Unintentional Comedy: Why Rebecca Black's Friday is Funny

We've touched upon several genres of modern comedy: satire, rant, stand-up, absurdist/surrealist, alternative, and anti-comedy. But there's another genre that some people consider comedy: Unintentional Comedy.

You see unintentional comedy everyday:

Your niece's school's deplorable performance of Annie

American Idol Auditions

The latest internet trainwreck video your aunt forwards to you

And that golden moment where someone lets out gas that's perfect for the situation.

This is stuff that wasn't meant to be funny, but it's so bad, it's hilarious. If it's a comedy, but poorly done, the reason why you're laughing is because you're not laughing with them, you're laughing at them.

Bad movies are a source for unintentional comedy. Tommy Wiseau's The Room is the most modern example, although this can date back to Ed Woods.



The Room was intended to be a serious drama, but due to a bunch of stuff I won't go into, because I'm focusing on Rebecca Black, the film has become a cult hit, and has a Rock Horror following. Although Tommy Wiseau (the guy with the long hair and the weird accent that makes him sound like a drunk guy trying to do an impersonation of that foreign kid down the hall), denies that it was a drama gone bad, and instead says that he intended it to be that way--a comedy, it was a movie gone wrong. And you know what? Even though people are laughing at him, he's making money from people buying DVDs of The Room to laugh at. And at least people are having fun when they watch it, which is what he wants.

Moving onto Friday, I know, I'm hopping on the bandwagon late. This video became popular last month, and I watched it last week, and now the song's stuck in my head, and because the video cracks me up, whenever I hear the song in my head, I start laughing, and everyone's like, "who's that crazy chick, laughing to herself?" See, it's insanity inducing. But more and more people are still watching it for the first time, the comments on its youtube page have to be updated every thirty seconds because new comments keep coming in.

Some background: Rebecca Black is a thirteen-year-old girl who likes to sing and wants to be famous. And her parents happened to have four thousand dollars that they could allocate for her dreams. She found out about the Ark Music Factory, a new record label whose goal is to find new, young, tween and teen artists. And if you pay them four thousand dollars, you can record a pre-written song with them, and they can make a music video with you. It reminds me of those stores you could go to and spend ten dollars to make an amateur CD or a music video. Only for four thousand dollars? You can make one yourself if you have friends who are good with a camera and final cut.

Anyway, the company released the video onto youtube, so Rebecca could show her friends and family, and be like her idol, Justin Bieber. And it became viral. So many dislikes. Next thing you know, poor Rebecca is on Good Morning America, Leno, and many other shows. Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, and Taylor Hicks teamed up to sing their own version on Jimmy's show. But the comments on her video are possibly the meanest things ever. People are saying that this is the worst song ever professional critics and youtubers alike. But she's being a good sport about it. But why is this video so bad and so funny? Let's watch.



The beginning of the video looks like the kind of stuff they make for Bar Mitzvah montage, the flip book, and the bad editing in.

Her voice: It isn't bad, it's not good. The annoying part is how nasal it is. I took voice lessons, and this was the stuff I was told not to do. Poor girl needs real voice lessons. It sounds like whoever her teacher is, if she has one, is part Kardashian and part Wisconsin yooper.

Okay, are those thirteen year olds driving a car? I know kids are pathetically trying to act like miniature adults now, but driving a car? Don't get in the back seat, or the front seat! It's not safe!

The banality of the lyrics, debating if she should get the front seat or the back seat. I don't blame Rebecca, I blame the writers of the song!

The lyrics get worse. We we we so excited? Do people talk like that now? Is that the hip way to talk?

When she was in the car, driving through the streets during daytime, it looked realistic, but now they're in front of a backdrop of a nighttime scene. Bad transition.


Yesterday was Thursday. Today was Friday. Really?

Oh, remember when in every pop music video they'd have a guy come and rap in the bridge (the middle)? This is like that only worse, because this isn't some talented rapper. This is one of the founders of Ark Music trying to get famous himself. This is your client's video. Not yours! And he's rapping about passing a school bus. Oh, and cut to him during the coda, bopping his head.


Fun fun fun fun.


This video has every bad pop music video cliche.


Poor, poor Rebecca, a better song, some voice lessons, and not having your record label's head doing a creepy, redundant rap during the bridge would have made your video subpar. And Rebecca's under police protection because she's getting death threats. Okay, these threats aren't viable, these are usually losers on the internet, on 4-chan, or pre-teen or teen kids who would think this is fun to do. Don't threaten Rebecca. If there's anything really wrong about this, it's the travesty of a song written.

Now, comedians themselves can be targets of unintentional comedy. I think it's every comedian's worse fear to have people laughing at you and not with you. Since I started doing stand-up in high school, it's always been a fear. Because I was one of the outcasts--I was Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed (okay, that was middle school, but in high school I was still one of the girls to make fun of, but then I became somewhat cool after I actually started really writing). This is one of my weak stand-up acts. See for yourself.

Keanu Reeves Reads Chekhov

I know, I actually like Keanu Reeves. In the spirit of his latest movie, I recorded a new video of him reading from The Cherry Orchard. My voice is too high, so it doesn't exactly sound like him.

Fred Ain't Funny

Most of my posts have been me praising several comedians, close to the point of worship.

Well, I have a mean side too.

Earlier in my posts I mentioned a youtube comedian named Fred. And I've said he's not funny. And now I'll explain why.

Let me give you some background info. Fred Figglehorn (haha, his name sounds funny, that's real funny) was created by Lucas Cruikshank, a teenage boy from Ohio. Since then, Fred's received one million subscribers, and became the most subscribe channel, before falling to Ryan Higa and Sean Fujiyoshi as the most subscribed (at least they are funny).

A typical Fred video




As we can see, all Fred does is speak in a high-pitched voice, which is edited, and crosses his eyes, and says weird stuff. If Fred spoke with a normal voice, he wouldn't be as funny. This shows that practically anyone can make a Fred style video and have people find it funny. In order to illustrate, I have made this video below. I did a monologue from a play, and sped up my voice.



Fred is part of what I call OMG SO RANDOM! Humor that is dominating the younger generation today. Some may call it surreal or absurdist. The thing is, surreal and absurdist humor is thoughtfully planned out. OMG SO RANDOM! Humor are kids just throwing inside jokes and things they find funny into a comedy melting pot. And other kids enjoy it. And they will become belligerent if others point out the flaws. Now, these kids will make up the next generation of comedians, and will create stuff that will make Aristophanes roll in his grave.

As well, let's look at Fred's subscribers: Kids and tweens. His target audience is kids and tweens. Try to debate them on how Fred isn't worth subscribing to and they'll freak out, and bombard you with hateful comments. And like I have said, these kids are the next generation.

So, what can we do? Well, Fred is already becoming capitalized, with several sponsorships. As well, Lucas has made appearances on both Disney and Nickelodeon. So now he's more famous than ever. But he might get old soon, and his fans might grow up.

And don't think I'm the only one who is ranting on Fred.

Here is Peter Chao, and yes, the accent is part of his persona, impersonating Fred, who he has stated in a few videos that he dislikes.



And here is another youtube user, popking, who points out funnier comedians, such as Jay Pharoah--yes that's the new guy on SNL.






So, youth of today who want to be comedians. Quit watching Fred or iCarly. For the love of all that is funny, watch some classic SNL. You know what's funny? Bassomatic! Bag of Glass! Jon Belushi as a Samurai! Then work your way up to some Python, but you must understand, it's not funny because it's random, in fact, it's not random.