Rebecca Black passes Bieber as YouTube's most hated video
Just as it was about to become the most hated YouTube video of all time, Rebecca Black's "Friday" disappeared from YouTube. Then it returned, revealing that it is now the most hated YouTube video ever.
Sometimes, you find things just when you're not looking for them.
I was amused for at least five or six seconds by the revelation that Justin Bieber's "Baby" was the most disliked video on YouTube--yes, more than 1 million people with nothing better to do than register their hate--when I discovered that Rebecca Black had almost caught her hero.
Despite only being on YouTube for six weeks, the 13-year-old who achieved fame beyond her wildest musings had already registered the magic 1 million.
And then she was gone.
Suddenly, if I tried to click on her now more than infamous "Friday" music video, I was offered the news that the video had been taken down by the user because she had closed her YouTube account.
Could it have been that a mob of half-witted, green-eyed malcontents had driven her away, after more than 64 million views? Might it have been someone amusing themselves? Or might she not want the title of most hated YouTube video?
"Friday"'s removal seems to have happened very swiftly. Even her own new star-slick Web site, RebeccaBlackonline.com, was linking to the blank screen.
It would be rather sad, I thought, if such an iconic piece, a mere frippery of teeny amusement in a nasty little world, had been removed precisely because of the nasty little world.
But, just after I had contacted her new professional management wondering what might have happened, the video reappeared. Had there been a change of mind or a mere technical glitch?
What is clear is that the reappearance revealed that Black now stood at 1,190,767 dislikes, while Bieber's enjoyed a mere 1,163,098.
I am sure it won't affect Black's career, in any other way than positively. She suddenly has so many famous friends, has appeared with Jay Leno and will soon, no doubt, find herself dueting with Bieber on some metropolitan stage. (He even sang a few bars of her song during a concert the other night in Europe.)
But still the venom wafts around like Tiger Woods' spittle. Are there really that many sad little snakes on YouTube's flat-headed plain? Oh, yes, there are.