On Sunday night, Rebecca Black won Choice Web Star in Fox’s Teen Choice awards, and many on the Internet were not too pleased with the results.
Thousands tweeted their disdain for the winner, with many wondering how Black won when her rise to fame is directly related to how hated she is by the masses.
Ibreatheparamore tweeted “the world has gone crazy,” JBbackgrounds reminded his 20,000+ followers that Rebecca Black has no talent as did MeganYancey1, and martianmonkeh_h wondered why Black wasn’t booed off stage.
Writing on Blair Fowler’s latest video, maaadddiiful offered some sympathetic words: “Congratulations on being nominated for a teen choice award! So what if rebecca black won she is only popular for being the most hated person on the Internet.” (Blair Fowler is a make-up and stylist tutorialist nominated for this year’s Web Star, along with her sister Elle)
Others called the voting fake, like Michael Buckley, who produces the popular YouTube show “What the Buck.”
In Buckley’s newest episode, a recap of the Teen Choice Awards, he calls the awards show “rigged.” While that may seem a harsh assessment of the voting process, Buckley’s claims have legitimacy.
Shane Dawson, in an effort to console his fanbase upset over his loss (he was nominated this year, and won last year), tweeted a screenshot of the Teen Choice Awards Voting Rules.
In the voting rules, it clearly states that the Awards committee picks the winner out of the top four nominees, thereby nulling the whole point of voting.
“Winners for the Teen Choice Awards are determined using the votes cast on teenchoiceawards.com. Votes are tabulated electronically and winners are determined based on the nominees in each category with the highest number of eligible votes. Teenasaurus Rox reserves the right to choose the winner from the top four vote getters,” the rules stated.
Out of the five other nominees, Rebecca Black is the most well-known Internet figure (the majority of Americans are not familiar with the other YouTube nominees), so her win makes sense from a marketing standpoint.
Black’s win, despite how many or little votes she received, highlights a real need for an award ceremony just for YouTubers. Many YouTubers, after all, receive more views than the average sitcom on cable TV.
Ben Hughes, who produces the show “Obviously Ben Hughes” wondered if there was a screen actors guild for YouTubers on Twitter, but why stop there?