Oprah cheated a handicapped man out of a deserved win.
That’s the potential headline, anyway. After Oprah put up a show as the prize in a contest on her site, Reddit and other sites championed an unlikely candidate: A very funny guy with cerebral palsy named Zach Anner.
Anner, whose contest video included the quote, “No Atlantis is too underwater or fictional,” quickly became the darling of the popular social news website (and surely others too), tallying over 9 million votes before the contest was up.
Of course, the winners page, where Anner placed 7th, shows him at 3.4 million votes even though his submission page still shows the 9 million.
What happened?
Well, the Internet happened.
Online polls are completely unpredictable. Tying real world decisions to them, like Oprah’s team has done, is asking for a public relations nightmare. A telling example is Time Magazine’s 2009 “Most Influential Person” contest, where 4chan founder Christopher Poole won after the poll was bombarded with scripted votes. Poole wasn’t the only influenced vote; 4chan also picked the top 21 spots.
Time isn’t too bothered by the results, though. They didn’t promise anything to any of the winners of their poll.
But Oprah did– sort of. It’s interesting to note that she promised a show not to the 1st place winner of the contest, but to her favorite of the top 5. It would seem that keeping Anner out of the top 5 was a calculated PR move: Avoid the appearance of not picking the handicapped guy.
It was completely reasonable in a way. Anner’s a funny guy and probably does deserve a TV show. But for Oprah’s audience? Probably not. And it wasn’t Oprah’s audience doing the voting, either. The top-voted comment on the latest Reddit submission concerning the story is a joke about continuing to not watch Oprah’s in protest.
Backing up
If it was a calculated move, however, they’ve now backpedaled, expanding the top 5 to the top 8, which includes Anner. Anner will be heading out to LA to audition, along with the other 7 finalists.
What was the decision-making process here? We’ll probably never know. On the one hand, it seems unethical to throw out votes. On the other, it’s not exactly right to pick a winner even if none of your fans actually voted for him. If you were Oprah’s PR team, what would you do?