Friday (3:46)

“Friday” is a song written by Clarence Jey and Patrice Wilson, performed by Rebecca Black, a singer from Anaheim Hills, California. It was released as a single on March 14, 2011. “Friday” was produced by the ARK Music Factory, a company owned by Jey and Wilson. Within a week after being released on iTunes, which accounts for over 70% of worldwide online digital music sales, it has jumped the iTunes sales chart to 19 as of March 19, 2011.

Starting on Friday, March 11, 2011, the view count for the music video jumped from around 3,000 views to over 22 million on YouTube and became a viral hit. The sudden increase in the viewcount was attributed to a Tosh.0 blog post titled “Songwriting Isn’t for Everyone”, posted on March 11. Since the growth in popularity of the song and video, there have been numerous parody videos and remixes. Forbes stated that the notoriety of the song is another sign of the power of social media – specifically Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr, in this instance – in the ability to create “overnight sensations”.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Black’s mother, Georgina Kelly, recalls how a classmate of Black informed her of Ark Music Factory, an L.A. record label that allowed young singers to gain experience in the industry by recording a track for a fee.Kelly paid Ark Music $2,000 for a package that included a choice of two pre-written songs.