Kiss 108’s Taylor Swift Contest ‘Compromised’ By Internet Prank
Photo via Flickr.com/Mustaqila
Taylor Swift fans won’t be getting a chance to meet the chart-topping singer at a local radio station after an online contest was “compromised” by Internet trolls.
Swift, who is playing two shows at Gillette Stadium with Ed Sheeran this weekend, was supposed to meet with one lucky fan who won a social media-based contest hosted by pop radio station Kiss 108. The station cancelled the contest, called “Taylor Swift’s Biggest Fan,” because it was hijacked by users from 4Chan, and with a little help from the Reddit community.
Disappointingly, we have determined that the integrity of the “Taylor Swift’s Biggest Fan” contest has been compromised. In accordance with our contest rules, effective immediately, the contest has been terminated. We apologize to all of our loyal listeners who have participated.
Reports and tweets indicate that a the friend of a 39-year-old by the name of “Charles” reportedly rallied members of the 4Chan community to help get his name to the top of the list of fans so that he could be in the presence of Swift, elbowing out younger people who were vying for the meet-and-greet. The campaign to get people to push “Charles” to the top was announced on 4Chan July 15, as the contest came close to finishing.
To win the contest, applicants were asked to visit the site once a day and vote, and encourage their friends to do the same. They were also encouraged to share the page with “as many people as they can,” something the friend of “Charles” took quite literally when he blasted the entry all over the online forum. “I’m a 39-year-old man and I love Taylor Swift so much and don’t care that both adults and children mock me for it. But I feel 22, if that helps,” Charles wrote in his biography for the contest. The bios have since been removed.
According to a post on 4Chan, here is what happened:
Photo via 4Chan/BarstoolSports
“Charles” reacted to the news that he was being called “creepy” by some news outlets after the story went viral, and he seemed only slightly upset that he couldn’t claim the prize after participating:
https://twitter.com/cgz79/status/359022942258073602
Unfortunately for Swift, this isn’t the first time that a contest she agreed to was taken over by people on the Internet. Last August, users from 4Chan struck and gained enough votes to send the pop star to the Boston-based Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing for the Swift’s “Taylor Swift on Campus” contest.
Swift didn’t go to the school to perform after word spread that the contest had been hijacked by 4Chan, but she did give the kids $50,000 to help their music department, and offered them tickets to see her at a concert.
