'Friday' was released in March 2011 by then-unknown teenage singer Rebecca Black through the Ark Music Factory, a vanity label that charged young artists for professionally produced singles. The song's simple lyrics and earnest music video made it a sensation on YouTube, where it racked up millions of views and became a fixture of early meme culture. Editors began sampling the title lyric for anything related to the end of the week, and the snippet still surfaces every Friday in short videos, streams and party edits as a nostalgic nod to one of the internet's earliest viral hits.