Friday (an analysis of a viral song)

So yeah, if you haven't heard this song by Rebecca Black called Friday is being called the "Worst. Song. Ever." To be honest, the lyrics definitely put it as a strong contender in this wonderful category.

Witness it for yourself here:

Wow, go take some ibuprofen before  the stupid headache gets you.

SO I'm going to provide an analysis from an English Major's perspective, because it's too fun not too. I'll start with a verse by verse break down and then do an overview because I'm cool like that...

The first verse explains her morning routine and unlike Ke$ha's (for the time being) immortal "Wake up in the Morning feeling like P. Diddy/ Grab my glasses I'm out the door, I'm gonna hit this city/ Before I leave brush my teeth with a bottle of jack/ Because when I leave for the night I aint comin' back." This leaves no interest in Rebecca's life. I don't care that she has cereal for breakfast or goes to the bus stop everyone does that until they get a friend with a car, which she then meets her friends with a car and can't decide where to sit (because the fate of the world depends upon where she sits). I don't know that many people who want to feel like P. Diddy or  brush their teeth with a bottle of Jack Daniels, that's interesting. The curiosity we, as listeners, feel toward Rebecca's daily routine is the fact that she can't make up her fucking mind about where she wants to sit in her friend's car. Which in the music video is even more peculiar as there is clearly only one seat available in the car (and most cars of that size really don't have a third seat in the back like the video suggests, nay is hoping you'll buy without worrying too much).

The first chorus has her repeating the title of the song ad nauseum and reminding us that she's "gotta get down" today. Because NO ONE parties at all on Saturdays.... She also reminds us everyone is looking forward to the weekend. Which I thought that "Everybody's Working for the Weekend" ? or am I just crazy? She then talks about, no, just says "Partyin'" over and over and everyone in the car agrees with her, though their shouts don't match what you'd think they'd sound like and really don't sound that enthusiastic either in acting or voices (seriously their 'voices' sound like some demon from Hell, possibly Legion). Her friends never just have quiet weekend get togethers where everyone talks and creates meaninful relationships, just partyin'? How superficial,  but of course this is studio manufactured music.

Second Verse and I'm already aching for alcohol for this girl, not me. She talks about cruising down the highway so fast she feels like flying. In the music video she's doing that 'cool' thing where you stand in the back seat of a convertable (By the way: how many teens do you know have brand new convertables?) and stand above the rest of the car which is generally only done at slower speeds because it's a fucking dangerous move. Cars, while fun like toys, are also to be treated with respect because they can kill you. She's just asking to die hanging out of a car going fast down the highway. Remember: she's probably going 55-70 mph so if she falls she's splattering on the ground. She then wants us to think about fun, which is so fun as opposed to going out and actually having fun. She reminds us "I got this, You got this" (don't ask what 'this' is, it's never explained) and then points out her friend is on her right. Now normally I could forgive a nonsequiter like that because sometimes a writer needed an easy rhyme, however that line goes with nothing, not even a half rhyme, it is completely pointless. On top of that she has another girl on her left in the music video who just gets the shaft. I guess they are just superficial friends. And then we know this. Know what? The epitome of bad song writing? She then shows that she can't make her mind up about what seat to sit in AGAIN! Despite being IN a moving car "in" a seat already and it's been the same seat all fucking day despite someone else driving the EXACT same car in front of a very obvious backdrop.

Why yes I'm getting more and more aggitated can you tell?

The second chorus is the same as the first lyrically, but the backdrop is more confusing. She's now at the party (oh thank God she doesn't have to worry about which seat to sit in in the car anymore!), but she's not ineracting with people that much. She waves at one person and some guy touches her shoulder right before it cuts to another scene where she doesn't interact with people except when they shout their standard "yeah" in agreement with her statement of "Partyin' Partyin.'" While the actors shouting "Yeah" are slightly more enthusiastic, the vocals are still the half-enthused non caring ones we heard before.

The Bridge: Oh the infamous bridge. In this lovely infamous bridge she goes over the days of the week, but not all of them, because that MIGHT be helpful in the long run. Because the youth of America are struggling in school and someone thought it was a good idea to put in a little reminder of the days of the week like the bridge of Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" reminded everyone how to spell "bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S!" which admittedly is a fucking catchy way to spell bananas. It's almost like Arthur spelling "aardvark" in that one episode. However, the key difference is kids know days of the week, I even learned them in song, but the difference is the catchyness. While "A-A-R-D-VA-RK!" and " B-A-N-A-N-A-S!" are quick and catchy, this is long and droning and says it is Friday, which it might not be whenever you hear this song, thankfully (or not) the music video has a constant reminder while attempting this really bad rotoscoping, flip book thing that is distracting.  It's like they were trying to repeat Ah-Ha's "Take On Me" and failing spectacularly. Then out of left field she loses her ability to use grammar properly. Seriously she just starts repeating "We, we, we, we" like a broken record before finally finishing her thought "so excited." And just when you think she made a mistake because of an actual broken record she repeats, "We so excited." She had grammar before, faltingly so, but now it's just MIA, maybe a POW of the war on America's sanity...? It gets WORSE when she then says "We gonna have a ball today." Yeah, grammar is  gone, dead, no more. Then we go back to our days of the week lesson. You know, the Animaniacs did a better job of teaching things in song, bring them back! She then shouts, "I don't want this weekend to ENNNNND!" My stuffed dog started howling... Obviously a bad sign.

Now for the obligatory rap part, because that's what you do in this kind of music! Yeah rap in this crap fest. Some gangster just cried out in pain and didn't know why, this is obviously the reason. Let me put on a sideways hat and analyze this. The rapper is someone I've never seen before, and his name isn't listed anywhere I can find on the video. He drives while he points out Rebecca's initials and her name, Because we needed to point out more obvious things in this song. He then (oh my god NO!) repeats the front and back seat and back seat thing and celebrates it... Head meet wall, ouch, but not as painful as the song. He goes on to advocate more dangerous driving such as switching in and out of lanes at highspeeds. What is it with this song and dangerous driving? I think the lyrics then imply he has a narrow miss with a car to his side because he hasn't been checking his blindspots. Way to go idiot! All he can say is "Woo." Yes, nearly side-swiping someone is something to "woo" about. It may be a near miss "woo" but he doesn't adjust his driving habits. He then complains about getting stuck behind a bus worring about all the fun hanging with tweens he's missing out on, still hopin he'll have fun this Friday.

The Chorus comes back again, twice. This time at the party which is made to look like it's in full swing. However, everyone has their hands awkwardly placed, generally down by their shoulders, because if they were to put them up they'd be in our little manufactured starlett's face. This is demonstrated the first time the crowd shouts "yeah" and fist pumps and covers her face. However, this wasn't corrected immediately and there are a couple awkward shots where her face is covered for a second. They obviously saw this problem and corrected for the second repetition of the refrain where everyone's hands are far out of the way of her face, even during the fist pumps. Why didn't they fix it in the first part? If I knew anything about this video I wouldn't be making this post. I forgot to mention she's on a stage above her peers, obviously providing the entertainment for the party. Oh, that's why she hasn't been interacting, she's the hired help. Seriously, who'd rather perform than have fun with their friends? Maybe her only friend is her roadie? This is interspersed with clips of the rapper guy driving in his car and largely doing nothing other than reminding us he's there and our little "starlett" in another part of the world. Where she's over-emoting some lyrics I can't make out. If she had just been emoting like this the whole time I wouldn't mind, however this super emotion is really weird and out of place comparison to her vague smile throughout the rest of the video. The video mercifully ends and the party goers applaud while she laughs in a a show of humility.

Overall, there were a couple of disturbing things I noticed throughout the video that were alluded to above but should still be addressed here in my general critique.

The song is incredibly formulaic: Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, rap section, chorus x2. While normally this wouldn't bother me, as structure can be a useful tool (Look at Shakespeare and the sonnets) it doesn't work when the lyrics have nothing behind them and generally suck. I feel like the song writers deceided, "What do teens like? Friday. What about Friday? Fun and the weekend. What's fun about the weekend? Parties. We need something for the bridge! Just list the days of the week. Ooh kids like rappers and driving fast how can we incoporate this? Oh we can have a rapper rap about driving fast. This is clearly song writing gold. Wait! we can't start with the party, we need a narrative of SOME kind. Just have her talk about her morning routine and tough decisions when going to school."

I also hate how this song kept reminding me of the great songs they were trying to bounce off of. They say bounce off, I say rip off. If you really stop and think about all the better songs they ripped off it goes from bad to horrendous.

I'm also really aggitated by the singer's voice, which I only briefly alluded to in my critique. It's very flat an monotonous. I don't know that much about music, but it sounds auto-tuned to hell and back, or she's just a robot. There is most definitely a metallic tinge to most of the song. Except during the parts  where there's a back up singer (implied to be her) that sounds okay, not great but tolerable. She also sounds average when she holds a longer note, but nothing amazing.

The acting of both Rebecca and the extras was abysmal. Remember what I said about her boring monotonous and emotionless smile, she has it throughout the entire music video (except precious exception, duh). Even when complaining or worrying about which damn seat to take she smiles like she secretly has a million worries behind her. The extras are no better, just watch the second verse and watch her friend on the right. By the way everyone in the back seat has the same hairstyle as her, which she apparently had to straighten like no other in the morning. Because individuality or having curls is a problem.

Again, the advocating of the dangerous driving bugs me, but I'm a car fan who like to drive my car properly, if fun, not like a fucking maniac.

That's my overly long break down.

TL;DR: This already formulaic song rips off actually good music, features a girl who can't sing and has terrible lyrics on top of everything else.

Lenten Challenge

Okay, so I don't actually celebrate Christian holidays if I'm not doing so for my parents but heres the deal:

I want to blog more regularly. I want to vlog more regularly. I want to write my stories more regularly. The only way to accomplish this is to make myself do them. The best way for me to do these this is to force myself, what better way than to do so for Lent? You get Sundays off (I'm not taking them off though) and 40 days is plenty of time to create and reinforce new behavior (thanks Intro to Psych!).

The rules which I made myself live to are: text blogs have to be over 200 words; vlogs have to be a minute long; if I miss a day/week I can make it up the next day/week by doing double duty (two seperate videos or two blog posts); it must be the immediately following day/week.

I've added a few more guidelines that aren't strictly rules: Vlogs should be about books/movies/TV and not about personal life/friends unless relevent (my upcoming Twilight video) or my explanation video. Blogs can be anything I want but not hey look I posted a video unless fufilling other requirements as well. I'll  try to have Blogs and Vlogs talk about different things, especially the same day posts. For example: I'm not going to bitch about my technology problems with video making right now as I kind of did that in my video.

So yeah, there it is, gauntlet thrown. I hope it all goes okay.

(FYI: Excluding this, this post is 260 words.)

My Life Goals

I've realized something over this first half of the semester: I won't be a good journalist.

This does not affect me that much.

You see, I never WANTED to be a journalist. I just sort of joined Newspaper last semester on a whim so I could meet people. It worked. I met people, and I admit, I had fun. However, the fun was found in class, with other English Majors just talking about anything and everything. Talking with like minded people is always fun. Going out and doing interviews, writing short choppy sentences just because, that isn't me.

I don't have time to do interviews this semester. I'm taking the same number of hours, but it's SO much harder to get in time for interviews this semester.

I know who I am. I'm not outgoing/interested in journalism to do that for my life. I think it would be easier to do interviews if I had a work time to do it, but I don't know. It doesn't feel like me.

What I want to do for the rest of my life is write. Whether novels or films (my friend who is a film major and I have been talking...) or short stories, FICTION or at least Narratives are what I want to do for the rest of my life.

I know me, now I just have to get through this semester.

10 Influential Books

Stole this from Alicia Blade's Livejournal:

I was thinking about The Giver a few days ago and how much that book had impacted me as a young reader (I first read it in 4th grade), and that got me thinking about other books that had taught me something about reading or writing. Pretty soon the list started to grow. I could probably go on forever, but ten sounded like a nice, wholesome number, so here are ten books that have had the greatest impact on me as a writer.

Well, sad to say I've never read The Giver, but here are some of my favorite books (in no particular order) and most influential none the less:

The Belgariad/The Malloreon: No matter how used the plot is, the dialogue and characters make or break the success of the story.

Harry Potter: Story is more important than the careful crafting of each sentence.

The Hunger Games: Not every ending needs to be incredibly obvious, or one of two options. The Third option is alive and well.

Jane Eyre: Just because it's classic doesn't mean everyone will enjoy it. Some people will love it though.

Kamikaze Girls: That a plot with very little actual action can be just as engaging as one with a lot of action.

The Princess Bride: So much more can be explored in a book in addition to the 'main' plot.

A Series of Unfortunate Events: True resolution may not be the most fitting for your story.

The Lovely Bones: No matter what your intent in writing, people will make of it what they will.

Memoirs of a Geisha: You can strech a will they-won't they romance across a whole book and keep the reader guessing.

Pride and Prejudice (Free Kindle Edition): Formatting DOES matter.

It's times like these....

It's times like these, when I've squandered the day away on TV Tropes, I'm feeling depressed, I'm feeling lazy, Chuck and Hannah broke up, and I miss David Tennant that I wish I was an internet celebrity.

Because really, if there is one guaranteed way to get me to post on my blog is for me to have an assignment do.

The problem is I have no idea where to go with said assignment. Othello, while a very well written and fun (in my opinion) play, leaves me kind of wondering what to talk about.

Yes, I know I could talk about race, fidelity, purity, communication skills, but our teacher keeps reminding us to find what interests us.

Okay, what interests me about Othello is that Iago is fucking awesome. He's the villain, but damn, he's a good one. You hate him, loathe him, he's a mean one mister grinch. If this were a modern day musical he would have the best song in the whole fucking thing. Why is he evil? Who cares? Why does he hate Othello? Does it matter?

Simply by not having motivation, he succeeds at avoiding one thing many villains suffer, the stupid motive. He is a complete monster and that is why he rocks! Seriously, he makes it his goal to totally screw this one guy over, and he does it with style.

I could talk about how villainy without reason is the best kind of villainy, but I can't think of many villains who don't have a reason. Sue Sylvester fits the bill, but Glee isn't the type of thing you write about in a formal paper, plus I'd need another example.

Which leads me back to "It's Times Like These...." because it's times like these where I wish I was a bit of a celebrity so I could ask my fans what I should write about for this paper. And even if I got shitty answers, at least I'd have an idea.

The Internet Scares Me

Woah. I read this story about this crazy chick who goes by the handle MsScribe. I can't get my mind off of it.

Before anyone asks, I'm not her in any way shape or form. I'm just an innocent bystander who found her story via hitting random on TV Tropes and coming across the sock puppet page. ( The MS Scribe tale is compiled wonderfully here: http://www.journalfen.net/users/charlottelennox/784.html.) Honest, at that time my involvement in fandom meant checking Mugglenet once a day (if not more) and Going to my first Midnight Book release. In 2003 I was 12-13ish, and far too shy on top of the fact I wasn't really allowed to join any websites at the time.

For those of you who subscribe to the TL;DR (Too long; didn't read) method of internet inquiry I'll do my best to summarize:

One Woman to Rule them all. One Woman to Find Them.
One Woman to rule them all and in the Darkness bind them.

I'm not exaggerating. One woman created (hold on let me tally) HOLY SHIT! Nearly 30 (probably more though as I'm sure I'm missing some) sock puppets. That's fake accounts for all those internet illiterate or naive. But not just the normal "OMG this person (who totally isn't me) is so fantastic isn't she?" way (which is usually executed with 1 puppet, of course she had many more) but ALSO in the "Wounded Gazelle" way. Self attack in order to gain sympathy (again usually one, maybe two. Oh no she had far more).

Why? For the sake of internet celebrity of course. Now, I'm sure we all want a little attention or 15 minutes of fame now and then. Some people are willing to go to more extreme lengths (Ala Baloon Boy, the White House gate Crashers, I call that Gate Gate).

But even in typing that I realized something. Now is the rest of the world interested in people doing stupid shit for the sake of fame. It's been happening on the internet for YEARS! Literally! Earth to real world, you think the internet is backwards and misinformed, look at yourself in comparison to what fandoms have been dealing with.

Which brings me to the title of this post, "The Internet Scares Me."

Because it does. In real life you have to do major stuff that can get you caught and reprimanded easily. The internet, not so much. All you have to do is not be overly obvious about the whole thing and you can become a BNF, which in the grand scale of internet celebrity I'm not sure where this lies. It took a grand total of six months for people to get suspicious of MsScribe and one more month to get serious accusations leveled at her. And THEN it takes a grand total of 3 1/2 years for her to finally disappear for good (kinda). It also takes about that long for people to accept and/or realize she's been pulling these stunts.

You know when your teachers told you the internet is the underbelly of society and that the worst of the worst are there and you scoffed? or at least were dubious because of the friends you made? Sometimes I wonder if that's true.

Yes, I know I can't trust EVERYONE out there, but I used to be optimistic.

I used to sit quietly in the back and observe to learn the rules of the game and be a respectful observer.

Now I'll sit back wondering how many of you are the same person.

Stage Fright

SO I have my camera. Now I'm not sure I want to do this whole video blog thing. I know I can do it. I just feel uncertain of myself randomly.

Text provides anonymity that a video blog does not.

Yet, on the other hand, I'm an actress. Performing is nothing. I have a feeling I'll do this anyway. Just needed to write it out.

And Now I'm Back, from Outer Space...

I just walked in to find... nothing.

I apologize for not writing in.... 10 months. I have been writing, just not here. I was told that my blog hasn't updated recently enough and needs a refresh. I would like to point out that my twitter is linked and it updates regularly. :P Also I didn't go over a year without an update. I'm actually impressed.

I'm still writing fiction. That fanfic that attacked me a while a go is still being written. I had to take some time off. I thought taking a Creative Writing Class would help create writing time. It didn't. I didn't even finish my assigned writings for that class. I also hit a stumbling block on that story. I wrote a crap chapter that I just need to scrap and start over. I haven't yet because I keep hoping I can salvage it. I'll try and pull something out.

Been toying with an original series. It would need multiple books. Mystery/Scifi/Thriller. I've been watching a lot of X-files so you can probably guess what the Scifi aspect will be... If not, then you've been missing out.

Also I'm probably going to write an X-files/Doctor Who fic. I only found 4 on fanfiction.net. What I've got planned is fairly different from all of them. Mostly it'll star 9 instead of 10.

SO I'm procrastinating something else: ACC lit. I hate that class. I don't know why. I had a love/hate with ACC Rhetoric (writing) but this class is just pure hate. The only thing I'm looking forward to is starting Othello this week. And THAT'S only because I love Shakespeare and the Othello Rap.

EDIT: I just noticed a gross grammar error, that I fixed myself. I'm even getting better at grammar.

Twittering away

Okay so I officially have a twitter now:

https://twitter.com/Yarsian

Check it out if you like will try to update once or twice a day. Even if I don't update this quite as often I will make sure I twitter plenty

I haven't been updating 'cuz I've been told/assigned to write in a journal everyday (I Don't). I feel I should keep that updated first and foremost. But this is a link and this is therefore an acceptable update. So I keep telling myself.

Getting off Now!

Plot Bunnies hurt....

Wow, as I sit here about to update my blog I notice my laptop's clock (which is usually no more than 5 minutes off) is a whole freaking 9-10 minutes off. I really hate my 3 year old, over used, slow, virus ridden laptop.... (Which I need so desperately I can't turn in to get fixed.)

As you can see last night a plot bunny, which I had encountered before and had only nipped lightly at my heels, FREAKING TRIED TO KILL ME! Seriously I couldn't sleep until I had been writing for like an hour. Here's how it tried to kill me. Because it attacked so late in the night my usual sleeping pattern was thrown off. Today in fourth period I nearly fell asleep, IN MY FAVORITE CLASS OF THE DAY! Really I could have understood any other class, heck even my study RIGHT BEFORE, but not that class. Then I took a nap for like an hour when I finally got home (had to work on Christmas drive stuff...).

What annoys me about the bunny though is I've been trying SO hard to write an original story, and I've really been putting effort into it. However this plot bunny was for a Seto/Anzu Fanfic... ARGH! I don't mind fanfic, I just realized I'll get published with an original piece, not a fanfic. Oh well, at least I'm writing, and I think I'm writing damn well too.

I recently finished up a big paper which is such a stress relief. Now I have to make a 3-5 minute presentation (Preferably a powerpoint I think...). We are supposed to talk about why we chose a neighborhood and why we took the angle we did, why we think it's cool, ect. Problem: I wrote about how crappy the neighboor hood was... Or more specifically I wrote about how shitty a planned community there is. So I don't know how I'll do the presentation, but it'll be interesting.

I'll write about my birthday later, but Heroes is almost on. :)