Last week Rebecca Black was an unknown. This week she’s had over 10 million views of her YouTube video for her song, Friday.
The problem is … the reviews are not all positive. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find any positive reviews. But the video has blown up across all social media veins – Facebook, Twitter, Google Trends, and YouTube. It went from 4000 views last Friday, to 2 million views on Monday, to nearly 10 million today.
How did that happen? Well, part of the rise may spring from Michael J. Nelson, who tweeted a backhanded compliment (and a link) last week. He wrote, “Let this be on your lips as you head into the weekend (it also answer the ? “what’s the worst video ever made?”)” Other networks, including Comedy Central, began talking about the video – watching it spiral out of control and onto iTunes.
Which begs the question – does it matter if you go viral for the wrong reasons? For Rebecca? Perhaps. But for Ark Music Factory (the company that launched the video), I’d guess it doesn’t matter to them at all! Because users who watch the video are very likely to click on their other videos … maybe to see if they’re all bad, or maybe to see if there’s a diamond in the rough. And it’s all exposure for them. Especially now that parodies are creeping out of the wood-work.
What do you think?
In some rare cases – like this one – it doesn’t matter why. The fact that the video went viral is enough for the music company and the artist…if it was a big brand getting bad press (for example, Nestle’s debacle) then no, it isn’t god.