63 Million Views at last count.. and still growing
OK
Rebecca Black is not my idea of great music.
But that’s what an open and free market is all about – lots of different things. And then the public decides.
And the public has apparently decided that they love Rebecca Black, at least for the moment.
Which is great.
But not everyone loves that the public loves Rebecca Black. Her momentary popularity has caused a strange kind of backlash.
One Peter Shankman who runs something called HARO (more on this in a moment) does not like Rebecca Black or her popularity at all.
In a rather weird rant in his blog (picked up by Mashable), he writes:
We used to be a society of content eaters fed by a very small kitchen run by music labels, TV stations, and movie stars. With the advent of the Internet, Flip cameras, and yes, even Justin Bieber, the paradigm has shifted. It’s no longer a world where the talent wins. It’s not even a world where the beauty wins. It’s a world where anyone can post, and in many cases, the worse the performance, the better it does. Call it the “William Hung†Effect.
Yes ideed.
In a world of flipcams and the Internet anyone can post…
and thank God for that.
That’s what a free press is all about.
The ‘power’ to create content and post is now, very much, in the hands of ‘the people’, not the hands of the self-appointed few.
(And who, after all, elected Rupert Murdoch to decide what we can and cannot see on TV?)
While the power to create is now very much in the hands of ‘the people’, the power to decide what we see and when is still, alas, in the hands of the very few. And our loss. Yesterday BBC America (which used to be the best cable channel on Time/Warner) dropped their nightly BBC News (and just about everything else). Here, if you can belive it, is their schedule for prime time Monday:
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In other words, the same show, in rerun yet, over and over and over and over again.
This is Video on Demand – without the demand part.
So thank God for Rebecca Black and Youtube and the millions of people who make their own content and are finding ways to get around the networks, who are doomed to die if they keep this up.
And OK, the lyrics for Rebecca Black’s song are a bit repetitive, but so was “Round round get around, I get around. Get around ooo ooo I get around. I get around’
And today we call that ‘genius’.
Oh, I nearly forgot.
Peter Shankman
He runs something called HARO – It stands for Help A Reporter Out.
And it says on his website, (and I kid you not – this is for real) :Â “No more flipping through your rolodex;”
No more flipping through your rolodex!
Rolodex?
Rolodex?
Hold on Peter, I have to flip over my 45 of The Beach Boys.
No wonder he finds Youtube threatening.
Rolodex???