I'll be direct: I'm one of the millions of people who thinks Rebecca Black's Friday is complete and utter shit. Like the folks behind Glee, though I cannot deny that, for the moment at least, Black is now part of the global pop-culture landscape, all thanks to a little thing called youtube.
This little piece isn't really about Black: it's about how making so much of pop culture available for online viewing free of charge has really had game-changing effects. Justin Bieber was discovered thanks to youtube. A whole new generation of kids has discovered Michael Bolton thanks to his participation in Lonely Island's "Jack Sparrow" single. Some films (the ones whose distributors have not yet managed to find and remove all copies of them from youtube), have found whole new audiences, as have songs and performances. Suddenly, to paraphrase Julia Roberts, anyone with a digital camera and internet access can be a cinematographer, and suddenly, getting noticed by people is no longer a matter who you know but a matter of what you know how to do, i.e. upload videos of yourself.
I find the possibilities endlessly interesting.
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