Despite an ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the twin scourges of ISIS and Boko Haram wreaking havoc across Africa and the Middle East, the one issue that was on everybody’s minds as 2015 commenced was Taylor Swift.
Spurred on by online virality hub BuzzFeed, a controversy erupted over whether the pop superstar’s hit ‘Shake It Off’ should be included in the then-upcoming instalment of the Triple J Hottest 100. Some agreed it should, some thought it shouldn’t, many didn’t care.
Regardless, the #Tay4Hottest100 campaign managed to generate enough votes for ‘Shake It Off’ that it placed 12th in January’s countdown. Well, it would have, if Triple J hadn’t decided to put the kibosh on the whole thing.
However, it now appears that the story doesn’t end there. Some people are apparently still quite bothered by the fact that the Australian youth broadcaster decided to omit Swift from the countdown and are even taking action.
As The Guardian reports, while Triple J did give an explanation as to why they ditched Tay in the form of an amusing BuzzFeed parody site, several interested parties have lodged Freedom of Information Act requests to uncover the real reasoning.
Two of the four requests were roundly denied. Thanks to a legal loophole, the ABC can refuse requests for “program material”, i.e. any document acquired or created in the creation of a program, even if it wasn’t used in the final broadcast.
Since, as the ABC’s corporate governance head, Judith Maude, insisted, part of Guardian Australia’s request applied to documents that “would not have been created but for Triple J’s Hottest 100 broadcast”, the ABC did not have to release them.
But in a move echoing their sublime BuzzFeed-like listicle, Triple J went one further and embarked on an epic trolling of Guardian Australia and anyone else still trying to rehash this old story.
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Two of the requests, including one filed by The Guardian, were “granted”, but it wasn’t exactly what people were after. Triple J instead released their exhausting-looking correspondence with Australia’s media (including Tone Deaf!).
The bundle of released documents, which readers can check out here, includes email back-and-forths between Triple J higher-ups and journalists. Yep, Triple J gave The Guardian and everyone else a bunch of shredder-bound paperwork.
Also included in the documents were several complaints that the station received in the wake of the whole #Tay4Hottest100 controversy, including one listener who said they “will never tune into JJJ again”.
“The station claims to be a ‘democracy’ yet then decides to disqualify an artist as they do not like her,” another outraged listener wrote. “I also found the way they handled the situation to be immature and disrespectful.”
Even those who were against featuring ‘Shake It Off’ in the countdown criticised the station’s actions in response to the controversy, proving once again that people really, really, really do not have their priorities in order.
