Today, most of us commemorated the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday by reflecting on the life and accomplishments of one of the most influential, revered figures in American history. Celebrities, bloggers, and other assorted internet types, however, celebrated the federal holiday by ripping YouTube celebrity Lana Del Rey a new asshole. The hipster sexpot's performance on SNL Saturday night has attracted a shitstorm of controversy within the Twitterverse and Tumblralaxy, and not even NBC anchorman/ostensible serious person Brian Williams has been able to STFU about it.
The virtual tarring/feathering began late last Saturday night, after Del Rey performed her singles "Blue Jeans" and "Video Games." Although the performance wasn't any worse than 85 percent of the sketches that Kristen Wiig has ever appeared in, Del Rey appeared disoriented and somewhat nervous on camera, and celebrities promptly took to their keyboards to savage the indie chanteuse.
"Watching this 'singer' on SNL is like watching a 12 year old in their bedroom when they're pretending to sing and perform," Juliette Lewis tweeted. Perez Hilton and Eliza Dushku agreed, respectively tweeting, "who is this whack-a-doodle chick performing on SNL?" and "Seems like the overwhelming consensus is that @LanaDelRey was HORRIBLE on SNL last night." Even Brian Williams got in touch with Gawker's Nick Denton to ask him to do a post on what he referred to as "one of the worst outings in SNL history."
Since then, everyone and their mother has collectively decided to pitch a hate boner over Lana Del Rey, whose major-label debut, Born To Die, hasn't even been released yet (it comes out January 31, making her the first performer in SNL history since Natalie Imbruglia to appear on the show before the release of her first album). It's gotten to the point where I'm honestly expecting President Obama to issue a statement to the White House press corps, calling her performance "pitchy, dawg" and her hair "like a pair of fugly, muslin curtains."
If you guys would like to see for yourself what caused everyone from Brian Williams to Juliette Lewis to have explosive, aurally-induced hate diarrhea, here's Del Rey's performance. It's clear that she's not the best vocalist in the world, but neither is Jennifer Lopez or Ashlee Simpson or T-Swift or any of the dozens of other hot-lady singers of questionable talent who've made asses of themselves on SNL (also, it must be stated: goddamn, that dress she was wearing was awesome). But! Dissent is the highest form of patriotism, so please feel free to disagree in the comments section.
