No More Black Fridays, by Arthur Tebbel – Pop Art #143

August 30, 2011 Arthur Tebbel 2 Comments

Dear Art,

It is being reported this month that I have dropped out of school to be homeschooled.  While this is partially so I can focus more on my career the main reason for this was my classmates were taunting me incessantly.  Am I deserving of this kind of scorn?  Is this just an inevitable byproduct of the Internet age and its instant memes?

-Rebecca Black

Rebecca Black,

Oh for Christ’s sake, suck it up.  You couldn’t take the teasing?  You’re famous!  Stephen Colbert covered your song on the Jimmy Fallon show with The Roots.  You were in the music video for the Katy Perry song that went number one and tied Thriller for the most number one songs on one album.  I feel like that should be more than enough to deal with some haters around your school.  If you can’t deal with this now you should probably rip your own vocal chords out now and give up on signing.  Did you see what people did to Britney Spears?  That’s way worse than some people singing your songs at you.  I don’t think you have the heart for this music game.

I do enjoy the fig leaf about being homeschooled to focus on your career.  I can’t imagine you have a shelf life kid.  You’re video was something people laughed at, not with.  What’s the ceiling on that?  Some sort of female musical Tom Green?  I don’t think that’s a life for anyone, certainly not one that anyone should drop out of school to pursue.  You’ve got a great future as a D-level reality star ahead of you.  Celebrity Apprentice, Dancing with the Stars, Celebrity Rehab, these are your future endeavors.  Unless your parents are going to homeschool you on the finer points of sucking up to Donald Trump I think they’re wasting their time.  If you need some help on your midterms he insists on being called Mr. Trump and it’s at least as important to have a compelling piece of drama as it is to have good business ideas.

I really feel for you and your family.  All the accounts I’ve read about you say your mom paid to make the Friday video as a fun thing, not trying to make you a real pop star.  It blew up and now you can’t go to school anymore.  That really sucks.  Your 15 minutes of fame are over but because of the thoroughness of the Internet’s reach no one will forget you and can call up any embarrassing detail on his or her phones in a moment’s notice.  The only solace I can offer you is that eventually you will be forgotten.  No one remembers the Star Wars Kid or the Numa Numa Kid or any of the dozens of other digital laughing stocks I actually couldn’t recall.  This to shall pass.  Be careful in college though.  You have frat contest written all over you.