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A synth’s sinister arpeggio sculpts an eerie background for Dorian Electra’s breathy, autotuned vocals as they sing of (both literally and figuratively) f*cking the world on their My Agenda album opener “F The World.” Jarring and adrenaline-inducing, the song is written from the perspective of an incel and offers a brief introduction into the eccentric world carefully constructed by Electra on their sophomore album.

Not everyone can effectively pen a concept album inspired by the alt-right and incel communities that is simultaneously endearing, hilarious, and thought-provoking. But then again, there’s no artist quite like Electra, who dons a penciled-on mustache as their signature look. And it’s this commitment to pushing boundaries leads them to masterfully explore the darkest corners of the internet through a queer lens on My Agenda.

The album has been described as both futurist and hyperpop, two genre labels which have recently been popularized by Charli XCX and the rise of 100 Gecs in the mainstream. Electra has collaborated with both artists, even accrediting Charli to helping jumpstart their career after joining the singer for her 2018 Pop 2 tour. “The biggest takeaway from being in close situations with Charli is that it’s important to really love the people that you work with on a daily basis — those people should be your friends,” Electra told me over the phone in the days following My Agenda’s release.

Collaborating with their musician friends and staying true to their artistic vision opened the door for other exciting opportunities. The cult following Electra has garnered since their debut LP Flamboyant earned them a chance to participate in Red Bull Radio’s Fireside Chat series (which you can check out below) and secured them album features by some of the biggest queer icons in left-of-center pop.

Unpacking their aesthetic influences and inspiration on My Agenda, Electra talks researching the incel community, subverting harmful internet culture, and collaborating with the likes of the Village People, Pussy Riot, and Rebecca Black.

It seems like a lot of your driving force as a musician is taking norms in pop music and subverting them — whether it’s the heteronormative aspect of pop or the bubble-gummy, accessible sound. In your opinion, what’s one trend in pop music right now that you wish to see changed?

I think it’d be interesting to hear more unique and diverse perspectives in terms of the narrative and story told in pop music. Usually, it’s something really basic like a hetero love story. Even artists that I know who have more diverse experiences than that tend to do the stuff they think will be the most relatable or most universal. But I think it can end up just perpetuating the same old, tired tropes. And I think that some of my favorite artists are the people that I’m seeing talk about really unique and interesting things that are very specific but that also end up being very relatable — they can find a balance of both.

Speaking about your aesthetic and about Dorian Electra as a persona, where do you draw some of your stylistic and aesthetic influences from?

I love the history of fashion — 1600s, 1700, 1800s-era fashion with some punk mixed in. Also, TikTok e-girl and e-boy vibes. I used to love mod and goth fashion. A lot of different things — neckbeard fashion, like the dragon shirts trench coats, that stuff, and nerd culture and rave culture, too.

It’s sort of like an amalgamation of all these different influences. Speaking of neckbeard culture, throughout your record My Agenda you deal a lot with and incels and that whole community online. But rather than overtly condemning it, which is really easy to do nowadays, it seems you’re seeking to understand it. Can you speak about that a little bit?

I feel like we have a very interesting situation on our hands culturally right now, where we have a lot of people that are millennial, or younger or older, white, hetero cis men that feel for some reason very alienated. They feel out of place in society, feel like they can’t have a financial, romantic, or sexual life, and that somehow they feel disenfranchised. It’s causing a new surge in misogyny. In the more extreme realms of that, you see racism and xenophobia. That always happens when people are feeling economically not taken care of. And the scapegoat happens on other groups like, ‘Oh, immigrants take jobs.’ You can look throughout history and just see the trend that there’s always a correspondence between those things.

From a sociological perspective, we really need to look at what is the root cause of this new version of the right and the alt-right. Why has this come about and how do we combat this and how do we try to communicate to these people that there are more positive solutions to their problems than some of the ideology that is found on these corners of the internet? I’m a very pragmatic person, so when I find solutions, I want to look for things that work and ask how we heal the cultural divide that we have going right now — the growing division between the left and the right and culture wars that we’re in the middle of experiencing right now. To me, it starts with just learning, researching, and understanding. The best way to communicate with someone on “the other side” is to first understand them and know where they’re coming from to be able to better communicate with them as opposed to just shutting them out, shutting them down, preventing communication, preventing basically any possibility for change, learning, growth, or development on their part. I think that we need a renewed sense of openness and duty to have civil discourse because online it can just get so [complex] so quickly.

It definitely sounds like you did a lot of research. Is there anything that you learned throughout this research that surprised you?

One thing that I learned that was surprising to me was reading some people’s individual experiences being queer or trans and having found a sense of community in the incel community before they were out. I found a lot of overlap in certain ways between people that were feeling outcast by the rest of the world — feeling like they were never going to find a romantic or sexual partner — and feeling a big sense of self-loathing. There was a sense of being angry with the world.

But the more I started thinking about it, it really made sense to me why that there would be an overlap [between incels and queer people who are closeted]. When people are not happy with themselves, they turn to these online communities that can be both supportive but also destructive and self-destructive to your psyche. […] I can maybe reach some of the people that are in those darker corners of the internet and those communities because they feel out of place, gender nonconforming, or that their sexual orientation is different. And if somehow they come across my stuff and it could reach them, that would be amazing and beautiful. So I think that surprised me the most, but also energized me because some people are reachable and teachable.

That is really interesting. It’s definitely all about creating that underground community and seeking to have other people who understand you be a part of your world. But let’s go into specific tracks more. When you released your title track “My Agenda,” you talked about getting the Village People on the song and how you were inspired by them as queer people because they dominate very heteronormative spaces like sports games. Can you talk about how they as a group, and Pussy Riot as well, fit into your sound?

With the track “My Agenda,” before we even considered having those people on it, it was always this military-sounding song. I always imagined it as a military boy band vibes. I thought it was kind of like ‘NSYNC with the orchestra hits and the lyrics. We have actual marching sounds in the song and it’s a parody of how the conservatives can sometimes portray the “gay agenda” like it’s a gay militia or something. I run with that in a self-aware, sort of self-mocking but also critical way. Yes, we are the “gay agenda.”

But then to have Pussy Riot on the track was so meaningful. I think we kind of take it for granted in the US, but in Russia they have these laws called gay propaganda laws that make it illegal to promote or teach about anything that goes against traditional family heterosexual values. Access to information about sex education is limited, counseling and therapy is limited. It’s really, really detrimental to LGBT youth and just the culture and society as a whole. It’s censorship and it’s still going on. It’s illegal to fly a pride flag. In the US I think we take our freedom of speech for granted a lot of times. And so to have Nadezha [Tolokonnikova, the lead singer of Pussy Riot] be able to sing about that. And for Putin’s birthday, they were putting all these pride flags up around important government buildings in Russia. One of the members was arrested and is in jail for 30 days.

On the other hand, Village People, their songs like “Macho Man” and “YMCA” are simultaneously being played at Trump rallies over the past month. I think that’s amazing in the sense that they’re able to exist in this super mainstream context. Imagine people going on Spotify after the Trump rally, getting all fired up like, “I’m going to listen to some Village People to keep the patriotism going.” And then the next song that comes on is “My Agenda” and they’re encountering that. Just the fact that there could be this crossover or this accidental discovery is remarkable. That’s part of the process. You have the people that are radically upfront about their queer agenda and politics like Pussy Riot, but then you have [a group] that is more covert with a message of love and acceptance that is appealing to the mainstream. To have those two together, to me, it’s just a perfect marriage and I’m just so happy with how that track turned out.

Talking about another collab on the album, your song with Rebecca Black “Edgelord,” you said wanted her on the track because she was also the subject of the “dark side” of the internet. She’s basically the poster child for cyberbullying. It seems to me that a lot of your music on this album is sort of a study in semiotics as well because you take the word edgelord, which obviously has this meaning that comes out of the incel community, but you also break it down to have a lot of different meanings. You talk about an edgelord literally meaning somebody standing on the edge or pushing you to the edge. But talking about the collaboration, can you tell me how it came about and what it was like working with her?

I totally agree with everything that you just said about it. I always find the most inspiration in words to become titles of songs that have three or more meanings. But working with Rebecca was so amazing because I had been learning that she was a fan of my music and 100 Gecs and Charli. It was really cool because she’s somebody who’s totally reclaimed her own narrative and her own story and has reshaped her own career when people probably thought she would never make music professionally. She proved everybody wrong. Also, she’s come out as queer recently, too. We’ve just become friends since working together and it’s been amazing to learn about her and her story. She’s a really inspiring, kind, and compassionate person.

I like that you guys are friends now, that’s really wholesome. Talking about some of the different sounds you have on this record, it seems like you are mixing a lot of these sonic influences — sort of like your style as well. You have some screamo metal influences on “F The World” and then that Halo Gregorian chant on “Monk Mode.” Can you talk about how you come up with some of these sounds?

I figure out what would be the most unexpected combo or the most dramatic, jarring combo. I’m very desensitized to a lot of that. So I have to figure out how to switch it up even more for my next step, but I always love something unexpected. I love things that reclaim sounds that have been considered uncool. Also, things that reclaim genres of music that have become super masculine, like dubstep becoming “brostep” or being associated with frat bros and becoming uncool. But it’s actually a really cool sound of music. Then something like black metal, which is a really amazing and cool genre of music, that’s unfortunately been co-opted by a lot of people on the far right that are white nationalists and white supremacists. Seeing a black metal artist like Gaylord taking that back and make queer and anti-fascist black metal is so powerful to me. So I think that’s what a lot of it is, taking all these genres and reclaiming them.

The last thing that I will ask you is, especially with the uncertainty of the live music industry right now, can you tell me what’s next for Dorian Electra?

I’m definitely going to be working on a lot more new music because that is what people are sitting at home and consuming. I want to be able to provide that for people. And also more videos, I just love doing videos. It’s just so easy for me. And I love to bring these concepts to life. I also want to do something that is beyond just an album or an EP. I want to figure out something that is a different form that I can experiment with too. And more collaborations, I’m very excited to do more collaborations.

My Agenda is out now via Dorian Electra. Get it here.

Charli XCX is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Rebecca Black first released her song “Friday” at age 13 and, for better or for worse, it instantly went viral. People everywhere began to ridicule the song and Black by extension. But now, ten years later, Black has shirked her critics and she’s ready to reclaim the song. This time, she’s tapped Dorian Electra, Big Freedia, and 3OH!3 to turn the auto-tuned track into a hyperpop banger. The song was also produced by Dylan Brady of 100 Gecs.

The video, directed by Weston Allen, plays up the campiness song while adding elements to call back to the original video. Black can be seen riding in the back seat of the convertible that appeared in the 2011 video, but this time, she’s drag racing with Dorian Electra and has her RIAA-certified Gold plaque siting shotgun.

Speaking about the remix, Black said:

“I’d had the idea to do this remix of Friday for years leading up to now but honestly it was also mildly insane for me to think anyone else would want to be a part of it. As I started talking about it with other artists and producers I couldn’t believe how stoked people were about it. I am thrilled to have some of my favorite artists (and people) as a part of this moment – Dylan Brady, Dorian Electra, Big Freedia, 3OH!3.”

Echoing Black’s statement, Big Freedia expressed her excitement about the project: “When they asked me to be on the remix I was like yasss! ‘Friday’ defined an era and changed the music industry! It was a fun project.”

Watch Rebecca Black’s “Friday (Remix)” video above.

This week in the best new pop music saw some captivating remixes and exciting releases. Dua Lipa returned to share her first new track of the year, Rebecca Black celebrate ten years of her meme-worthy song “Friday,” and Claud released their anticipated debut album.

Each week, Uproxx rounds up the best new pop music. Listen up.

Dua Lipa — “We’re Good”

Dua Lipa may have pulled influences from ’80s disco for her 2020 Future Nostalgia. But with her new single “We’re Good,” she’s dipping her toes into early aughts pop. Over a rolling beat, Lipa gets real with her past partner about deciding it’s time to move on.

Rebecca Black — “Friday (Remix)” Feat Dorian Electra, Big Freedia, 3Oh!3

Feel old yet? It’s been ten years since Rebecca Black released her internet-breaking song “Friday.” While the song didn’t receive positive feedback at the time, the now 23-year-old is reclaiming the single with the help of Dorian Electra, Big Freedia, and 3Oh!3. “I’d had the idea to do this remix of ‘Friday’ for years leading up to now but honestly it was also mildly insane for me to think anyone else would want to be a part of it,” Black said in a statement. “As I started talking about it with other artists and producers I couldn’t believe how stoked people were about it.”

Claud — “Guard Down”

Claud released their highly-anticipated debut album Super Monster this week, which included the shuffling single “Guard Down.” Describing the album in an interview with Uproxx, Claud says it’s “a reminder that to myself and to other people that you’re capable of being loved. If you open yourself up enough and remind yourself that you’re worthy of it, it’s possible and that you deserve it.”

Gabriel Garzón-Montano — “Someone” (Armando Young Remix) Feat. Jamila Woods

Gabriel Garzón-Montano is expanding on his 2020 album Agüita by enlisting a handful of artists to remix his songs. This week, the musician shared an Armando Young remix to his touching track “Someone” with Jamila Woods. Speaking to her decision to hop on the remix, Woods said she’s been a longtime fan of Garzón-Montano’s music: “I’ve been a big fan of Gabriel for a while and it was so fun to re-make this song with him! The lyrics are so visual and vulnerable and the story of the song really resonated with me.”

Sia — “1+1”

Sia made her directorial debut with the controversial and headline-making film Music. The movie just hit theaters this week, which means its accompanying soundtrack, also written by Sia, has been released. While critics may be puzzled over the film itself, songs like “1+1” proves Sia’s talent for songwriting.

Rita Ora — “Big” Feat. Gunna

Rita Ora returned to share her first new music in a year with her collaborative EP Bang. “It was like finding pen pals,” she said about the project. “You had me in London, Imanbek in Kazakhstan, Gunna in Los Angeles, KHEA in Argentina and David Guetta, well, who knows where David is at any one time. It’s a global project that went beyond language and geographical boundaries but somehow stayed lovely and intimate.”

Alaina Castillo — “STFU (I Got U)”

Many were celebrating love on Valentine’s Day this week, but Alaina Castillo was instead busy showcasing the pitfalls of romantic obsession. Armed with a downtempo beat, Castillo sings of playing games with her love interest and feeling insecure as a result.

Biig Piig — “Cuenta Lo”

With a handful of singles and EPs under her belt, Biig Piig continues turning heads with her thumping new track “Cuenta Lo.” About the single, the singer said: “‘Cuenta Lo’ is an alter-ego-driven song about money, sex and power. The video is based around when I used to be a poker dealer, and it’s about the coldness and greediness that money can bring in all industries…including music.”

Gallant — “Relapse”

Gallant brought his ethereal vocals into the new year. This week, the singer dropped the single “Relapse,” which followed his acclaimed 2019 album Sweet Insomnia. The emotionally-charged track offers another preview of his forthcoming project Neptune, which is expected to be released later this year.

Charlotte Cardin — “Meaningless”

With her affecting new single “Meaningless,” Charlotte Cardin officially announces her anticipated debut album Phoenix. “Making this album took two years, because I started the writing process trying to keep control over what I wanted to show,” Cardin said about the album writing process. “It eventually became obvious, though, that I needed to embrace accessing those true impulses for my music (and my life) to make any sense whatsoever. The more I realized certain things about myself in the process, the angrier I got for not understanding them earlier. This conflicting loop of shame versus growth gave birth to ‘Phoenix.’”

Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

If you’re still associating Rebecca Black with 2011’s “Friday” single, it’s time for a new lesson. Sure, it was an infamous viral moment in pop culture. But the new era of the singer’s career signals a need to move on. She commemorated the 10th anniversary of “Friday” in February with an explosive remix featuring Dorian Electra, Big Freedia, and 3OH!3, doubling as the kickoff to an overall artist reinvention. And with the release of her new project Rebecca Black Was Here, she reclaimed her own narrative.

Released on June 16, the six-track follow-up to 2017’s RE / BL is a thrilling mix of sharp-edged hyperpop, glossy vintage-inspired melodies, and vulnerable lyrics detailing the heartache and self-reflection that comes with a fresh breakup. There’s a heightened self-assurance and confidence in Black’s tone, which is attributed to taking all creative reigns of her sound as well as stepping into her queer identity, which she revealed last April.

“Gosh, it’s been a really intense year and a half for all of us,” Black tells Uproxx over Zoom in her Los Angeles home. “I feel now, especially in hindsight, just really fortunate to have been able to take the time to really focus on what was important for me to prioritize in my life and in my world. Coming out definitely had a lot to do with the direction that my project has taken. I feel really good and proud of the progress that I’ve made.”

“I worked with such an incredible group of people who only encouraged that,” the 24-year-old continues. “They never shut my ideas down in a harsh way or got on me for anything that was too intense. They just really helped me grow and learn and listen and allowed me to take control in a lot of healthy ways. That I think hopefully lent to the project in the best way.”

That growth will soon be showcased on stage, as Black will embark on her first headlining tour beginning January 2022 alongside supporting act Alice Longyu Gao. Below, Uproxx catches up with Black about her love for pop experimentation and why it’s time for people to let go of past perceptions of her.

When we first spoke a few years ago, there were glimpses of you yearning for control. With this project, it sounds like you’ve nailed it.

Thank you. I mean, as a younger female in this industry, it’s very easy to have that control taken away from you. And in my case, I think being so young and having such an intense reaction to “Friday” to deal with as a kid really hindered that ability to take control of my own life and the things that I believed in. I just tried to never give up on that. And I’ve fallen so many times, so ungracefully. Now I just have a group of people who again, allow me to still move as I want to and follow whatever choices I want to make, especially creatively. I finally feel like that’s mine. I don’t feel like it’s anybody else’s anymore, which I struggled with for a long time.

I remember asking about your sound, and you said you’re not afraid to get moody or weird. With previous songs like “Do You?” and “Sweetheart”, there’s this trajectory where we’re like, “Okay, she’s slowly getting more experimental.” Then BAM, the weirdness has jumped all the way out on this project.

I definitely hear you. And listening back to some of the songs that I released a few years ago, I still have a lot of love for them. They were just a different part of my process. I think it was probably two and a half years ago that I really started to understand what I wanted to do. It was just learning how to express that and find people to bring the best parts out and really encouraged that. Even though the hyperpop world is as big as it is and we live in a time where niche is it, just go for it because that is what people want.

There’s so much in this overly saturated market of music and all people want is something that will spark some new thing for them or feel unique. But still, there are a lot of people that are afraid of that. I think a big part of finding my own sound that I have now was learning to not listen to some of the voices, even though you think you should trust them. You have to take a chance on yourself and on what you make. And I definitely did that with a lot of the songs on this project. One of the biggest silver linings of this last year was I got to shut out the peanut gallery in terms of making music. That allowed for just a lot more creativity. And I finally found joy in what I do in a new way.

And you could see that too, like with the “Personal” video. You go from being a B-movie housewife to going full Patrick Bateman on us. I know you love the ‘80s, so did you source from that?

I think it’s just an amalgamation of the things that I’ve grown up with and what I’ve always felt drawn towards. I am a huge — there’s gotta be a term for it — somebody who’s just obsessed with the ‘80s. That definitely comes through in “Girlfriend” and some of the other tracks of this project. I really had so much fun exploring some darker concepts. And I’m really into playing, especially in this era, with the perception of what people might have of what I’m going to do next. It’s fun to kind of break the expectation and go with whatever feels really exciting.

I also have to credit Weston Allen, who has been directing some of these videos for me. He takes my idea and says, “How do we make this as insane as it can be? Don’t think of a budget limit or anything like that. We’ll deal with that.” As an independent artist, I’m very familiar with the budget. [Laughs] But at the same time, I’m really milking every opportunity when we have to make anything a moment. I think I’ve just stopped underestimating what could be done with people who really care about and believe in a project.

What’s so interesting about this project is that each song has its own vision. There’s “NGL”, which gives me this PC Music vibe. It’s super off-the-wall, which had to be fun recording.

It was so fun, oh my gosh. I wrote it with Marshall Vore, who is a part of Phoebe Bridgers’ [2020 Punisher album], which is probably not what you’d expect and one of my favorite things about it. [Laughs] When Marshall and I first worked together, I was so almost confused as to why. I mean, I’m a huge fan of his work, but I just didn’t know how we were going to come together. He’s a huge fan of this glitch core music movement and is in contact with so many incredible young producers and artists and gives them a platform. So bringing in [producer] Glitch Gum to do the track was just so fun. The whole time writing this project, I never really felt like I had to live within any sort of constraint. And the way it turned out with every song being so different reminds me of some of my favorite things about pop, which is that it can be anything. That is how I would like pop, as a fan of it, to continue to be: something that pushes and isn’t afraid to break boundaries. I think that’s what’s made some of the most iconic pop artists of our time. If I can just try that for myself in my own little bubble, that is exciting for me.

I think you’re getting there, because “Girlfriend” has that ‘80s nostalgia. But then it’s juxtaposed by “Blue”, which lives up to its title with its very cold, chill-inducing feeling.

I wrote the song with an artist and writer who I work with a lot. She’s all over this project as well. Her name is Paris Carney and the track was produced by Cody Tarpley. This song was written in a really awful moment in my world, but it was really an important song for my own understanding of the situation and helping me process some really intense emotions. This project as a whole is essentially about one relationship and all of the extreme ups and downs of it. So that’s one of my favorite things about the project, as well as how each song represents an entirely different moment. Not one song is necessarily about the same thing, even though it’s all kind of about one broader experience.

Do you listen to FLETCHER by chance? Her last project did something similar where she worked with her ex-girlfriend and showed the different facets of relationships.

I love Carrie. And I think coming out before the project really allowed me to feel so much more free writing about that and actually speaking up.

I also wanted to mention “Worth It For The Feeling” because there are a few lines that really hit me: “I’ve been asking for everyone’s opinion, never learned to trust my own intuition. Don’t care if it’s a bad decision” and also “Gotta be honest, I’m scared to lose myself. After all the drama I feel like someone else.” It’s about really looking at yourself in the mirror and owning up to the mistakes that you’ve made.

Definitely, and almost all of the songs on this project are. The way that I experienced this relationship was I tried to be as cognizant of what I was doing and not putting everything on one person, which I think is really easy to do. But it’s when you really have built something with a person that means so much to you and that the other person isn’t necessarily a bad person at all. In fact, they’re just another person who it didn’t work out with. I didn’t want to make this about painting into somebody else’s words. In a lot of ways it was my imperfections and my fault, honestly, that that made things the way that they were.

So I try to always look at both sides as best as I can, even if I’m directly involved. There’s so much to learn about yourself through the mistakes that you make and the things that you try, but maybe don’t really work out. Maybe you think back to a few weeks or months or years later and go, “I don’t know if I would say or do that again.” I think that that’s an important part of healing and moving on.

Rebecca Black Was Here is out now. Get it here.

This week in pop music saw several upbeat jams from today’s top stars. FKA Twigs kicked off a new era with a collaboration with The Weeknd, Jhene Aiko shared her version of a holiday jingle, and Joe Jonas fired off some inspiration in the form of a new single.

Each week, Uproxx rounds up the best new pop releases. Listen up.

FKA Twigs, The Weeknd — “Tears In The Club”

FKA Twigs officially kicked off a new era of music this week with the empowering breakup anthem “Tears In The Club” with The Weeknd. The new single is her version of a revved-up club banger. Over a thunderous beat, Twigs sings of trying to rid herself of a toxic relationship by dancing at a club — but still ending up in tears anyway. “I’m always pushing to level up to MY best self, and I’ve pushed so hard to find my capri sun,” Twigs said alongside the new track, “I’m so proud of this music.”

Jhene Aiko — “Wrap Me Up”

Jhene Aiko offered her fans a gift for the holidays in the form of the loved-up single “Wrap Me Up.” The sparkling tune isn’t quite the traditional holiday jingle, rather it’s a sultry ballad about missing her boo during the holiday season. But it still features classic elements of a Christmas song, like airy bells and light piano keys.

Joe Jonas — “Go It Alone”

Joe Jonas penned the upbeat anthem “Go It Alone” for the soundtrack to the upcoming animated film Rumble. The movie is set in a world where gentle monsters regularly participate in sports, including wrestling. Combining electric guitars and shining melodies, the song speaks to the importance of giving your dreams your all.

Rebecca Black, Slayyyter — “Read My Mind”

This week, hyperpop icons Rebecca Black and Slayyyter teamed up for the wildly energetic single “Read My Mind.” The collaboration flexes the strength of both singers, combining hard-edged electric guitars with soaring melodies to craft a song that expertly combines elements of rock and pop alike. “Slayyyter has been one of my favorite artists over the past few years and I loved every second of making this song with her,” Black said. “After perfecting this song over the course of a year, its magic, it’s fantastical and everything I’d hoped for to kick off this new era.”

Camilo — “Pesadilla”

Not only is Colombian singer Camilo known for his epic mustache, but he’s also known for crafting traditional love songs with a modern twist. His latest, “Pesadilla,” is no different. The song starts slow, as Camilo serenades listeners with a similar acoustic guitar. But soon after, a fun and funky beat drops, turning the song up a notch and taking it to new and unexpected heights.

Steve Aoki, Global Dan — “Stars Don’t Shine”

Award-winning EDM artist Steve Aoki teamed up with east coast melodic rapper Global Dan for the infectious new single “Stars Don’t Shine.” The dance-ready track puts Global Dan’s auto-tuned flow at the forefront of the track while Aoki’s resonating beat drops and quick-tempoed synths craft a song that will definitely get anyone in a pumped-up mood.

Pia Mia — “Whole Thing”

One lucky fan got early access to Pia Mia’s new track “Whole Thing” by purchasing her historic NFT earlier this week, but the song is now live on all streaming platforms. The new song adds another hit to the songwriter’s catalog, mixing sultry beats and catchy refrains with lyrics about wanting it all and never holding back.

Naomi Sharon — “Hills”

Dutch-Caribbean singer Naomi Sharon dropped the awe-inspiring track “Hills” this week, flexing her vocals that sound like an impressive combination of Adele’s vocal range and the raspy tones of Amy Winehouse’s recognizable harmonies. “‘Hills’ is a song about a relationship that has gone toxic, and is not in a healthy state anymore,” Sharon said about the track. “While it’s quite difficult to distance yourself from someone you love, sometimes it might be the best thing to do.”

Some of the artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

More operative question: would anybody pay $2.99 to watch Rebecca Black’s “Friday”?  The video has over three million dislikes, and who’s going to pay three bucks for a hate watch? And yet Ark Music Factory put on their Bad Idea Jeans and attempted to charge $2.99 for 72 hours of play of the video yesterday (screenshot as proof after the jump).  They seem to have come to their senses, as the video is now free again, God help us all.  There’s now a long ad before the video and comments are disabled, but you can watch the video without getting out your wallet.  Thus ends our long national nightmare.
On the other hand, the video has over 165 million views (Jeeeesus), so some sucker probably was willing to shell out three bones for 72 hours of play while the song was for rent yesterday.  Truck nutz exist, so clearly stupid things can sell.  Here’s hoping we never have to meet the people who are buying them.
In lieu of embedding the song below (because it’s terrible), here are some of our favorite “Friday” memes instead.  Which slide should I click?

This one’s not a meme, just a horrible idea.

You know a meme has outstayed its welcome when Minor League Baseball teams start using it for promotion. Rebecca Black’s co-starring role in Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night” video has become a professional shadow-seeing groundhog, and we’re suffering through six more weeks of her — watch in abject horror as representatives of the Round Rock Express (my local Triple-A affiliate of the Texas Rangers) do a parody of “Friday” to get you excited about fireworks.

By the way, if you’re watching the video, he’s saying “Bud fireworks”, not “butt fireworks”. It’s pretty sad when the man-sized dog in a conductor’s outfit is the least humiliated person in your video. Do I even need something to get me excited about fireworks? They’re FIREWORKS. What’s next, backflipping ninja fail Epic Fail afro wig Tuesday? If I go to the game on Sunday afternoon, will the first 2,500 fans receive a free Lemon Party team photo? Uh, actually, pretty sure I’m not going to that Sunday game.

Surely you woke up this morning in a panic when you heard the news that Rebecca Black’s “Friday” had been pulled from YouTube, right? RIGHT?! I mean, who wasn’t just grief-stricken to learn that “Friday” had been pulled — on a Friday, no less (Oh the agonizing irony!) — and that all that you see when you go to the page where Black’s infamous video, which her people recently tried to charge $2.99 for people to view, had been residing and viewed over 100 million times was this…

But calm down everyone…”Friday” is on YouTube again. And this time, it’s in the form of a “Director’s Cut.” Oh boy! Apparently, all of this is the result of her record label — Ark Recording Factory, a vanity label — trying to claim the rights to the master recording of the song so they can charge people three bucks to watch her video, or something like that.

Reports the Daily Dot:

Everyone from People Magazine to Mashable is reporting that Rebecca Black’s career-launching music video was taken off YouTube following an apparent dispute between Black and Ark Music Factory, the obscure record label which originally produced it for her. The video was briefly offered as a $2.99 rental. Black said on Twitter she had “nothing to do” with the move to charge to watch the video, and tweeted that she was getting her manager and lawyer to take action.

Challenge apparently accepted by her legal team: The video says it’s offline “because of a copyright claim by Rebecca Black.” Sounds official! So the original video with hundreds of millions of views is offline. But a high-fidelity copy of “Friday” is still on YouTube under a channel maintained by RebeccaBlack4Real.

So is that really Black’s YouTube? So far, the singer and YouTube haven’t responded to tweeted requests for confirmation of the channel’s authenticity. And Rebecca Black’s official website oddly still embeds the original version which now displays a copyright warning. You’d think that she’d update her own site with the new version, if RebeccaBlack4Real is her actual YouTube channel.

Whew! That was a close one. Not sure the Internet would have ever been the same without the ray of sunshine Rebecca Black shot out of her as$ for all of us. In the event you want to relive memories from the first time “Friday” came into your life, or if you just hate yourself, you can watch the “Director’s Cut” of the song below…

As of right now it’s about as popular as the other video was…

In the event you’ve ever caught yourself wondering, “What kind of monster is responsible for Rebecca Black?”, that person is Patrice Wilson, CEO of Ark Music Factory. And now Wilson is giving it another shot with Lexi St. George, a girl he discovered about a week ago in a shopping mall.

Yes, Wilson was hired by Good Morning America to head up their “One Week to Hit it Big: Pop Star” project, which is what is sounds like: A project to turn a “regular teenager” into someone famous just like he “did for Rebecca Black.”.

“Good Morning America” wondered if it’s possible to find an everyday teenage girl and launch her to super stardom in just one week. To find out, “GMA” came to Patrice Wilson at Ark Music Factory, who masterminded the viral video sensation “Friday.”

LOL “Masterminded!” Also, nice to see that the mainstream media is enabling this sort of thing, no?

Additionally, Wilson told Gawker that Rebecca Black’s “Friday” was meant to be horrible, saying, “That was the whole point … To create something that was really simple but something that sticks in people’s head. To have people say ‘I hate this song, but I’m still singing it.'”

America!

Anyway, here the video for not as awful as “Friday” song titled “Dancing to the Rhythm (With Me)”…

Hey, welcome back. How was your Independence Day, assuming you’re American? Mine was great. It’s so dry in Texas right now that a Bic lighter flick would set half of Austin on fire, so my fireworks experience was limited to what I could see on TV and what I could see glaring out of my window into the parking lot at like 11:30.

Sports

PoV: Bo Jackson Climbs An Outfield Wall – Bo Jackson’s legacy these days is basically Tecmo Bowl, but he was really something special in his prime. Imagine Albert Pujols, except super fast and scaling walls. That’s either the best baseball player ever or a terrifying nightmare. [Smoking Section]

Fausto Carmona’s Bogus Journey – If you were Away From Computer yesterday (and you probably should’ve been) we did a full day of updates, including this little gem about Fausto Carmona’s haphazard rollerblade trip to first base in Saturday’s Tribe game. As my good friend Davey Vega put it, “he should probably just retire”. [With Leather]

When Patriotism Goes Wrong: The Best of Fireworks Fails – We also covered “sort-of not sports” yesterday, including this gallery of people getting hit (or pretending to get hit) in the johnson with fire. [With Leather]

Welcome Back, Doomsayers – Kissing Suzy Kolber returns from its sexy vacation, so now there is 100% less of that busty Dolphins girl on my With Leather sidebar. [KSK]

Not Sports

Thor Sequel to Be Less Shakespearey – …which is too bad, because it’s going to be opening on the same weekend as Batman 3, Spider-Man negative one, Iron Man and Hulk Ultimate Team-Up, What If: The Movie starring The Punisher and probably Wolverine, six concurrent Superman movies, a Booster Gold mini-series and parts 1 and 3 of a Flaming Carrot trilogy. Picture of Kat Dennings somewhat related. [Film Drunk]

Man Who Unleashed Rebecca Black On the World Tries Again – I like that the guys who were so bad at music and videos it became a phenomenon are now saying they “masterminded” Rebecca Black’s rise to stardom. Sure, and I masterminded my toe into the coffee table this morning. [Uproxx]

Over 12 Minutes of Batman: Arkham City – I may have to stop blogging for a couple of weeks when this gets released. If you come to With Leather and it’s just two posts by Burnsy and gallery of me playing PS3, you’ll know what happened. Dear God, make this come out right now. [Gamma Squad]

The Ten Best Corgi Blogs On the Web – Arguably every corgi blog on the web is one of the best, except for that weird racist one. I’m just kidding, but you know there’s a racist corgi blog somewhere. If not, I’m gonna start one. [Warming Glow]

In the event you’ve been wondering when human meme Rebecca Black and her management team, led by Business Cat (Or so it seems), would be unleashing a new single upon the world, wonder no more — the improbable viral star is dropping another tune in a matter of days.

Reports the Hollywood Reporter:

“My Moment” will debut on Black’s Youtube channel starting at 8:00 p.m. on July 18 as well as the singer’s official website, RebeccaBlackOnline.com. The following day, the song will be available for purchase on iTunes and other online retailers.

Written by Brandon “Blue” Hamilton, whose credits included a track on Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never: The Remixes, and Quinton Tolbert and produced by Charlton Pettus (Tears for Fears, Hilary Duff), its accompanying video features footage of Black receiving an award at her junior high school and attending red carpet premieres to “tell the story of her sudden rise to fame,” according to a statement. “It’s a fairytale story, but it happened in real life.”

I’m sure CNN’s Anderson Cooper is thrilled by this development…

Yesterday was a strong day of traffic at With Leather thanks to an appearance by Kate Upton playing baseball in little shorts. Unfortunately, Kate spent her Monday evening chilling out, eating celery sticks or whatever and watching the Home Run Derby on the 2,000 inch flatscreen in [insert billionaire rapper industrialist here]’s private jet, so we don’t have another gallery. However, the Internet doesn’t work in real time and these pictures are great even if you’ve flipped through them already, so support your local website and pretend like you had no idea who she was until you clicked the following link.

Thank you for your patronage.

Sports

Kate Upton, Erin Andrews, and the Best of the MLB Celebrity Softball Game – What’s weirder, how less hot Erin Andrews becomes when she’s standing beside Kate Upton and Jennie Finch, or Andy from “Parks and Recreation” without facial hair? Dude looks like a thick Stephen Dorff, I don’t know if I can handle it. Also, couldn’t somebody drag Aubrey Plaza to this thing? I want to see her swing a bat. |With Leather|

NBA Lockout Report: Paul Pierce, High Stakes Poker Player – Hopefully Pierce has linked his PSN to the Rockstar Social Club and obtained the Gentleman’s Attire, allowing him to get into the high stakes poker games at Blackwater Hotel. To make this joke even better, Pierce should change into his Miami Heat outfit before the next game so LeBron and Wade won’t show aggression toward him until he tries to score. |Smoking Section|

Today’s 25 Most Successful Comedy Actors by Winning Percentage – Winning percentage is a sports thing! But it’s pretty unfair to start Danny McBride at Pineapple Express, considering how awesome he was in All the Real Girls. “I know that albóndiga is meatball soup. Uh, dios is…” |Pajiba|

K-Swiss Kenny Powers Ad Campaign – Speaking of Danny McBride, I realized the other day that I’ve inadvertently collected nearly his entire filmography. The Foot Fist Way, Observe and Report, Up in the Air, Hot Rod, All the Real Girls … I just need to justify owning a copy of Land of the Lost and I’m set. Hey, I hear they put a bunch of adult situations into a thing meant for kids. LOL! |Warming Glow|

Not Sports

Marine Asks Mila Kunis to Marine Corps Ball, She Accepts – I like to think Mila Kunis in real life is just her character in Black Swan, young and beautiful and passionately perfect at everything. Oh, and also when I’m having sex with her backstage I get to freak out and pretend she’s Natalie Portman. Mila Kunis is awesome. |Film Drunk|

New Rebecca Black Single Dropping Soon. You’ve Been Warned – It’s gonna be hilarious to see the Internet justify their “meh, underwhelmed” and “sophomore slump” talking points about a girl they only supported because she was terrible. I hope the new song is like, Lady Gaga “Monster” good and blows us out of the water. That’s the only way this can work. |UPROXX|

Nerd Beats Super Mario Bros. with Lowest Score Possible – A testament to how good this game is: 30 years later we’re still finding ways to play it. This is still nowhere near as funny as Hamid’s Super Mario Bros. speed run.|Topless Robot|

The Best of Wonder Woman Cosplay – Gonna use this to try out my “the rest of Uproxx” headline. Best of Wonder Woman Cosplay? Best of Wonder Woman Cosplay. Hey, that’s fun! |Gamma Squad|

If Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “Watch The Throne” is the most highly anticipated music release of the year, the Bizarro version of that would have to be Rebecca Black’s follow-up to “Friday” titled, “My Moment.” The build-up and rollout put on by Team Rebecca has been nothing short of hilarious — complete with the release of cover art for the single (pictured at right) and everything. Over the weekend, they also posted a YouTube video — on her brand-spanking new YouTube channel — in which Rebecca herself explained how excited she is to drop “My Moment” on the world.

Meanwhile, the world waits with baited breath to see just how rotten of an egg she will lay this time. Well, we finally have an answer.

It’s not near as bad as “Friday,” I think, but it’s still pretty damn lame, which should come as a surprise to no one. Still, she’s improving — she’s gone from “OMG this is horrible” to “just turn this off, please” in a matter of months. Now excuse while I go pour myself a drink.

It’s just some fat girl walking in a swimsuit. I talk about basketball in a moment.

Sports

Dwight Howard Strongly Considering Playing Overseas – I wish I was famous enough to have this be a headline about me. “Brandon Stroud Thinking About Swimming In Mediterranean, Probably Won’t”. That would be so awesome. [Smoking Section]

Kenny Florian and JZ Cavalcante Want to Kick Each Others Stupid Nuts – I write a lot about pro wrestling so I can’t make a lot of gay jokes about something obviously not gay (nor should I make gay jokes about gay things, but work with me here). However, it would be nice if MMA guys were at least aware of how super gay they are when they say they want each others’ nuts. [Cage Potato]

The World Cup Truffle Shuffle Kid is My New Hero – Sometimes a sports story is so important it gets covered on the movie section of our network. This fat kid lifting up his shirt at the World Cup is one of those moments. [Film Drunk]

Al Michaels is a Man For All Seasons, So Long As There Are Four – I miss those days of childhood innocence where all the sports announcers seemed like cool guys who loved sports. I thought Craig Kilborn was so funny. Sigh. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]

With Leather

The Best and Worst of WWE Money in the Bank 2011 – Before you read today’s Best and Worst of Raw, go back and read the more-or-less “Best and Best” recap of one of the best pay-per-views ever. If you don’t watch wrestling, this is a great place to start. That girl on the left is in it, and boy, is she just as awesome as she looks. [With Leather]

Kate Upton is a Chubbish Ball of Attainable Fat Lady – Okay, sorry for that hoggish monster in the intro video. We won’t be covering her again. Go here to see the last time we did, and suffer through 50 pictures of her before reading comments from cool guys with hot, skinny girlfriends who just don’t think she’s “all that”. [With Leather]

2011 Women’s World Cup in Pictures – And then, enjoy girls who are extremely fit! And one awesome kid who is not. [With Leather]

Punte Interviews Matt Cassel – My dumb wrestling recaps get a bunch of traffic that should go to stuff like this, where Josh talks to actual sports celebrities about things that matter. Like, uh, their abdominal muscles. Well, read it anyway. [With Leather]

Not Sports

Owling is the New Planking – The best thing about these dumb photo memes is that the people who do them have the attention span of a rake, so they stop doing them about two weeks in. I’m sure in two weeks owling will be out of style and Gilbert Arenas will be doing handstands and tweeting about how awesome they are. Do it, it’s called HANDING! [UPROXX]

At Long Last, The New Rebecca Black Single Has Arrived – And it’s about how famous she is! What’s with all these songs about people telling singers they’re never going to make it? Who does that? I’ve never gone to a concert and walked up to the musicians and said “man, you guys are just never going to sell a lot of albums”. [Uproxx]

TV’s 20 Most Punchable Faces – I’m still sad that any number of Parks and Recreation secondary characters I suggested didn’t make the list. Come on, Marcia Langman! She’s like Marcia Gay Harden in “Office” form! [Warming Glow]

Doritos Says Women Prefer Gaming to Sex – Why are we asking Doritos things? They’ve been trying to tell us “Cool Ranch” is a legitimate flavor for something to have for over 20 years. [Gamma Squad]

Rebecca Black should have stopped while she was ahead, but human nature being what it is, we knew that wasn’t going to happen. “My Moment,” her follow up to on-line phenomenon “Friday” is meant to address her nay-sayers and, we presume, to prove that she is a formidable talent.  Sadly, it succeeds on neither count, but, on the fame meter, where all that matters is keeping your name in the news for another day, Black is a big winner.

To recap, earlier this year, a simple little song about waiting for the pleasures of Friday, hit YouTube. It was performed, though not written, by a then-13-year old named Rebecca Black. The song quickly became a viral sensation as some dubbed it the “worst song” ever recorded. A few months later, the YouTube clip had surpassed 100 million hits. Suits involving Ark Music Factory, whom Black”s parents paid $2000 to help develop their daughter”s talent,  and Black started to fly and the “Friday” clip got pulled over some legal issues.

In the meantime, Black, with tremendous poise and likability, appeared on a number of TV shows and upped her Q rating. Despite criticisms flung her way about her dubious talent, she exhibited grace beyond her years.  Katy Perry incorporated Black in her video for “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)”

Oh, we know it would be next to impossible to walk away on top like that, especially with a potentially huge fan base, and, of course, Black couldn”t.  Especially because, all you haters, she has something to say to you. You can hate her all you want, but the now 14-year old has worked so hard-all her life, really- for her moment and you can”t take that away from her. She has real talent and she”s going to prove it to you in the “My Moment” video via her autotuned voice, her  band, whom the Partridge Family put to shame, and her awesome dance moves, which make Britney Spears” recent robotic, stiff motions look like Bob Fosse.

She”s been media schooled within an inch of her life in the video. We can only imagine the instruction:  “Rebecca! Make sure you remember to look upward when you sing the line ‘My head up in the clouds”!” or “A sideways glance is always a good move during a close up to look coy but not overtly sexy!” and “Smile, smile, smile, especially when you”re delivering the ‘F You” lines to your haters.”  Does this song actually include the line, “I can”t talk to you right now, I”m getting my paper?”  I”m hoping I”m mishearing that one.

[More after the jump…]

There are some moments that are downright cringeworthy, such as when Black tries to clap along to the beat and dance  in her seat around the  1:15 mark. And the relentless Stepford style smiling is a little creepy.

Here”s the thing. Black is a kid and I don”t want to beat her up any more than I just have. She’s not egregiously untalented, she’s just a cute teen with a dream and just enough talent to get her noticed—in a big way. Who doesn”t want to be a star and with a great equalizer like YouTube that gives anyone a fair shot at being discovered, there”s no reason for her not to dive back in.  As with any pop sensation that blooms out of nowhere, she will disappear when the public gets distracted by the next shiny penny and she will, hopefully, go back to being a normal teenager with some great stories to tell.

Ark Music Factory — the record label that brought you Rebecca Black and, more recently, Lexi St. George — is at it again, and their “talent” is getting younger, it seems. Not only is this, the video above, predictably horrific, but the girl — the hilariously named Madison Bray — is nine. Nine. Aren’t there child protection laws out there to prevent this?

How cringe-worthy is the impossibly autotuned “Girl Swag” (Yes, that’s really the title of the song)? I’ll let the commenters on YouTube — where it currently has 371 likes and 2,665 dislikes — enlighten you all with their collective eloquence…

“Pedobear approves of this video…Miley Cyrus’s long lost sister!…I find this easy to masturbate to…Oh my f*cking god. I feel like a pedophile watching this…they’re literally getting younger and younger girls to sing about sh*t that they don’t even understand…Nine years old? When I was nine years old I had baby dolls and fake fairy wings. Not swag…You would think this company gets paid by the amount of DISlikes it gets?…This sh*t is so horrendously bad I switched to 2girls1cup to wash the bad taste out of my mouth…This is so bad I had to switch to my PornHub tab when my mom came in…WHY IS A WHITE GIRL SINGING ABOUT SWAG?”

Every adult involved in this video coming to fruition needs to die in a fire. At the very least, child protective services should remove this child from her parents’ home immediately and place her in a foster home or something. Hell, she’d probably be better off living on the street. Meanwhile, is there another planet available for me to live on yet?

(HT: Gawker)

Will Katy Perry’s new  emix of “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.) featuring Missy Elliott be enough to push the song to the top of the Billboard Hot 100? 

Make no mistake, in addition to being a fun pairing of the two, the remix is a gambit to get enough radio play and singles sales on the new version to propel the song to  No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 so that Perry can tie Michael Jackson as the only artist to land five No. 1s from one album on the chart. So far,  “Teenage Dream” has provided us with four chart toppers: The title track, “California Gurls,” “E.T.” and “Firework.”

[More after the jump…]

However, it also works as a fun remake of a song that never takes itself too seriously and has done its part to extend Rebecca Black”s 15 minutes of fame (Perry also invited Black on stage recently).

Elliott is featured at the very beginning and then at a new autotuned break around the 3-minute mark.  There”s not that much Elliott in the tune and we would have liked to have heard more from her, but it”s nice to hear her again after a long absence.

Will it work ? We bet yet. People are rooting for Perry to tie the record and then possibly break it with a sixth single from the set. We’re Team Perry on this one all the way.

By way of The Basketball Jones comes the debut rap video from Allen Samuels, a 30-plus-year casino host and 50-plus-year awkward white dude who had an epiphany whilst talking to a flamboyant Frenchman and transformed himself into the Baby Boomer Rebecca Black. “Livin De Life” chronicles Samuels’ rise from riches to additional riches and peppers itself with references to sports stars, Macbooked-in photo opportunities and a cameo from Jason Terry of the NBA Champion Dallas Mavericks. By the end of it you think A. Samuels is about as cool as you did when it started, but Terry … oh, Jason Terry. What are you doing?

I’m going to hope it’s one of those situations where Jason Terry wanted to get out of a casino debt, and this white guy wandered up and was all “you don’t have to pay anything if you say LIVIN DE LIFE into the camera and smile”. Like Leslie Knope having to say “Viva Chavez” to get money for her park.

You can watch the full-length video below. My favorite part is when he says he’s “living the life”.

I think his sweatshirt is pretty cool. The bigger, the puffier, the fluffier, the bigger the turtleneck the more gangster it is.

Poor Rebecca Black. It’s easy to forget that the YouTube-created turd-meme virtually universally reviled on the internet is only 14, still at the age when young people in school are hormonal as all hell and exposed to the types of psychological cruelty usually reserved for maximum security prisons.

Black — who’s slated to appear on America’s Got Talent tonight, for some reason — told ABC that the teasing, harassment and bullying at her school became so relentless after “Friday” hit the web that she’s opted to be homeschooled.

“When I walk by they’ll start singing ‘Friday’ in a really nasally voice,” she said. “Or, you know, they’ll be like, ‘Oh hey, Rebecca, guess what day it is?'”

Now her mother is her teacher, and said she agreed to pull Black out of school because her daughter was being made fun of and so she had more time to focus on her career. “She certainly did not need that kind of pressure,” Georgina Marquez said.

Oh Jesus. (Breathes deeply. Tries desperately to restrain himself)

Look, it’s hard to feel any sympathy for Rebecca Black. I’m certainly not an advocate of bullying, but this girl, let’s face it, sort of asked for it. She wanted to be famous without having to deal with the downside to fame. But still — she’s 14. Her parents need to be publicly stoned, obviously, along with the vultures at the record label who unleashed her upon us. I just wish that somehow all of the vitriol directed at the failed songstress could be instead directed at Black’s mother, a seemingly delusional, terrible person who appears to hold no remorse for trying to make her virtually talentless daughter a star.

“Best $4,000 I ever spent, let me tell you that,” Georgina Marquez said about the money she put up to fund the making of the “Friday” video.

I’ll just let Mila Kunis demonstrate to Georgina Marquez how we all feel about that…

This won’t be the first time I’ve offered to fight anyone who’s mean to Rebecca Black, but in case anyone asks, THE OFFER STILL STANDS! Kii-yigh! (*karate kicks air, cats flee in terror, hits self in nuts with nunchuks*) But in all seriousness, she seemed really nice when she was on Leno, she said she was donating most of the proceeds from her video to tsunami victims, and how much can you really hate a girl for a song she didn’t write which isn’t half as annoying as your average Maroon 5 song anyway? Unfortunately Rebecca Black is learning an important lesson the hard way: 13-year-olds are huge dicks. She’s apparently gotten bullied so much that her mom pulled her out of school. …Oh God, please let that be the reason her mom pulled her out of school…

Their taunting has finally resulted in Black being pulled from school.
Black’s mother has decided to home school the 14-year-old from now on, a new decision which also allows more time to focus on her daughter’s career [aw, crap. -Ed]. But the teen seems zen about her alarming circumstances. The online anti-Rebecca comments became so violent at one point the FBI became involved when Black started receiving death threats. But now that the bullying has branched off the internet and into her real life, Black has been forced to act.

How would you like to be the FBI agent working that case? “So, what are you working on?” “Counter-terrorism, mostly. Espionage, that kind of stuff. How about you?” “…Uh, I scour YouTube comments for death threats against Rebecca Black.”

In an interview with ABC, Black opens up about the real-life, non-Internet-based criticism she receives. “When I walk by, they’ll start singing ‘Friday’ in a really nasally voice,” she tells ABC. “Or, you know, they’ll be like, ‘Oh hey, Rebecca, guess what day it is?’”

Jesus, I hope the supposedly so-bad-she-had-to-quit-school bullying was worse than that, because that sounds pretty tame. I know someone whose name was “The Dog-Faced Gremlin” for like 10 years.

Now, she says, fans surround her wherever she goes, and she travels with her own entourage of a publicist, manager, stylist, and, yes, bodyguard. Not letting the spotlight dim on her just yet, her “My Moment” follow-up video has reached more than 22 million views in the past three weeks (YouTube even gave her a “Rebecca” account name). She recently performed “Friday” onstage at Katy Perry’s concert (and appeared in Katy’s “Last Friday Night” video), and she counts Lady Gaga as a fan. While Black has only made enough money to cover her future college tuition–and she’s certainly spending more than that on videos and career nurturers right now–she’s one of the few online sensations who could successfully harness the unending power of haters to her own advantage. [UpdatedNews]

If it’s haters you’re worried about, Rebecca, I hope that money does end up going towards college. There really do seem to be far fewer haters there, it’s the strangest thing. And hardly anyone has “RIP” in their YouTube or Twitter handles. Well, not counting Arizona State, anyway, but that’s less a college than a finishing school for porn stars.

In case you missed it during that weird period when a video goes viral and the person who made it gets butthurt and takes it down, then realizes it is their only shot at ironic fame and puts it back up so they can get on Tosh, please enjoy this video of University of Alabama Panhellenic Association Board combining their awful white teen girl powers to form some Godless approximation of musical Voltron. In layman’s terms, white girls are stealing from every culture imaginable, be it Greek to African-American to Internet, and they feel totally amazing doing it. Vince Mancini and Josh Zerkle gave the track (cough) a listen on the latest Frotcast, and it is my job to sorta shuffle it over here. Every day I’m shuffling.

Highlights include a namedrop of football coach Nick Saban, a big “ta-da” finish inside Bryant–Denny Stadium and a Rebecca Black remix, because that’s something people still think is funny. Who am I kidding, the only highlight is that you’re watching this and not one of the people in it.

From the Daily Mail:

The school’s media relations director, Cathy Andreen, told The Huffington Post: ‘It was supposed to just be to welcome the girls who were going out for Greek rush.’

Ashley Getwan, president of the Panhellenic Association at the university, said: ‘We didn’t realize it would get so much publicity… Any publicity is good publicity, we hope.’

CBS42.com reported that the school’s rush week has seen a record number of would-be pledges, with more than 1,700 and counting.

Counterpoint:

One YouTube commenter wrote: ‘This is f**king embarrassing. I love this school, but this is why people can’t stand these sh*theads.’

I’m going to throw in with the second guy.

It’s a pretty standard feature, the collection of the worst national anthem performances of all-time, and most sports and pop culture blogs usually start running them out around Super Bowl time, unless there’s a surprise craptacular performance at an all-star game, NASCAR race, or drunken 4th of July party. But they’re just all so damned classic that we love re-living them every time.

That’s why I can’t believe that it took someone this long to finally put together a spectacular mash-up of the worst anthem performances in history. This new mash-up, brilliantly assembled by the fine folks at Popdust, has everything, like a Tosh.0 special episode – Roseanne, Carl Lewis, Christina Aguilera, the spectacular R. Kelly performance that is almost always excluded, and thank Francis Scott Key, they even included Fergie’s vocal disaster from last week’s Miami Dolphins game against the New England Patriots.

It is the perfect storm of patriotic suck and we salute it.

(Hat tip to Buzzfeed.)

Did you know that New York magazine published a profile of Rebecca Black in its new issue? By golly, they actually did for some reason, and judging by the comments on the online version of the article, readers of the magazine just want Rebecca Black to go away forever and never come back, just like everyone else.

And who could blame them, especially after reading the article, which is sad because a) they actually assigned a good writer to waste her time on someone who’s most notable achievement is being an awful meme, and b) also because it doesn’t teach us much more about Black than we already knew: that she’s a teenage girl whose parents are trying to buy her superfame while others try desperately to profit from it.

Here’s an excerpt from the profile that I think gets right to the heart of the whole thing:

I ask Black if she’s tried songwriting. “It’s so hard … It’s like … ” There’s a long pause, and then Black says, “You’re vibrating.”

She’s referring to her manager’s cell phone, which is now jittering across the table. Black, fully distracted again, resumes twiddling with her phone, ending the line of questioning.

Baum eventually pokes Black in the ribs to get her to face my way and takes the opportunity to snatch the phone away from her. I ask Black what she has done to invest in herself as an artist, now that the world is watching. More singing lessons? Dance training? She tells me that she’s been watching a lot of celebrity interviews. “I grew up being the girl who would always tune in to watch famous people talk about their careers, how they handled scandals and megafame. I’m trying to pick up tips,” she says without a trace of irony.

Yep, that pretty much sums up the whole piece right there. Rebecca Black is like the cockroach of the internet — we might as well give up hoping she goes away and just accept that we have to live with her. Not even Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th can stop her.

“Helpful Tyler Durden” shouldn’t require much explanation for Fight Club fans and I assume I’m in good company. The macro takes that one piece of kick ass Durden fan art that I never can figure out who to credit for and expands on Project Mayhem, the store-clerk-at-gunpoint scene, and getting the sh*t kicked out of you for the good of someone else’s well-being to topical matters, internet trends, and real life situations.
Some are clever, some kind of make sense, some happened, most didn’t. The good ones — the ones I’d venture to say Tyler Durden would actually approve of — do that Palahniuk thing where they flip things on their head and provide a fresh perspective via insanity. Like, I totally have a knew appreciation for the Rebecca Black phenomenon now. And my sex line phone calls are gonna go way differently from here on out.
Sources: Know Your Meme, Quick Meme, F*ck Yeah Helpful Tyler Durden

To the average person, the name Jon Ronson probably doesn’t ring a bell, but to media and documentary geeks likes myself he’s a fairly well-known and highly respected British journalist and documentary filmmaker. So I have to admit to being kind of surprised when I saw this post on Videogum about Ronson’s latest project — a web documentary on how Rebecca Black’s “Friday” came to be. Ronson actually got Patrice Wilson — the man behind Ark Music Factory, the label responsible for unleashing Black onto the world — to agree to sit down for an interview at his attorney’s office, but only after learning that Ronson would be appearing on Conan O’Brien’s show later that night.

In the interview, Wilson told Ronson that he’s convinced he can create another viral sensation, all but guaranteeing he can produce another video that garners over 200 million views on YouTube. He then said that he actually had an idea about how he’d brand Ronson if the filmmaker was a client of his: Vanilla Ice meets Craig David. Later in the day, he made a song for Ronson about his appearance on Conan. The whole thing is pretty damn interesting, and there’s supposed to be a follow-up coming. So, enjoy!

Rebecca Black is releasing a debut album this month (oh goody), and she’s just released her third music video, the previous two being “Friday” and “My Moment,” two songs we’re still trying to forget. The third song is called “Person of Interest” and is about a mysterious billionaire who developed a program to predict terrorist attacks. No, wait, that’s something else.

Rebecca Black’s “Person of Interest” is, in her words, “a love song but it’s not a love song. [Ed.- Well, that settles it.] It’s about almost teenage crushes — when you’re not in love yet but you really like a guy — which I’m really excited about because I don’t think there are too many out like that.” There might be a good reason there aren’t many out there like that, which the commenters at TheDailyWhat sum up pretty well:

Black also said in an interview that she’d like to try acting and take her songs on tour. I’m trying not to say anything too mean here; after all, she’s still a kid and had to start homeschooling due to bullying, but I can’t resist pointing out one thing. When describing the songs on the album, she says “None are really like ‘Friday’.” Well, that’s a relief.

The video is below if you want to see how much auto-tuning and giant fan rentals a teenager’s money can buy.

Rebecca Black is among the year’s biggest viral sensations, with the sensationally terrible and strange “Friday” video. She struck back with “My Moment,” and now has another sincere effort to rise above National Punchline status, with “Person of Interest.”

The dance-pop clip features an almost omnipresent wind machine and a tween that looks a little like Justin Bieber. Black is seen running around various places where young people go on group dates, like mini-golf and the go-cart track.

The song is now for sale on iTunes; the video has clocked about 700,000 views so far.

This is almost as good as the Sears Bed Intruder commercial.

Links

Black Friday – Jon Bois reflects on his time spent Shacking Radios on Black Friday. I was there for at least one of them. [JonBoisDotCom]

Good Gosh Almighty Joe Friday – The pro sports version of Gimme A Thumbs Up ‘Er Somethin’ Hot Rod. I’m going to try to talk like this every day. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]

Like Crazy Is The Movie 500 Days Of Summer Wanted To Be – That’s (500) Days Of Summer, thank you very much, and unless Like Crazy is an attempt to get me to love Zooey Deschanel with a Regina Spektor soundtrack, I’ll have to respectfully disagree. [Film Drunk]

Funny, Sexy And Awesome Cosplay Of The Week – …is won in a walk by the racially nonspecific Mortal Kombat girls. Hello, nurse. [Gamma Squad]

Politicians Are Horrible Late Night Guests – They are. If I had Michelle Bachmann on my talk show I’d intro her with WWE’s “Ass Man”. [Warming Glow]

Self Pop-Tart – Either the best or worst idea in the history of the Internet. I’m going to take one of these as soon as I figure out the logistics. [UPROXX]

CagePotato Ban: MMA Fans Fist-Posing for Photos With Fighters Et Al. – This guy doesn’t understand Worker Fist, or he’s never seen Rocky Balboa. So either he’s being a jerk, or I’ve got 200 pictures of me looking like an asshole with wrestlers. [Cage Potato]

Grantland Network Podcast: The Masked Man on the WWE Survivor Series – And speaking of me making Worker First, if you haven’t gone over to Grantland and listened to my appearance on Shoemaker’s podcast, do that now, and make sure to hassle him about how awesome I am and how he should always have me on. [Grantland]

The Wrestling Podcast, Episode 29: John Hyperion II (The JoshiMania Episode) – More podcasts about wrestling. This one is about a niche concept show in a niche independent wrestling company on their offseason held like two weeks before Christmas. I don’t know, but I seriously almost buy a plane ticket every day. [The Wrestling Blog]

A Softer Worldmap – Here’s an old thing I used to do nobody liked. I’m forcing it on you. Sh*t, I still think it’s funny. [Progressive Boink]

Vanessa Hudgens Is The Best Lakers Fan Ever – And hey, be sure to get back into the groove of reading us, because we give you stuff like this. And this stuff is pretty good. [Brandon’s Olde Fashioned Websight]

“Rick Perry — you just made the most disliked video in the history of YouTube! What are you doing next?”

“I’m going back to Niggerhead!”

(UPDATE: A couple of people emailed to point that Justin Bieber’s video for “Baby” actually has more dislikes than Perry’s ad as of this writing. I, along with a few other internet writers, made the comparison between Black and Perry’s videos because “Friday” has long been acknowledged as the most disliked video on the site. HOWEVER, the original version of “Friday” was taken down and reposted as a new video, vaulting Bieber’s song into the top spot by default.

With all of that said, I have faith that the internet can push Rick Perry’s hideous ad over the top. LET’S DO THIS!)

(HT: Daily What. FYI, the screengrabs above were taken at 9am eastern today.)

As the icons of journalistic integrity at People magazine have taught us, limiting an annual award to just one person can be a dangerous task. By naming Bradley Cooper the “Sexiest Man Alive,” People enraged a major faction of the North American celebrity worshipping audience by snubbing super hunk Ryan Gosling. Sports Illustrated hit a home run by naming Pat Summit the Sports Woman of the Year, but Mike Krzyzewski as the Sports Man of the Year? Many people believe that he is the purest form of evil in this universe, and therefore a questionable choice. Even Time magazine snubbed me and Bono by making “the protester” its Person of the Year.

That’s why we chose to broaden our selections for the UPROXX People of the Year, because, sure, Kate Upton may be awesome, but she certainly wasn’t the greatest person in the world in 2011, despite what I may have written at With Leather. So we chose to honor – and dishonor – many people this year for their amazing – and incredibly terrible – efforts at making this world a better place to blog in.

As always, feel free to disagree in the comments or tell us who we excluded while shaking your hockey sticks of protest in rage. After all, our Person of the Year will always be our readers. *winks, blushes*

When comedian and actor Louis C.K. announced that he was releasing his latest show video exclusively on his website, we were like, “That’s cool.” When he said that the video would only cost $5, we were like, “Even cooler.” When he posted on his website that he had reached over $1 million in sales in a matter of weeks, we were like, “That’s really cool for him.” But when he announced that he was donating $280,000 of the money he earned to various charities, well, that was probably the coolest thing that one of the entertainment industry’s coolest guys has ever done.

Add to that his hilarious forgotten password email response and the fact that he actually let Dane Cook make a cameo on “Louie” and sort of redeem himself for his reputation as a joke thief, and Louis basically just kicked a lot of ass this year.

Forget for a moment that it’s a blogging commandment to be in love with actress Alison Brie. This recognition isn’t completely about looks (please see: awesome Alison Brie GIFs). Sure, the fact that she has mastered both adorable and sexy is incredible, as not many actresses can pull that off. But she’s also a hell of an actress.

For me, she jumped to a new level of awesome in the Christmas episode of “Community” this season, with her hilarious “sexy” dance to recruit Jeff Winger to join the glee club. I know, it’s not nearly as cool as donating $280,000 to charity for no reason, but there’s not really any science to this list either. Alison Brie is awesome. Deal with it.

As I wrote in my Top Sports Moments of 2011 feature for With Leather, Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow redefined the idea of a polarizing sports figure in his rookie season. It’s not because he has played just well enough to help his team to an AFC West title (in control of their own destiny at time of publication) or that he chose not to electrocute dogs. It’s because he’s a very devout Christian who thanks Jesus every time he begins a postgame interview, and people either love him or hate him for it.

As a joyous follower of Sky Cake, I don’t really care if Tebow thanks Jesus, Allah, Moses or the Flying Spaghetti Monster after games, but millions of people actually do. Because of Tebow, people across the country – from dinner tables to sports bars to cable news shouting matches – have made Tebow’s faith a point of debate. That’s pretty remarkable for a guy whose job is to just win football games.

Life was pretty good for U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner for the first four or five months of 2011. He was wildly popular in New York and gaining political steam across the country as a brash, in-your-face progressive visionary with the makings of a future president. Then he sexted pictures of his dong to random girls he was meeting on Twitter and it all went to hell.

I used to have incredible political ambitions and Weiner is the kind of guy that I wanted to be like. Then I realized that nobody – and I mean absolutely nobody – in politics can be as good as they seem. I’d love to know at what point a person develops such a feeling of invincibility, especially someone whose every move is under a microscope. It’s incredibly arrogant for a guy like Weiner to think he can get away sending pictures of his bulge to girls, especially since politicians NEVER GET AWAY WITH THAT. But at least he gave us some good laughs.

This needs no explanation. If you believe that you’re a man’s man, then you should aspire to be like Ron Swanson, the fictional director of the Pawnee Parks and Recreation Department on NBC’s “Parks and Rec.” Before I die, I want to fashion a canoe out of a tree, just like Ron Swanson. I also want to bury gold in my backyard and eat a Meat Tornado. It’s good that TV gives us role models like him.

Whereas Jon Stewart has the ratings and the national credibility for his sincere efforts to expose the bullsh*t and bias of cable news media and the hypocrisy in American politics, Stephen Colbert has the actions to couple with his hilarious caricature of 1% blowhard/fake man of the people Bill O’Reilly. Colbert’s greatest feat this year was the formation of the Colbert Super PAC, through which he has vowed to use his fans’ donations – all of whose names he aired for months on his show – to fight back at a political system that has become more about lining pockets than fixing the country.

Herman Cain’s candidacy for the Republican nomination for President started as just another random guy throwing his name into a hat. But then a funny thing happened – people really started to like the guy. He went from being the CEO of Godfather’s Pizza – which is awesome during 2:30 a.m. visits to Hess, by the way – to an honest-to-gosh threat to upend the typical Republican Party retreads, and his honesty and brash attitude were refreshing, to say the least. Even when he referred to Middle East countries as “Ubeckybeckystan.” Gotta give the guy credit for his sense of humor, right?

Then came the fall from glory. Woman after woman began stepping forward with accusations that Cain had sexually harassed them in the past. Cain denied the allegations, of course, but it was too late. An underdog can never overcome that kind of negative attention, no matter how many random polls he’s allegedly leading in. At least he sold the hell out of his book, though.

Make no mistake, this was an awesome year for rap. While I didn’t think that the Kanye West/Jay-Z collaboration “Watch the Throne” lived up to its massive hype (a few too many UNNNNNNs and HNYAAAAAs for my taste) I was quite pleased with the efforts of the Beastie Boys (“Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 2” was great), Kendrick Lamar (“Section.80” was awesome) and Lupe Fiasco (“Lasers” was phenomenal), among others. But after some of my fellow UPROXX colleagues and other random Twitter folk had raved so much about Childish Gambino’s “Camp,” I finally caved and listened. It was perfect.

You could say that it help’s Donald Glover’s cause that I love “Community” so much, but that’s the reason why I was hesitant to listen to it. I didn’t think it could be good. I’m glad I was so wrong.

I figured that I already made her the 2011 Celebrity Sports Fan of the Year and gave her Dougie dance the top sports moment of the year at With Leather, so I wasn’t going to not have Kate Upton somewhere on this list. It’s all about priorities, people.

I don’t drink scotch. My boozes are tequila and bourbon, and yes I have tried them together, thank you for asking. As some of my friends have recently crossed the 30-year barrier in age, they seem to think that they need to act more sophisticated and age appropriate when choosing their alcohol, so they’ve been drinking scotch. “Good for them,” I’ve thought while ordering another car bomb.

But then Johnnie Walker hired Mad Men starlet and the Internet’s favorite redhead Christina Hendricks to be a spokesperson and I was suddenly like, “Well then, I think I need to get me some of that scotch.” Hat tip to JW’s marketing team on this one.

Until he showed up in the owner’s box at a Miami Dolphins game to celebrate Marc Anthony’s birthday with Will Smith, I had no clue who Pitbull was. Then I heard his music and thought, “Mike Vick’s job isn’t done.” But he’s apparently wildly popular with the kids these days, so Dr. Pepper hired Pitbull to sing “Let’s Have a Real Good Time” to a repetitive beat while random people breakdance under a highway overpass in Miami. Being from South Florida, I can tell you that the only things that happen under a Miami overpass are drug deals and homeless naps.

It worked out in Dr. Pepper’s favor, though. I didn’t buy more Dr. Pepper because I like Pitbull, but I’ll be damned if there weren’t days that I’d be walking down the street and suddenly found myself mumbling, “Let’s have a real good time… let’s have a real good time…” Damn you, Pitbull.

Plenty of famous and talented people die during the span of the year, but like the audience applause during an Oscar memoriam, some people are clapped for a little louder than others. That’s not to say that they’re more important, but we definitely remember the passing of some more than others. This year, it was the untimely deaths of Apple founder Steve Jobs and comedian Patrice O’Neal who hit us harder than others.

For Jobs, his passing wasn’t completely unexpected, as he had been battling pancreatic cancer before he died from respiratory arrest in October. The innovative genius’ passing was met with myriad tributes and celebrations of his life. O’Neal, on the other hand, hadn’t even his stride yet as one of the best comedians in the world, before he died from complications after suffering a stroke in October. We can only hope that he and Greg Giraldo are putting on one hell of a show right now.

Then there are the deaths that don’t upset people so much. Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall received a great deal of criticism when America celebrated the death of Osama Bin Laden back in May. His complaint was that we didn’t even know the guy, so how could we be happy that he died? To that question, I offer a big, hearty *fart noise* and I will continue to high five people and raise a beer in honor of the Navy SEALs every May 2 for the rest of my life.

As for Moammar Gadhafi’s death, it simply proved that people can only take being ruled with an iron fist and living in poverty for so long before they will strike back and show that democracy is a powerful force. And I like to think that was the last thing that went through his head when an angry mob dragged his dying body through the streets of Tripoli.

Kim Jong-Il’s death wasn’t the result of a spirited uprising or even the tactical efforts of America’s badass elite forces. He just died of a heart attack, probably right after he hit his 18th hole-in-one in the same round of golf. After all, in case you didn’t know, he was the absolute greatest at everything ever and North Korea is the greatest country in the world. It certainly doesn’t have a severe food shortage and people are definitely not suffering from mass malnutrition and shortened life spans. That’s all just Western propaganda.

We send our respect to the mourning populace of North Korea, as we know that they are legitimately devastated over the loss of their excellent dictator.

This isn’t a political statement by any means. I just think this dog is totally awesome.

Two stories of unnecessary violence, two mostly happy endings, as they’d be happier if the violence never happened. Representative Gabrielle Giffords was another hot name in politics, as the Arizona democrat was seen by many as someone with a long career in politics ahead of her. On January 8, though, she was one of several people shot by a deranged 22-year old in a supermarket parking lot as she met with constituents. Thankfully, Giffords recovered and resumed her duties on August 1 when she appeared on the House floor and voted to raise the debt ceiling.

San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow attended a baseball game at Dodgers Stadium in March with his two children and some friends, when he was suddenly struck from behind by two reported gang members. His friends said that he was hit so hard that they could hear his head crack against the pavement. He spent the following months in intensive care, but he was finally able to leave the hospital and spend Christmas with his family. Sadly, his assailants were never caught.

If you’re a person who still says, “Winning!” or “Tiger blood” – I hate you. And we have Charlie Sheen’s incredible fall from grace to thank for that. After forcing “Two and a Half Men” into hiatus for his third stint in rehab in just one year, Sheen openly spoke out about his displeasure with the show’s creator, Chuck Lorre. Sheen was promptly booted from the inexplicably popular comedy and he decided that he could be a stand-up comedian instead. He went on tour in most major cities and was booed off the stage multiple times. Eventually, his porn star girlfriend left him and he was forced to sell his mansion.

But somehow he came out on top, because FX offered him a new show and he’s working on Major League 3. I guess the lesson here is do whatever the f*ck you want and you’ll be rewarded.

Earlier in the year, Harold Camping became a household name after he predicted that the Mayans didn’t know squat and the world wasn’t ending in 2012. Camping instead offered that the world was going to end on May 21. Most of us laughed, but some people really bought into it and his followers sold their belongings and gave all of their money – some of them gave millions – to charity. Then May 22 rolled around and they were like, “Wait, what?”

“Oops,” declared Camping. “I meant the world was going to end on November 21,” he added, while shoveling his followers’ money into suitcases. Camping had a stroke in June and we haven’t heard from him since a few reporters visited his house a few days after his failed prediction.

If you didn’t hear the song “Friday” this year, you are the luckiest person in the world. There should have been rehab groups formed to help people who damaged their brains trying to figure out how Rebecca Black became – and remained – so damn popular.

God save the Queen and all that jazz, but somebody make sure my sweet Pippa’s protected as well, OK?

Four months later and that Newsweek cover still chills me to the bone.

I like to imagine that babies really can talk to each other telepathically like in Look Who’s Talking, and when Beyonce gives birth to her first child with Jay-Z, that baby is going to look around the nursery and think at all of the other newborns: “Bow down, bitches.”

ESPN was once a marvelous source of 24-hour sports news and analysis. Over the past few years, though, it turned into the sports equivalent of cable news, with talking heads debating topics and anchors offering opinions more than facts. No man better embodied that rise of the mindless shouting match approach better than “First Take’s” Skip Bayless, who is universally loathed by sports fans and athletes, but is going nowhere.

The Worldwide Leader recently announced that not only can we expect more of Bayless in 2012 – “First Take” will have a strictly debate format – but all of ESPN’s programming will feature more debating and arguing than ever. All because people can’t help but watch Bayless shove his contrarian view in his opponents’ faces.

Ashton Kutcher once challenged CNN to a contest to see who could get to 1,000,000 followers on Twitter first. He won and then proceeded to turn the social networking site into his own little platform for brain farts and ridiculous ignorant comments, like threatening to sue his neighbor because he had construction workers repairing his house at 7 a.m. His Tweeting hit an all-time low a few months ago when he Tweeted that Penn State had #noclass for firing longtime football coach Joe Paterno.

Then someone pointed out to Kutcher, who champions the cause of fighting global child sex slavery, that Paterno was fired because his former defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky, had just been accused by multiple men of being sexually abused by him when they were children in Penn State facilities. Kutcher eventually apologized and then hired someone to run his Twitter account for him, because it’s so hard to have a thought and know whether or not it’s appropriate to share, but it ultimately proved that instead of challenging CNN he should try watching it.

It has been 69 days – tee hee! – since the one-year anniversary of Rebecca Black’s rise to fame on February 10, 2011, and I feel that her milestone passed with barely a golf clap. Only 14-years old, Black’s impact on pop culture was tremendous and she deserves to be honored for her seminal super hit “Friday,” as she paved the way for so many of the new Internet stars that have been blowing up over the past year, including the many that we have previously showcased for the FilmDrunk Frotcast’s “Song of the Week”.

Alas, the Internet is a haven for ADD, and unless they keep pumping out new hits, stars like Black quickly fall to the wayside every time a new flavor of the week pops up. This week, friends, look no further for that next star than the Hot Girls — at least I think that’s their name. These two mysterious young ladies have seemingly come from nowhere with a video that was created as a favor.

Old Bailey Productions did not create any of the audio or lyrics for this video. We produced the video as a favor for a younger sibling of one of our friends.

Oh yeah? Well you also created the new faces of modern pop music, because this song is stuck in my head now, and when I close my eyes, all I can see is hotness. All hail the Hot Girls, and thank them for raising awareness for Hot Problems. Perhaps there is hope for humanity after all.

The best part of this Futsal argument escalating into a Muay Thai knockout (besides me learning what the hell “Futsal” is) is easily the YouTube commenter explaining his motivations:

This was in Russia , futsal 3rd division. I’ve asked the guy why he did that and he said he was pissed off because of the taunting on the missed tackle and being called gay.

I also would’ve accepted “he was told to stick a rubber hose up his nose so he shootkicked his opponent to death”. (via Sportress)

– Follow us on Twitter @withleather

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Links

UFC 145: Jones VS. Evans Live-Blog With Vince Mancini And Danny Boy Downes This Saturday |With Leather|

Nike Bans Midnight Releases, Initiates Twitter RSVP Policy But Will It Help? |Smoking Section|

TV’s 20 Greatest Original (Non-Theme) Songs |Warming Glow|

We Handicap Some Joseph Gordon-Levitt “Dark Knight Rises” Rumors |Gamma Squad|

Move Over Rebecca Black, We’ve Got Hot Girl Problems |UPROXX|

Carnival is offering a Saw-themed cruise for torture-porn masochists |Film Drunk|

Meme Watch: Bad Luck Leo Is Here To Divert Your Attention From Leonardo DiCaprio Banging Models |UPROXX|

The Internet’s Obsession With Hologram Tupac Extends To An Amazing Video And All-Hologram Coachella Poster |UPROXX|

Esquire & Chrissy Teigen Create New Rules For Concert-Going |Smoking Section|

Supercut: Movie students giving dumbass answers |Film Drunk|

Jeremy Lin, Tim Tebow Part Of Time’s 100 Most Influential People In The World |With Leather|

Who Really Gives You The Best Value For Your Used Games? |Gamma Squad|

The Return of Bob Loblaw and More ‘Arrested Development’ News |Warming Glow|

Jose Canseco’s Insane Twitter Rant Presented By Corgis |Buzzfeed|

4 Comedians Made TIME’s 100 Most Influential People 2012 List |HuffPost Comedy|

How Newt Gingrich Really Got Bitten by a Penguin |College Humor|

Adult Swim Interview with Brendon Small |Adult Swim|

15 writers and directors who’ve spawned their own separate genres |Fark|

Why ’12 Angry Men’ Still Matters |Moviefone|

Oregon Man Protests Airport Security By Conducting His Own Strip Search |The FW|

10 Aliens Cunningly Disguised as Attractive Celebrities |Pajiba|

Five Incredibly Creepy Animated Short Films |Unreality|

Kelly Brook Has a Tumblr and It’s Glorious |Brobible|

Aziz Ansari: Texting With Girls |High Definite|

There will never be another Rebecca Black, the brilliant mind and voice behind “Friday,” but we may have found the next best worst pop star ever. Her name’s Gnesa, and a week ago, she uploaded her first music video to YouTube: “Wilder,” a four-minute, soon-to-be club classic that hits the sweet spot of being completely tone deaf, yet instantly unforgettable. The nasally “la la la la” refrain may not leave your brain for days, and the fact that she looks like Future Rebecca Black, mixed with a bit of Kardashian and Snooki, can only do wonders for Gnesa.

A few things:

1. I can’t believe this isn’t already a Cher song.
2. Is “Take me higher/I want to get wilder” followed by “Take me higher/I want to get wiser”? God, I hope so. For a song made up of approximately 17 words, it’s oddly tough to make out what Gnesa’s singing, what with that dime-store synth beat.
3. The plot’s overly complicated. Does the pink dress symbolize bumping with her lady friends, and the blue dress oppression? We need answers, and soon.

Welcome to the Internet, Gnesa. Here’s hoping LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA. Dammit.

(Via)

From Patrice Wilson, the monster who gave us Rebecca Black’s “Friday,” comes “Thanksgiving,” the first single from future ironic t-shirt Nicole Westbrook. It’s the latest “worst song of all-time” entry, and with all due respect to Gnesa, for fear that she might bash me over the head with one of her many synthesizers, it just might be.

“Thanksgiving” is a perfect storm of horrible outfits, empty production, vapid lyrics (“School is out/I can shout/Thank you, thank you, thank you”), and a fantastically awful and uncomfortable music video that oversexualizes a 13-year-old girl. The only way to evaluate “Thanksgiving” Danger Guerrero-style would be to make the post approximately 186 slides long, so let’s just highlight some key moments.

Thanksgiving 2012 lands on November 22, not November 28, meaning this video takes place in the future and Nicole Westbrook isn’t even a teenager. It takes all of 12 seconds before everyone watching feels like a pervert.

NO JEWS ALLOWED.

That looks AWFUL, which makes sense, considering Nicole is negative five years old and shouldn’t be making Thanksgiving dinner by her lonesome. Does she have parents? Are they dead? Is her entire family dead? Is she selling herself on the streets to make ends meet? Sh*t got dark.

Um. Why is that adult, who is CLEARLY not related to Nicole or any of her friends, hanging out with a bunch of kids? And judging by the holiday montage, has been for at least a year.

It bugs me more than it should that when Nicole sings, “Mashed potatoes (eh),” we’re looking at cranberries.

I’m out.

(Via Clip Nation)

First, there was “Friday.” Then, “Thanksgiving.” What simple topic would ARK Music Factory CEO Patrice Wilson over-explain through song next? Would it be about a month? A number? Racism? Poverty? Genocide? The answer: skipping rope, courtesy of his next great band that will dominate the musical landscape for HOURS, if not DOUBLE DIGIT HOURS. Please welcome, rap duo Tweenchronic and their song, “Skip Rope.”

We can be anything that we want to be
Won’t back down don’t roll with the crowd
Like a jump rope we can never be broke
Twisted and never badder forever

/goes back in time
//writes “like a jump rope, we can never be broke” in everyone’s yearbook
///goes back further in time
////kills Hitler
/////goes forward in time
//////steals Patrice Wilson’s lyrics book
///////???
////////makes major bank

Tweenchronic got mad flow, bro, which is exactly how Patrice pitched the band to himself.

Ever since the super viral Goats Yelling Like Humans compilation came out in early February, “goating” (the trend of adding yelling goats to popular songs) has been taking the Internet by storm. Below is a collection of the best goat remixes the Internet has to offer. (This page will be updated as new videos come out.)

One Direction

Bon Jovi

Skrillex

Whitney Houston

Jay-Z & Kanye West

Taylor Swift

Miley Cyrus

Justin Bieber

Usher

Katy Perry

Alicia Keys

Rebecca Black

PSY

Blur

Taio Cruz

Trey Songz

Ke$ha

Maroon 5

Hanson

Nicki Minaj

The Wanted

Sister Act

Eminem

Adele

Will.i.am

Limp Bizkit

Jimmy Kimmel’s meaty parody of Rebecca Black’s “Friday.”

I couldn’t figure out why I kept shuddering while watching this video, but then I realized it’s because Rebecca Black’s cover of Miley Cyrus’ summer anthem “We Can’t Stop” is so anesthetized that it’s actually super creepy. Even creepier than Miley’s official video for the song, which shows us fingers being chopped off to reveal Pepto Bismol blood and elaborate skull sculptures crafted from French fries, I think?

Rebecca duets on the song with with a young man named Jon D who has shaggy hair and a set of teeth the most wholesome shade of milk. Questionable lyrics like, “To my homegirls here with the big butts/Shakin’ it like we at a strip club” have become, “To my homegirls here, living it up/Feeling alive and are in love.” And the darn kids won’t stop smiling.

I can’t tell if this feels more like a Proactiv ad or a commercial for a religious-themed teen dating site. Maybe it’s a recruitment ad for an ARK Music Factory cult?

“Recording artist” Tay Allyn’s just-released video for her song “Mass Text” has to rank up there with Rebecca Black’s “Friday” and Nicole Westbrook’s “Thanksgiving” as one of the worst music videos to ever hit the Internet.

That headline, visualized:

Anyway, it’s been nearly two and a half years since Rebecca Black taught us this word, “Friday.” I’m still a little unsure what it means, especially in relation to Thursday and Saturday, but the Internet went gaga for the clip, which has racked up approximately 18 gazillion views. To celebrate her song’s sort-of anniversary, Rebecca Black, whose last name is Black, watched “Friday” on Black Friday. It’s the highest concept YouTube video starring a meme since Chocolate Rain slipped in his chocolate shower, and broke his neck. R.I.P. Chocolate Rain Kid.

It’s been nearly three years since the worst song ever that is not Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville” was released into the world, and the tune’s perpetrator is finally ready to address her crimes. In a YouTube clip made on Black Friday, “Friday” singer Rebecca Black (puns, y’all!) watches the ARK Music Factory video that made her a weird kind of famous when she was 14. And boy does she do a lot of cringing.

(via)

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After finally getting around to watching Friday and its two sequels, Next Friday and Friday After Next Day After Tomorrow, Rebecca Black was inspired to call up the old gang, including Underage Driver and Brace Face, to say, “You guys, it’s time for…what comes after Friday?” And that’s how we ended up with “Saturday.”

Unlike “Friday,” though, “Saturday” isn’t kitschy or fun dumb; it’s takes-itself-too-seriously dumb (actual lyric: “Today is Saturday/We’re going to live like there’s no tomorrow”). At least until the white dude in sunglasses named, I sh*t you not, Dave DAYS begins sing-rapping, at which point the song becomes BRING BACK BRACE FACE.

Also, where’s Patrice Wilson? Is Rebecca too old for him now? At least we still have Alison Gold.

Listen on the player above, or download this week’s episode as an mp3 here (right-click, “save as”)

Yes, Virginia, there is a Frotcast! It’s been a great year here in the Frotquarters. We managed to not get killed by Juggalos (yet), Ben beat cancer, Laremy got Bell’s Palsy, and Matt Lieb got choked out by a girl and discovered Quicksand Porn. Until now, we had no way of celebrating these milestones. At least, not until, unprompted and unsolicited, our new MVP listener (MVL?) Token created this Best of 2013 Frotcast, with all your favorite Frotcast bits from 2013. Well, all of his, anyway. You’d be amazed at how much we benefit from a little editing. Segments include:

• Jim Belushi is the master of his vehicle
• Justin Halpern’s interrupting dog and baby
• Alison Stevenson’s toilet condom.
• The 10 Rules of Christian Dating
• David Gborie hates Vince’s bandanna
• Ben’s trip to the sperm bank
• Matt Lieb discovers quicksand porn
• The Mormon name spelling bee

The quotable Bret:

“There’s very little cake in bat cake. It’s mostly bats and scaffolding.”

And much, much more. If there’s a Frotcast virgin in your life who you want to introduce to the Frotcast, this is a great place to start.

Subscribe on iTunes! Download all the episodes at Podbean! Email at us at frotcast@gmail.com. Write us some reviews, and send us links to them! Follow our guests, Bret, Ben, Matt Lieb, David Gborie, Juan Medina, Justin Halpern, Matt Ufford, Alison Stevenson, Patrick Schumacker, and Me.

Shout out to Chef Seth.

Stephen Colbert dropped by Jimmy Fallon’s Late Night to sing Rebecca Black’s “Friday.” Taking one of the worst song’s ever and making it hilarious means that we are in good hands with our new Tonight Show host.

UPDATE: It’s “Best of Late Night” week and this clip is from 2011, a time when Rebecca Black was at the height of her power.

Despite the fact that I work for the internet, I’ve managed to remain blissfully unaware of Rebecca Black for the most part. Yes, I know she had that video “Friday” that everybody took a collective dump on, but other than that, really nothing. So when I saw that Rebecca Black posted a video on YouTube reading some of the mean comments people had left on her videos, I was like, oh, this girl must be actually pretty cool. It’s always refreshing when someone has a sense of humor about themselves, which is what makes Celebrities Reading Mean Tweets About Themselves so funny.

NOPE. That’s not what this is. Not at all. I had such a violent reaction to this video, that I had to restrain myself to doing this to my laptop the entire time I was watching it.

This video has about as much self awareness as people who wear nude leggings in public. I would advise her to learn a bit of humility, but with this attitude she’ll probably fit right in at whatever sorority her parents buy her into when she goes to college in a couple of years.

(YouTube Via Huffington Post)

It seems like we’ve been wasting time on YouTube forever, but the video streaming site has only been sucking up our freedom for a decade. In honor of YouTube’s 10th anniversary, James Corden took The Late Late Show to YouTube’s L.A. offices and celebrated the anniversary with some of the most memorable viral stars to ever grace the site. The opening of the episode was essentially one big montage of famous YouTube vids, including cameos from the Double Rainbow guy and Rebecca Black.

And if that wasn’t enough, Corden and crew also provided a YouTube themed version of the usual show open, featuring some notable appearances by Nyan Cat and David After Dentist.

(Via The Late Late Show with James Corden)

In 2021, Rebecca Black celebrated the 10-year anniversary of “Friday” with a bad-ass remix featuring Dorian Electra and Big Freedia. She suffered lots of trolls at the time in 2011, but her comeback has been big and rejuvenating.

Today, January 6, she took to Twitter to react to a viral clip of Andrew Tate’s unlistenable song “Sugar Daddy” and its embarrassing music video. She quote-tweeted the clip with a simple statement: “i was 13 this man is 36,” in reference to the fact that she was just a kid when her song gained online infamy while Tate’s cringe-worthy output is less excusable. Of course this diss immediately went viral, and some are pointing out that “Friday” is actually not a bad song. This follows the recent arrest of Tate as part of a sex trafficking investigation, which happened after he was dissed by Greta Thunberg.

About coming out as queer, Black told Uproxx, “Gosh, it’s been a really intense year and a half for all of us. I feel now, especially in hindsight, just really fortunate to have been able to take the time to really focus on what was important for me to prioritize in my life and in my world. Coming out definitely had a lot to do with the direction that my project has taken. I feel really good and proud of the progress that I’ve made.”

Long before the days of TikTok, singer Rebecca Black was one of the earliest viral stars. Though her debut song “Friday” proved polarizing, she’s continued to persevere. While she’s had a brief stint as a YouTube vlogger, music has always been her first love, and over the course of the past 12 years, she’s gone from making teenage bubblegum pop, to infectious queer bops.

Over a decade in the making, Black is finally gearing up to release her debut album. She previously announced her album would be titled Let Her Burn last year, upon the release of its lead single, “Crumbs.” Today (January 6), Black took to Instagram and revealed the cover art for Let Her Burn, which is set to drop next month.

Back in November, she shared a post on Instagram reflecting on her musical journey, and every milestone leading up to this era.

“I’ve dreamt of this ever since I was a tiny tumblr obsessed teenage bean in OC,” she said. “I remember I was full of fear, but at the same time I had this burning desire to show and prove myself to the world. I spent hours up alone every night listening to the albums that brought me comfort, hope and adventure in my own skin, imagining how my own could feel, if one day it ever got to exist.”

Check out the Let Her Burn cover art below.

Let Her Burn is out via 2/9 via Rebecca Black. You can pre-order it here.

Rebecca Black dropped her long-awaited debut album, Let Her Burn, today. As an independent artist, this project took a little bit in the making — but fans are all the more here for her return.

“I’ve dreamt of this ever since I was a tiny tumblr obsessed teenage bean in OC,” she shared on Instagram last November. “I remember I was full of fear, but at the same time I had this burning desire to show and prove myself to the world. I spent hours up alone every night listening to the albums that brought me comfort, hope and adventure in my own skin, imagining how my own could feel, if one day it ever got to exist.”

The singer also noted that the timing was perfect, as it has also been exactly twelve years since her song “Friday” became a viral sensation when she was 13. However, the immense popularity of the song wasn’t everything it was cracked up to be, especially as an adolescent.

“I think being so young and having such an intense reaction to “Friday” to deal with as a kid really hindered that ability to take control of my own life and the things that I believed in,” she told Uproxx in 2021. “I just tried to never give up on that. And I’ve fallen so many times, so ungracefully.”

Let Her Burn is out now via Rebecca Black. Buy/stream it here.

Rebecca Black is the latest Oakland Athletics fan to come out against the team’s proposed plans to relocate to Las Vegas.

This development came after the A’s official Twitter account joked about an alleged cousin of hers, who hails from Philadelphia.

“‘Gotta get down on Phriday‘ -Rebecca Black’s cousin who is from Philly,” read the tweet.

Black caught wind of the tweet, and immediately replied, saying, “I DONT HAVE A COUSIN FROM PHILLY? SELL THE TEAM.”

Black’s directive to “sell the team” comes several A’s fans chanted “Sell the team!” during the team’s 2-1 victory against the Tampa Bay Rays that gave Oakland a season-best seven-game winning streak this past Thursday (June 14), per Associated Press.

The fans, who arrived to the Oakland Coliseum en masse dub this movement as a “reverse boycott,” encouraging fans to protest the team’s planned relocation to Las Vegas.

“I saw this game and I knew I had to come because I knew it was going to be very monumental and would send a message to the owner that this is what the fan base wants,” said Oakland Athletics superfan Scott Finney. “They want the ownership to sell the team so they can remain in Oakland.”

After Black posted the aforementioned tweet, several baseball fans took to her replies, expressing gratitude for her support.