Feb. 10 marked the ninth anniversary of the release of Rebecca Black’s viral and widely criticized Friday music video.
For years, the California-based singer — who was only 13 at the time — was the subject of mass hate and torment on social media as a result of the song, which boasted about “getting down,” “partyin'” and ultimately “lookin’ forward to the weekend” in 2011.
To celebrate the commemorative date, Black posted a lengthy Instagram post recounting exactly how the troublesome song affected her mental health and life overall while growing up. She wrote:
“9 years ago today, a music video for a song called Friday was uploaded to the internet. Above all things, I just wish I could go back and talk to my 13 year old self, who was terribly ashamed of herself and afraid of the world.”
Black said that she suffered from depression at the age of 15 and “felt like she had nobody to talk to about” it, adding that at only 19, she was denied by “almost every producer/songwriter” she hoped to work with on new music.
Along with the heartfelt post, Black, now 22, posted a picture of herself in 2020. She urged her audience to “swipe” and look back upon another one of her from the Friday music video.
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“I’m trying to remind myself more and more that every day is a new opportunity to shift your reality and lift your spirit,” said Black. “You are not defined by any one choice or thing, time heals and nothing is finite.”
“It’s a process that’s never too late to begin, and so, here we go! This might be a weird thing to post but the honesty feels good if nothing else,” concluded the still-active YouTuber.
After opening up about her previous trauma, Black, for the most part, was met with an abundance of support from fans — with many also commenting on her “glow up.”
Some supporters even admitted to being a part of the problem, after confessing to bullying the child star almost a decade ago.
Here’s what some Twitter users had to say:
https://twitter.com/DoctorPepper_/status/1227180708172464128
https://twitter.com/LesserWachowski/status/1227133240382758912
Other longtime fans believed that Black was receiving apologies and recognition simply because she had grown up and “become attractive.”
Another user tweeted: “Honestly the way people hyper-focus on Rebecca Black looking/sounding ‘better’ makes me wonder if they’d treat her the same if she didn’t look conventionally attractive and had a terrible singing voice.”
In March 2011, Friday became YouTube’s most disliked video to date, pulling in more than 1.2 million dislikes overall. That was after it quickly surpassed Justin Bieber’s record of 1.17 million dislikes on Baby.
As of this writing, after being re-uploaded to Black’s personal YouTube account that September, Friday sits at more than 139.77 million views with more than 3.6 million thumbs downs.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B4VjCC2pCG7/
Since then, Black has released a myriad of new songs, including 2019’s Sweetheart.
Her complete discography can be found via her official YouTube account.
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