Over the course of a decade, Rebecca Black has gone from being the butt of the joke to dictating the narrative.
Black’s transformation from meme to queen began in 2020, when she resurfaced online to DJ at Club Quarantine, revealing that she’s been Extremely Online this whole time.
Then, in February, she released a hyperpop remix of “Friday” produced by Dylan Brady of 100 gecs.
Co-starring unexpected guest artists 3OH!3, Big Freedia, and Dorian Electra, the track was released to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the original tune, masterminded by ARK Music Factory and widely derided as the worst song ever.
https://youtu.be/iCFOcqsnc9Y
Black also released an updated take on the original “Friday” music video, a laughably G-rated affair. She revamped the cheesy clip with low-fi visuals and imagery plucked from 4chan’s rage comics, a discerning nod to the era of the internet that made her famous.
With the remix, Black retained the foundational ridiculousness of the song while injecting it with a healthy dose of ironic self-reference, turning the original track’s cringe on its head.
“Read My Mind” follows in a similar vein. Featuring hyperpop star Slayyyter, an artist whose sound has been characterized as “Charli XCX on whippets,” the track is controlled chaos.
https://youtu.be/raQvDbh3bzc
Replete with synths and auto-tune, the song is set to a similarly maximalist video that sees Black and Slayyyter working behind the glass-encased counter of a liquor-cum-convenience store.
Real-life motorcyclist Yuri Barrigan — painted as a sort of gas station Fabio — eventually stops by, sending the two into a bimbofied fantasy in which they possess gigantic breasts and Barrigan’s bike.
With “Read My Mind,” Black cements her comeback by stepping into an era that winks at her origin story while wielding full control of it.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CXb01LqvApc/
In a sense, Black’s newfound embrace of hyperpop, a genre that takes auto tune and “earworm”-style melodies to the extreme, is a way of reclaiming the irritating, saccharine catchiness of “Friday.”
And, given hyperpop’s roots in the LGBTQ+ community, it’s possible that Black’s exploration of the genre also serves as a proclamation of her queer identity, which she’d never explored via songwriting before 2020.
When “Friday” first released in 2011, I was one of the many, many netizens who overlooked Black as a fleeting joke, an unfortunate making of the fame machine. Now, the joke is on us.
