The love-hate fascination with Rebecca Black—the Ark Music Factory-pressed PlayDoh pop star whose song “Friday” forces listeners to consider the ceaseless onward plodding of the days in more ways than one—is most likely making her wealthy, so there. Forbes, America’s foremost chroniclers of how much more money people make than you, estimates that Black’s 30 million-and-growing hits on her viral video has earned her some $20,000, thanks to revenue earned from the YouTube Partner Agreement. That's already a 1000-percent return on the initial investment by Black’s mother, who paid Ark $2,000 to make her daughter a pop star because her special princess deserved it. But that’s not all: Black’s viral fame—which extends to satirical covers by death metal bands, faux-Bob Dylans, and even Conan O’Brien—has resulted in several hundred thousand downloads of the song on iTunes directly into people’s ironic playlists, with Black earning $.70 for every single one.
So this should probably go a long way toward making up for all the endless mocking of a 13-year-old girl, and a subsequent lifetime spent with people asking her whether she had her bowl of cereal that day, or if she chose the front or back seat. Of course, it’s also possible that the Ark’s nebulous contract terms mean that Black will barely see any of the proceeds—though what she does receive, she plans to donate a portion of to “Japan relief organizations and school arts programs”—but at least she still has the weekend to look forward to, right? We hear it’s going to be fun.