'Friday' Pop Star Rebecca Black Debuts Viral 'Saturday:' Is Homeschool the Answer to Teen Drama?
Viral music video artist Rebecca Black debut a follow-up to her hit song, moving from "Friday" to "Saturday" this time around. An entrepreneurship expert praised the pop star for thriving despite the massive public backlash against her first hit, and warned that the true cause behind teens' tendency to party hard and make bad decisions is the oppressive culture of the public school.
"Two PM getting out of my bed, trying to get Friday out of my head, it's all so hazy, got a little too crazy, you know I'd do it all again," sings Rebecca Black in her newest video. Starting the afternoon after "Friday's" explosive shin-dig, she sits up from a tough night on the couch, ready to party some more.
"She's slightly making fun of herself, but really making fun of the extremely negative public reaction," Jeffrey Tucker, executive editor of Laissez-Faire Books and research fellow at the Christian Acton Institute, told The Christian Post on Monday. Tucker praised Black for persisting through the huge backlash to her hit song "Friday," even going so far as to make a sequel.
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Held up as the video "everyone loves to hate," Black's debut from September 2011 holds the record for the most "dislikes" on YouTube – over 1.2 million. But it also has nearly 62 million views. Her new one, however, published Friday, already has 9.5 million views as of Monday, and more "likes" than "dislikes."
Just as in "Friday," where Black rides a convertible with the top off, she speeds out under the setting sun the next day. "This Saturday, we goin' party all night, one we will remember for the rest of our lives," she sings, more subdued, but still carving "so excited" into the sand. Preparing for the party, she invites a friend over the phone, who says "I'll be right over – I've just got to find my pants…"
At the actual party, the dancing is hip, but more subdued. Rather than a Miley Cyrus video, rife with raunchy actions and naked wrecking balls, "Saturday" shows a slightly less crazy party atmosphere. From mini-flares to poker to a plush stegosaurus, the video sets a fun, somewhat rule-breaking tone, without the explicit suggestiveness of "Can't Stop." In one shot, she even mocks Miley Cyrus – with a blonde girl in white tights clearly twerking – for two seconds as Black laughs in the background.
"It's just like 'Friday' – she's exploring the themes of human choice and freedom, which everybody in her age group is obsessed by," Tucker explained. He argued that, for kids in "these prisons called public schools," the weekend represents spontaneous freedom, where you can be bad, make messes, and don't have to go to bed at a certain time.
In public school, Tucker argued, "you're not even free to have your own thoughts," but have to conform them to a checklist. "The secular state has put together a sort of fake catechism," the editor said, "with a fake morality to go along with it." The timeless principles of morality so memorably enshrined in the Ten Commandments are shadowed by a "panoply of behavioral techniques to control us in a civic way."
In such an environment, "these kids are being forced to be absolute robots," the editor said, arguing that the public school system is "stultifying and crushing of the human imagination." Worse, they desire to reject all authority, including pastoral and parental authority.
Videos like "Friday," "Saturday," and "Can't Stop" represent a breaking free, a final expression of the human person in such an oppressive environment, Tucker argued. Children educated outside of this sphere will not need to rebel, he said, so long as they are given freedom and responsibility.
In that context, Rebecca Black stands out as "a great example of entrepreneurship," Tucker explained. Black's viral videos propelled her to fame, and she makes money off of her videos and singing at birthday parties. Tucker guessed that the YouTube pop star makes nearly six figures, $100,000.
One thing to learn from this "role model," Tucker argued, is that "If I do something great, I'm going to be attacked for it," but she pushed ahead, "and has made something spectacular."
