Three Success Lessons from the Worst Song Ever

It’s Friday, Friday…Gotta get down on Friday…

If you pay any attention at all to pop culture, top 40 music, viral videos, or horrible songs, then you have probably heard of Rebecca Black.

If you haven’t heard of her, let me educate you. Rebecca Black is a thirteen year old girl who recorded a song called “Friday.” It’s awful. But she recorded a video, posted it online, and it somehow went viral.

Here’s the video (Warning: The chorus may get stuck in your head, at which point your only recourse may be to smack yourself repeatedly in the face with a cast iron skillet. Consider yourself warned.)

At the time of this writing, the video has over 42,000,000 views.

42,000,000!

For. Tee. Too. Mill. Yun.

FORTY TWO MILLION VIEWS!!!

And let’s face it: it’s an awful, awful song. Just awful.

Just…just awful.

When I first heard the song, I laughed. I thought it was a joke. Then I realized that the girl was becoming an internet sensation, her song was charting (19 on the iTunes “Top 100”), and she was making national TV appearances on shows like Good Morning America.

My God, what has our world come to?

A variety of emotions ran through me. Most were negative. However, once the anger, jealousy, shock, despair, annoyance and envy ran their course, I took a step back and got some perspective.

First off, good for her! She recorded a song, it went viral, and now she has a tremendous platform to take off from. Unlike the cast of the Jersey Shore, at least she has some skill…

Second, rather than wasting time on jealousy or negativity, I decided to see what I could learn from this story. It didn’t take long to come up with three simple but powerful lessons that anyone who has a dream can apply to their own life.

1) Do Something!

Originally, I thought Rebecca Black was some random kid stumbled onto viral video success. Then I read an article about her and found out that in actuality, she answered a casting call by Ark Music Factory and was selected to record the song, and then her mom paid for a $2,000 package for the video shoot.

In short, she got off her ass and took action.

I’m guessing that there were many others who paid $2,000 (or more) over the years to record songs and create videos who never “made it.” On the flips side, there are probably thousands of people out there bitching about Rebecca Black’s success who have never taken any action to move themselves forward towards their dreams and goals.

Maybe you don’t have $2,000 to blow (or a wealthy parent, understanding spouse or mysterious benefactor to foot the bill) on shooting a video, but you can still take action.

The most useful thing this video did for Rebecca is it gave her a platform (I wrote an article about this before: Key to Success: the Yoko Ono Effect) There are now millions of people who know who she is. Whatever she does next, lots of people will notice, and that is an extremely powerful position to be in.

You probably won’t build your platform that quickly, but between Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and various free blogging software tools, you could start building your platform today, for free.

If the internet is not your thing, you can go network with others. Take classes. Read books. Conduct formal and informal research. Attend auditions. Apply for jobs. Seek out a mentor. Write a business plan. Outline a book. Redo your resume.

The list goes on an on. You have no excuse to not do something…

If you ever catch yourself complaining about someone else’s “undeserved success,” ask yourself, “What did I do today to achieve my dreams?”

2) Put In Your Time

This girl is young – only 13. Even still, she’s been singing and training for a long time. She had been performing in musical theater and talent shows, and has also been taking vocal lessons.

Her voice is so heavily processed on the video that you can’t tell if she’s a good singer or not. Here’s a link to a video of her performing the song acoustically, but I still can’t judge her singing skill. Watch the video on YouTube and judge for yourself:

Rebecca Black Sings ‘Friday’ Acoustic

The only thing I learned from that video is that when a producer tells a bunch of teens, “look like you’re really into the song,” they just look creepy…

Regardless of her talent, she wasn’t just some kid who never sang before and suddenly used auto-tune to create a song. She did use auto-tune in the song – through the entire song – but still, there was years of work and training before that.

Have you put in your time? If you dream of being an actor, are you auditioning for local theater and taking classes? If you want to write a novel, are you writing everyday? If you want to start a company, are you saving money, making connections, and researching your market? If you want a job promotion, are you learning the new skills you need, going above and beyond, and demonstrating your value to the organization?

Overnight successes do happen, but it’s rare. Usually success comes after a lot of hard work and persistence.

Which brings us to…

3) Channel Anger and Jealousy into Persistence

The internet is the greatest stupidity disseminating device in the history of mankind.

The vitriolic comments about this video have been ridiculous. Look, if you want to talk about how this is the worst song ever, more power to you. But people have been tweeting messages and leaving comments on the YouTube video personally attacking the girl and telling her to “go kill yourself.”

Wow. This girl is thirteen, remember?

Not that age matters. You shouldn’t get personal like that with anyone over something so stupid.

So why would people be so angry at this girl, just for being successful?

Simple: Jealousy.

Rather than wasting time and energy raging online and telling a thirteen year old to kill herself, these people should go out and make something of their own lives instead.

I understand feeling jealous of others, especially when you think you have more talent, experience, skill, etc. than they do. I experience those annoying feelings too. But I have found the best thing you can do is to let it go, wish them the best, learn what you can from them, and then get back to focusing on your own path to success.

You want to know a simple formula for success? Prepare yourself, it’s not all that pretty:

Keep banging your head against a brick wall until the right person hears you.

How long might that be? Who knows? You could be crazy lucky and get noticed on your first try. Or you could plug away for years and years.

Rebecca’s head banging ended pretty quickly. Good for her. Maybe you’ve been banging your head against a wall for twenty years. Oh well, life is like that sometime. Keep going. Or better yet, change your approach. Try something different. Get better.

• Is life fair? Absolutely not.
• Are there people with a lot more talent recording better songs than Friday by Rebecca Black? Undoubtedly.
• Does any of that matter? Not in the least.

Whatever you do, don’t waste time raging against others who are more successful than you. It’s a waste of time, people around you will get annoyed, and Karma will eventually bite you in the ass. Oh, and you’re probably shortening your life span due to hypertension and what not. So stop it.

Luck happens. It could happen to you. The key is that you have to be persistent enough to eventually get “lucky.”

No one knows how long it will take. The only way to stack the deck in your favor is to get better, get yourself out there, and do something!

In Conclusion

Is Rebecca Black a flash in the pan whose fifteen minutes of fame are almost up, or is she on the road to a life of riches, fame, and success? Only time will tell.

Until it all plays out, we should appreciate the story for what it is: a young girl who trained for something, took action, got lucky, and now is reaping the rewards (and, frankly, suffering the consequences) of it. Take what lessons you can and see if you can make it happen for you too…

Now I shall leave you with two versions of “Friday”; the first, as if it were sung by Bob Dylan. The second, a parody by Chad Vader, Darth’s brother who works at a grocery store. You be the judge as to which is the best one:

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