I Can't Even Explain Why

I've been away for a while, thanks for noticing. I've had a lot of work, not a lot of free time and sadly, The Famous Peter has been derelict for a good few months. It was going to be that way until about July, but something recently has really made my ears prick up. More than that, in fact; it's sent me fucking livid. I've seen war, famine, poverty and Ince, but nothing could ever prepare me for the abhorrent abomination that is Teenage YouTube Tune Sensations, or TYTS.

The first one (well, it was the first one to be noticed) appeared with Rebecca Black. I don't need to explain her to you (if you've ravaged through the internet long enough to find this dark corner you've no doubt come across her along the way), but she can't go without a mention nowadays when somebody's talking about internet trends. She got a video, x million hits later there's all manner of imitations plaguing my facebook news feed, emails and even newspaper when the cyberbullying "got out of hand". One of the most notorious copycats is a 13 year old girl called Jenna Rose. Jenna is your typical American upper-middle class girl; spoilt by her (probably) single mother and so far up her own arse she can headbutt her gallbladder. So what's special? Well, she indulged in the new fad of making a music video (much like Rebecca Black) paid for by her mother to the princely sum of roughly $2,000. Now, if I were to ask for that amount of money in my house, I'd be branded a puff and thrown into the nearest Byker Grove resembling building to sort my life out. However, she's American (and a girl). The land of the free; Bald Eagles and all that jazz. She can do whatever DA FUHK she wants.

The result was 'My Jeans'. Released on the 1st of October 2010 over the YouTubes (four months before 'Friday'), it was nothing more than a silent fart in the couch of the internet. Of course, the great wankstain that is Rebecca Black came along, so people obsessed over that, and 'My Jeans' saw a revival, as a cult following for shit music developed. Page hits rocketed, as did the media attention. She merited the same amount of celebrity as anyone who has ever been near a Big Brother house. So, when every comment is abusive, your support is purely ironic and an entire hemisphere is laughing at you, what do you do?

FOLLOW IT UP AND WHORE YOURSELF OUT.

Jenna donned some extraordinarily skimpy pants, no doubt recommended to her by a loving, attention starved mother, and filmed this abomination. It's horrible. Out of tune, everything. But I'm not comprehensively reviewing this tripe; for me it doesn't merit the title of actual music. But I will see into a few things.

Firstly, the lyrics. Now, I rarely say this as I am rarely surprised or shocked, but what the fuck is going on? This is a ~12 year old girl. Why is she singing "oh my God, she looks good, oh my God, you know you wish you could..." What does that mean? What the hell is she doing? Was this song written in part by Chris Hansen? The song does follow up to explain that she means other girls would wish they could look like her, but again, that's no example to set to kids her age. Without getting all Christian Mothers' Association, she's vile. Really vile. The sexual content of this video is higher than most Gaga or Rihanna flicks. Given that Jenna has made two videos, and 50% of her videos are sexually explicit, this makes her one of the most inappropriate artists in the music business. I shuddered as I typed in music; it's still just noise to me.

Worst of all? She's not even getting any real fiscal benefits from all this. The only good thing she's getting is a lot of attention as goodness-knows-who watches this crap all over the world, only for her to be forgotten in a few years. The studio made the video and the song; her mother paid for the production and the most she'll get is a little over reimbursement (at least this happened to Rebecca Black, although she is rumoured to independently be following 'Friday' up). It's capitalism at its worst. TYTs are pathetic, seasonal fads that plague the internet like an ecstasy tablet. Everyone's happy for the first few hours but then it just gets all annoying and terrifying; you keep getting offered new ones, as everyone else looks like they're enjoying it but you know it's bad for society and against everything you stand for... so yeah, they're bollocks.

And worse still, the rise of the TYTS doesn't seem to be fading away. 'O.M.G.' is only a week old and has already amassed 1.5m views. Mothers all over the place will be trying to get their TYTS out and show them to the world. Luckily, it seems to have contained itself within America so far. Let's keep our fingers crossed that autotune is kept illegal for children on these shores.