Kris Allen and PowerTexting
Okay -- this might be a bit late in coming but I am seriously getting bothered by people who keep insinuating that Season 8 American Idol winner Kris Allen has won through fraud. This supposedly due to Arkansas getting in 34 million votes despite the fact that there are only about 4 million people there, after AT&T employees taught a few people in a party to "powertext".
Where I come from, texting is commonplace. On a busy day, I myself easily send about five hundred messages to various people, with much thought behind every message sent (meaning my fingers weren't flying frantically all over the place, people) -- a number that often surprises me whenever I check my bill. But I do do this, without noticing it, without any hurry.
Now, assuming every person, who is hurrying, mind you -- could do the same within four hours or so, the alleged (and I say alleged because I don't know where people got these numbers) 34 million votes would not be so surprising. If every person in that 4 million Arkansas population voted for Kris Allen, they would have only needed to vote 8.5 times each to get to the awesome 34 million. Mark it there: just 8.5 times. Each. Obviously, people did not just stop at that number; I could imagine that at least every creature that Kris Allen had ever gotten in touch with in Arkansas had voted for him like crazy -- friends, family, church buddies, what have you -- and, as a result, pulled in the votes.
I remember a lady being interviewed for the Today Show (just a random lady in the crowd, definitely not from Arkansas) who laughed when she was asked if she had powertexted for Kris Allen. She said she hadn't; she proudly said that she had merely sent in about ten thousand votes using only her ability to keep pushing the "send" button.
Now, think about your phones a bit, my dear people. It retains messages you have sent out, in your inbox or whatever other function your device has. It is very easy to, as this lady did, just keep pressing the "send" button till kingdom come. So if people did do just that (and I have no doubt that this is what happened), and each crazy person sent in at least five hundred votes (not even ten thousand, like that lady did), only 68,000 people out of the whole Arkansas population need to have voted for our beloved, pint-sized Idol for him to come away with 34 million votes. Why, that even leaves lots of people to vote for Adam Lambert if they cared to.
The point of the fact is, people voted for Kris Allen. They were willing to spend the money needed to help him win. Should the voting therefore be limited to one vote per person? I don't think so. That would completely obliterate the idea of idol -- someone who inspires such a level of crazy adulation that it would make people willing to make calluses out of their fingers all night to support him or her. If people are willing to spend a good deal of their time making the dreams of others come true, that isn't so bad, is it?
What does this whole thing boil down to? That less people voted for Adam Lambert. That's the long and short of it. Did people not vote because they assumed he would win? Maybe -- and if so, then it's their fault. Could it be some sort of mind game that the Idol machinery has dreamed up to garner in viewership? I don't think so, since they had all but crowned Adam from day one, and Kris was completely unknown (and, as you could tell, not Simon Cowell's happy place); if they had machinery in place, Adam Lambert would have won, hands down.
I think it is totally unfair to taint this moment that belongs to Kris Allen with allegations of cheating, as it weighs the boy down and, as I could imagine, ruins his moment of joy. Hello -- this is not politics. Your conspiracy theories do not belong here. Kris Allen won American Idol, plain and simple, won it by getting in more votes, which is the whole idea of the thing. Does it matter why he won? No. Let's just leave it at that, move on with our lives, and buy the albums that these guys will put out.
I, for one, am resolving to ignore all these crazy commentaries, since they are made by unthinking people who have not done their math (I've trolled the Net for people who did, and believe me, they all agree that the votes were clean). Right now my energies are focused on trying to get an iTunes card (Apple, have mercy!) so that I could download all music and videos pertaining to Kris Allen. Will I be doing this through some means so that I could double his numbers on the charts somehow? No, of course not. I'm doing that by one of the oldest means known to man: buying.
I suggest the rest of you do the same.
Where I come from, texting is commonplace. On a busy day, I myself easily send about five hundred messages to various people, with much thought behind every message sent (meaning my fingers weren't flying frantically all over the place, people) -- a number that often surprises me whenever I check my bill. But I do do this, without noticing it, without any hurry.
Now, assuming every person, who is hurrying, mind you -- could do the same within four hours or so, the alleged (and I say alleged because I don't know where people got these numbers) 34 million votes would not be so surprising. If every person in that 4 million Arkansas population voted for Kris Allen, they would have only needed to vote 8.5 times each to get to the awesome 34 million. Mark it there: just 8.5 times. Each. Obviously, people did not just stop at that number; I could imagine that at least every creature that Kris Allen had ever gotten in touch with in Arkansas had voted for him like crazy -- friends, family, church buddies, what have you -- and, as a result, pulled in the votes.
I remember a lady being interviewed for the Today Show (just a random lady in the crowd, definitely not from Arkansas) who laughed when she was asked if she had powertexted for Kris Allen. She said she hadn't; she proudly said that she had merely sent in about ten thousand votes using only her ability to keep pushing the "send" button.
Now, think about your phones a bit, my dear people. It retains messages you have sent out, in your inbox or whatever other function your device has. It is very easy to, as this lady did, just keep pressing the "send" button till kingdom come. So if people did do just that (and I have no doubt that this is what happened), and each crazy person sent in at least five hundred votes (not even ten thousand, like that lady did), only 68,000 people out of the whole Arkansas population need to have voted for our beloved, pint-sized Idol for him to come away with 34 million votes. Why, that even leaves lots of people to vote for Adam Lambert if they cared to.
The point of the fact is, people voted for Kris Allen. They were willing to spend the money needed to help him win. Should the voting therefore be limited to one vote per person? I don't think so. That would completely obliterate the idea of idol -- someone who inspires such a level of crazy adulation that it would make people willing to make calluses out of their fingers all night to support him or her. If people are willing to spend a good deal of their time making the dreams of others come true, that isn't so bad, is it?
What does this whole thing boil down to? That less people voted for Adam Lambert. That's the long and short of it. Did people not vote because they assumed he would win? Maybe -- and if so, then it's their fault. Could it be some sort of mind game that the Idol machinery has dreamed up to garner in viewership? I don't think so, since they had all but crowned Adam from day one, and Kris was completely unknown (and, as you could tell, not Simon Cowell's happy place); if they had machinery in place, Adam Lambert would have won, hands down.
I think it is totally unfair to taint this moment that belongs to Kris Allen with allegations of cheating, as it weighs the boy down and, as I could imagine, ruins his moment of joy. Hello -- this is not politics. Your conspiracy theories do not belong here. Kris Allen won American Idol, plain and simple, won it by getting in more votes, which is the whole idea of the thing. Does it matter why he won? No. Let's just leave it at that, move on with our lives, and buy the albums that these guys will put out.
I, for one, am resolving to ignore all these crazy commentaries, since they are made by unthinking people who have not done their math (I've trolled the Net for people who did, and believe me, they all agree that the votes were clean). Right now my energies are focused on trying to get an iTunes card (Apple, have mercy!) so that I could download all music and videos pertaining to Kris Allen. Will I be doing this through some means so that I could double his numbers on the charts somehow? No, of course not. I'm doing that by one of the oldest means known to man: buying.
I suggest the rest of you do the same.