ANAHEIM, Calif. — Try to remember where you were the first time you experienced Rebecca Black’s song “Friday.”

It shouldn’t take long.

Released on Feb. 10, 2011, the music video picked up a few thousand views over the month that followed, enough to thrill the then-13-year-old Rebecca, but it wasn’t something likely to attract much attention beyond the middle-schooler’s friends and family in Orange County’s Anaheim Hills.

Then, a month or so later, comedian Daniel Tosh mentioned it on the blog for his Comedy Central show “Tosh.0” and “Friday” was everywhere every day of the week.

I watched it on my laptop in the newsroom a few days later, after it jumped into one of the blogs I regularly trawled as the pop culture reporter for the Orange County Register.

First reaction: This is brilliant in a “holy-moley, this is crazy” kinda way.

Rebecca sang about her daily routine as the weekend neared: “Seven a.m., waking up in the morning / Gotta be fresh, gotta go downstairs / Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal.”

She sang of the age-old question of where in the car to sit: “Kickin’ in the front seat / Sittin’ in the back seat / Gotta make my mind up / Which seat can I take?”

She made sure we understood how the days of the week worked: “Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday / Today i-is Friday, Friday,” and a verse later, “Tomorrow is Saturday / And Sunday comes afterwards / I don’t want this weekend to end.”

All of it wrapped around a chorus of sweet, dumb excitement: “It’s Friday, Friday / Gotta get down on Friday / Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend.”

I had to know who this girl was whose music video had rocketed from 4,000 views on YouTube to more than 13 million views in a single week.

Even more so, I had to find out if she was in Orange County, which would make this massive viral video a local story.

The clues were in the video. The streets through which Rebecca and her friends cruised on their way to partyin’, partyin’ looked like a typical Orange County neighborhood. And Orange County parents definitely fit the profile of parents who’d pay for a vanity song and video for their kids.

The newspaper’s archives cinched it, with a mention in the Register’s Anaheim Hills weekly of a Rebecca Black appearing in a community youth theater musical.

A quick online search later, I became the first journalist to ever interview the internet infamous Rebecca Black.

Whom, we realized on meeting her at home with her mother, was a perfectly normal, entirely sweet kid who’d been overwhelmed by this tsunami of unasked-for attention that had quickly devolved into cruel personal attacks nobody deserved — especially not a school kid.

We stayed in touch as the years passed. Black worked toward her dream of becoming a singer, struggling to realize that long-shot goal. In recent years, Black finally broke through, booking gigs to DJ at music festivals including Coachella and Lollapalooza, opening for pop star Katy Perry’s 2025 arena tour, and releasing two albums with a third expected this year.

Fifteen years later, Black is having the last laugh. “Suuuuper divalicious of my 13 yr old self let’s be honest,” Black posted on X over a gallery of photos of screenshots from the “Friday” video on Tuesday, Feb. 10.

A few years ago, she came out as queer. She’s found her niche as an electronic pop singer and club DJ. She’s earned a devoted social media following.

“The way she has faced one of the most horrible cases of cyberbullying while being a teenager, and she still decided to pursue her dreams. She’s an icon,” wrote X user @dwaotyy recently.

“The redemption arc of Rebecca Black needs to be studied. This is gold!” wrote Instagram user @tomblundell94.

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