Friday

“Friday” is a song by American recording artist Rebecca Black, written and produced by Los Angeles record producers Clarence Jey and Patrice Wilson. It was released on March 14, 2011, by ARK Music Factory as Black’s debut single. The song features a rap verse from Wilson, uncredited on the single. Its music video caught a sudden surge of hits after Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax comedian Michael J. Nelson called it “the worst video ever made” on Twitter and the song was featured on the Tosh.0 blog. The song’s reception was highly negative, mainly for its songwriting and Black’s singing performance. The original video was removed from YouTube on June 16, 2011 due to legal disputes between ARK Music and Black herself. By then, it had already amassed more than 167 million views, with over 3.1 million “dislikes” (87% of total ratings) from YouTube users. The video was uploaded to YouTube again on September 16, 2011. (The video currently has 1.5 million “dislikes” 80% of total ratings on YouTube.) Since the growth in popularity of the song and video, there have been numerous parody videos and remixes. Forbes stated that the notoriety of the song is another sign of the power of social media’specifically Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr, in this instance’in the ability to create “overnight sensations.”