A Taylor Swift contest that was designed to find the singer’s biggest fan was called off this week after 4chan and Reddit users amassed to vote a middle-aged man, “Charles Z,” to the top position.
Boston’s Kiss 108, the radio station hosting the contest, said that “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.”
Gawker.com reported that users on imageboard 4chan.org’s website and Baeble.com amassed online support for 39-year-old Charles Z--or Charlie Z--a bearded man who said he was a huge fan of the singer. The photo of Charles Z shows him looking menacingly in the camer.
UPDATE: Charles Z has apparently posted a photo of himself with a timestamp on 4chan’s /b/ board. “A thousand thanks for your hard work. You’re champions,” reads his sign.
A message on 4chan posted earlier in the week said that they should vote for him to “crush the dreams of these girls and give him a chance to make a complete a-- of himself by blatantly just sniffing her hair with cameras rolling.”
The term #VoteCharles also appeared on Twitter in an attempt to garner support. Later, a post on Reddit’s 4chan forum showed that more than 24,000 people voted for Charles Z.
Before the contest was taken down, Charles Z’s profile read: “I’m a 39 year old man and I love Taylor so much and don’t care that both adults and children mock me for it. But I feel 22 if that helps,” according to Spin.com.
A year ago, 4chan rigged another Swift contest, getting her to perform at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. The contest was also declared void.
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