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The Internet has spoken, and it prefers the inane lyrics of Rebecca Black’s “Friday” to a GOP nominee’s latest campaign video.
On Tuesday, Texas governor turned presidential hopeful Rick Perry released his “Strong” ad, which opens with him casually standing in a field, chatting about religion. While he’s not the first Republican nominee to promote religion as a campaign platform, he just might be the most provocative. He wastes no time in pushing two of the hottest political buttons in the county, saying:
I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian, but you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.
(MORE: Why Rick Perry’s New Ad Is Wrong on Religion — And Obama)
It was clearly intended to elicit a strong reaction, and don’t think that that jaw-dropping comparison went unnoticed. In just a few days, the video garnered scores of negative reactions on YouTube and, at the time of writing, 399,152 dislikes. Just to put that into perspective, that’s more dislikes than viral star Rebecca Black’s video for “Friday” has received, and that song was the butt of endless jokes for months on end. Her official video is currently at 255,704 dislikes. She’s practically adored compared to Perry! (Though, to be fair, the Huffington Post points out that Justin Bieber’s “Baby” is the most hated clip by far, with more than 2 million dislikes.)
After a series of gaffes, a dismal standing in the polls, and a forgotten line or two, Perry certainly doesn’t seem to be headed to the White House. This latest wave of unpopularity surely won’t help. But ultimately, one could make the argument that contrasting the negative response to a teenage Internet star and the response to a divisive politician is nonsensical. One has nothing to do with the other. It’s sort of like contrasting the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell to prayer in schools.
On a lighter note, the Internet has also given us an amusing Tumblr that’s collected more of Rick Perry’s unpopular opinions. Like “Dane Cook is funny.” Now you can laugh for real, and not just in uncomfortable disbelief.
Megan Gibson is a Writer-Reporter at the London bureau of TIME. Find her on Twitter at @MeganJGibson. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.
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