"Mass Text" is a song written and performed by Tay Allen, a graduate of the University of Southern California's department of dramatic arts. The song has an attendant video, which explains the plot of the song: Tay, a high school student is upset because her crush has not included her in a mass texting for a party. She then plots to win him back, which is finally done at the school dance.
The song's chorus consists of the phrase:
Why didn't I get your mass text?
I'm in your contacts!
repeated
over and over.
The song can be viewed here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMgcHv-HGCY
And after it is viewed, skip over some of this whitespace:
The song and video is most likely a troll, like the famous My Immortal. It is so deliberately and consistently bad in so many ways that it is hard to imagine it being worse, which would seem to mean that it is this bad on purpose. Although with repeated viewings, not everything is bad: there was a lot of effort into shooting the video in different sets, with lots of extras, and with some quality dancers. And at times it seems Tay Allen can actually sing: she made the chorus so incredibly irritating on purpose. So this is a troll, and a good one. But lets unpack the levels of irony that this could be understood at:
- This could be viewed unironically as a great work of art, by girls who have been similarly romantically deprived by unsent texts. But I don't think many people would unironically enjoy this song.
- This song could be unironically hated, and that has been the reaction of many people on the internet. It is, after all, insipid and irritating.
- This song could be ironically enjoyed as a attack on the clichés of popular music and teen films: many of the scenes in the video, such as the nerdy girl who takes off her glasses and is revealed to be a bombshell, are well traveled tropes. In fact, the more viewings of the video, the more little gems are revealed.
- The song could be recognized as ironic, but still disliked: actually making a parody of teen movies and pop clichés, as well as songs like Friday, could be seen as beating a dead horse, parody wise.
- The song could be ironically enjoyed not because it is a parody of the teen genre, but rather because it is a deliberate play on people on the internet: everything about it seems to be calculated to get a specific reaction in quarters of the internet. At this level, it is not the material that is being parodied, but the reaction that people have to it that is being parodied.
- The song could be recognized as an ironic comment on the internet's fads and reactions, but still be hated, because, hey, is it really an accomplishment to get people worked up on the internet?
- ...there are always more layers of irony. This level, which I can't even qualify, is how I view the song currently.