Triple J Hottest 100: Taylor Swift Officially Disqualified; Aussie Station Cites ‘Hilarious’ Reasons Why
It’s official: Triple J has disqualified Taylor Swift from its Hottest 100 poll. The Australian radio station cited the social media campaign to get the American songstress’ “Shake It Off” to the top of the chart as one of the eight “hilarious” reasons for the ban.
The station announced why it opted to disqualify the Swift entry in a parody Buzzfeed page, explaining that the original Buzzfeed campaign, which started the whole #tay4hottest100 viral hashtag to get “Shake It Off” in the poll, basically killed off Swift’s chances in the first place. According to the article, it “bought Tay a one-way ticket to Bansville.”
The campaign apparently has incited several side effects, including people creating an app to register spam votes for Swift, and this might encourage other people to sabotage the poll in the future. As the station has pointed out, it has never played the song in 2014.
“Whilst their advertisers enjoyed the sweet page views, it’s not legit for other media to try and troll the poll,” the “triplejFeed” article reads.
Also, the KFC involvement wasn’t such a good idea. The fast food joint got into the fun by raffling a $19.89 voucher for people who reveal their favourite Swift song. It didn’t exactly say it was meddling in the countdown, but it used the #tay4hottest100 hashtag, which was also seen as promotion of the cause. Triple J wrote that it would “prefer it if people voted for the love of music, not the love of cholesterol.”
As it happened, despite Buzzfeed, KFC and Swift’s ardent fans’ efforts to get the upbeat “Shake It Off” to the top of the chart, it still didn’t get enough votes to even make it to the top 10. “Even after all the tweets, the think-pieces, the hipster lulz, the corporate intervention and heavy gif usage, ‘Shake It Off’ still didn’t get nearly enough votes to be at the top of the Hottest 100,” it said, adding that it only reached number 12.
Had it not disqualified Swift, Adelaide rapper Tkay Maidza wouldn’t have made it to the poll and would have only been left at No. 101. The station is known for favouring local and indie music more than popular ones.
Nevertheless, Triple J denied that it had a grunge against Swift. “She’s smart, she’s cool, she’s successful, and she has great taste in BFFs,” it wrote, perhaps referring to Kiwi Lorde. It added that the station and Swift both hate trolls as well.
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