Being the mother a teen daughter, I pretty much get the low down on what's going on with pop culture in regards to music, movies & the general hot topic buzz of the moment. And recently there's been a lot of buzz about a video a young girl, named Rebecca Black, posted on YouTube called "Friday." And when I say a lot of "buzz," I mean she has at the moment 48,809,989 views for her video. That's crazy!
Now, young girls make up songs & dances & perform them for the family in the living room all the time~~those are the moments many fun family memories are made of! But when Justin Beiber was catapulted to stardom after being discovered on Youtube, more & more kids are reaching for the stars by filming these performances & posting them online for the world to view & critique. What's different about posting these videos online, is that it's exposing the kids to a world of open commentating & much of it is very harsh, to say the least. The loving, non-judgemental safety net of the nuclear family isn't there, as it is when the performance stays within the home environment. This is the problem, in my humble opinion, when parents, such as Rebecca Black’s, decide to pay thousands of $$$ for their daughters to make relatively professional looking videos & post them on YouTube. Rebecca's song isn't awful, but it's clear Rebecca is not a fabulous singer & the lyrics are, truthfully, pretty dang bad. But in all honesty, there are tons of songs with not so great lyrics that become really popular, so who's to judge? The viewers on YouTube have had a field day leaving extremely hateful comments for Rebecca, one going so far as to say they hope she cuts herself & dies! She's even reportedly received death threats! The song has spawned multitudes of spoofs & she's become famous for being disliked. All this really makes me so sad. Since when has our society become so tolerant of being hateful to kids for having a dream? I liken the anonymous people leaving these comments to aggressive drivers~~for some reason when people feel anonymous, they think it's OK to act like animals. Isn't how we act in these moments just as much a barometer of our character as when we're out in the open? Where's the conscience of these folks? This is a young girl, for pete's sake!! Leave her alone! Talk to your kids about YouTube commenting. Let them know that it's NEVER OK to stand by & let other people tear someone down. OK...I'm glad I got that off my chest. I'll get off my soapbox now.
Now, young girls make up songs & dances & perform them for the family in the living room all the time~~those are the moments many fun family memories are made of! But when Justin Beiber was catapulted to stardom after being discovered on Youtube, more & more kids are reaching for the stars by filming these performances & posting them online for the world to view & critique. What's different about posting these videos online, is that it's exposing the kids to a world of open commentating & much of it is very harsh, to say the least. The loving, non-judgemental safety net of the nuclear family isn't there, as it is when the performance stays within the home environment. This is the problem, in my humble opinion, when parents, such as Rebecca Black’s, decide to pay thousands of $$$ for their daughters to make relatively professional looking videos & post them on YouTube. Rebecca's song isn't awful, but it's clear Rebecca is not a fabulous singer & the lyrics are, truthfully, pretty dang bad. But in all honesty, there are tons of songs with not so great lyrics that become really popular, so who's to judge? The viewers on YouTube have had a field day leaving extremely hateful comments for Rebecca, one going so far as to say they hope she cuts herself & dies! She's even reportedly received death threats! The song has spawned multitudes of spoofs & she's become famous for being disliked. All this really makes me so sad. Since when has our society become so tolerant of being hateful to kids for having a dream? I liken the anonymous people leaving these comments to aggressive drivers~~for some reason when people feel anonymous, they think it's OK to act like animals. Isn't how we act in these moments just as much a barometer of our character as when we're out in the open? Where's the conscience of these folks? This is a young girl, for pete's sake!! Leave her alone! Talk to your kids about YouTube commenting. Let them know that it's NEVER OK to stand by & let other people tear someone down. OK...I'm glad I got that off my chest. I'll get off my soapbox now.
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
~ Theodore Roosevelt
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