was wearing a seatbelt??

I wanted to add a comment in response to: “I’ve been thinking too about why folks are so harsh about it and I wonder if it isn’t a stronger reaction in general to the vapid nature of today’s pop culture.” 

A doctoral student in my program who focuses on Folklore and the Internet does a lot with how people’s reactions to things have changed with the internet. While he focuses mainly on death humor, he examines how the internet has changed the outcome of people’s comments.

For ex: Before wide spread internet use, when a celebrity would die there was a period in time where it was “too soon” to make jokes about his/her death. But now, when people can hide behind text and a computer screen they don’t hold back even the nastiest of thoughts such as when there were mass texts and jokes about MJ minutes after the announcement of his death.