As you’re more than likely aware, voting for the triple j Hottest 100 opened earlier this month and it didn’t take long for a grubby betting company to latch onto the world’s biggest music poll to try and reap a profit.
Most readers will remember the protracted controversy that ensued earlier this year when BuzzFeed launched their #tay4hottest100 campaign, which attempted to send Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’ into the poll.
Debate raged about whether Swift, an artist who’d never actually been played on the station, deserved a spot in the poll if fans voted for her, even if they’d been spurred by a viral campaign launched by a media giant.
In the end, triple j simply disqualified ‘Shake It Off’ from the countdown. They claimed that since the song was the subject of BuzzFeed‘s campaign and a KFC competition, votes cast for the track weren’t legitimate.
This year, they’ve effectively introduced a ‘Taylor Swift clause’ into their voting rules, which states, “Votes made as part of a competition that promotes a song or artist, or a campaign that undermines the Hottest 100 may be disqualified or ignored.”
“We want genuine votes, from genuine listeners,” the broadcaster stresses. “If we feel something’s preventing that from happening, we’ll look into it for you and take appropriate action.”
For a while there last week, it looked as though the station may have to take action against Swift’s pop star peer Justin Bieber, who became the subject of a similar campaign to see him enter the Hottest 100.
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This time around, instead of an online virality mill, it was a betting company orchestrating the whole plot. What’s more, they actually got Bieber to back their campaign, with the singer’s tweet of support accruing 15k retweets and 22k likes.
triple j were quick to act. “We want genuine votes from genuine listeners,” Meagan Loader, acting triple j Manager told Tone Deaf. “It isn’t fair to triple j listeners or artists whose songs could be undermined when campaigns try to incentivise votes or troll the poll.”
“We’ll keep an eye on it,” she continued. “If we feel the outcome of the Hottest 100 has been manipulated votes may be disqualified or ignored. You can check out our voting guidelines here.”
Though it now looks as though they may not have to. By all accounts, the #Bieber4Hottest100 campaign has been a total flop, quickly losing steam on social media and rendering itself a mere footnote in the history of the 2015 Hottest 100.
If you need any more proof, even the betting company behind the campaign changed their tune (literally) after discovering that most triple j fans simply weren’t having it – they decided to back an entirely different artist.
In a blog post, the betting company announced they were going to “square the ledger” and start a campaign supporting what is currently the favourite to top this year’s Hottest 100, Major Lazer’s inescapable banger ‘Lean On’.
“We’re hoping to achieve parity here by getting behind Justin Bieber’s good mate Diplo (Major Lazer) with the #MajorLazer4Hottest100 campaign,” a spokesman for the company said.
“Triple J state they want genuine fans only, but we’d be interested to know what characteristics define a genuine Triple J fan? Is it that they’re not allowed to like Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift or other artists they deem to be a threat. Even if said artists have been played on the station?”
“It’s quite elitist really and frankly, goes firmly against being the ‘Worlds’ Greatest Music Democracy’.” Seeing as ‘Lean On’ is the frontrunner to win the Hottest 100 (and presumably a favourite among betters), the company’s plan is fairly transparent.
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The thing is, if people weren’t really having #Bieber4Hottest100, they couldn’t care less about #MajorLazer4Hottest100. A casual search for the hashtag on Twitter yields a total of six results. Not six thousand or six hundred, six total, two of which are from the betting company.
We previously wrote about how inappropriate it is for betting companies to hijack the Hottest 100, which is a light-hearted Australian institution and one that, it bears remembering, that’s open to music fans all ages.
Many have also applauded triple j for putting in place measures to prevent entities from influencing the poll results, but it appears Australian music fans are doing a pretty good job of that themselves.
Having experienced the debacle that was #tay4hottest100, Australian music fans and triple j listeners simply aren’t interested in participating in campaigns contrived by million-dollar companies for cynical purposes.
So, betting companies, we only have one thing to say to you:
