There is no chance Taylor Swift will go to Alaska for the recently launched Papa John's internet contest.
On August 21st, Papa John's announced an internet contest targeting k-12 schools across the country. The school with the most votes on Facebook will win a free Taylor Swift concert, to be aired on “VH1 Storytellers: Taylor Swift,” Sunday, November 11th.
Learning from Pitbull, who was literally exiled to Kodiak, Alaska, this summer as part of a Walmart Facebook contest, Taylor Swift has explicitly stated in the contest rules that she will not go to Alaska or Hawaii.
So far, more than 10,000 schools have entered to win a chance to see the country pop star sing at their school this Fall. The current leader is the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Allston, Massachusetts, with 50,163 votes as of today.
But, wait a second — most of those votes aren't even from students.
The votes are the result of yet another internet contest hijacking, only this time the perpetrators are users from the web communities Reddit and 4chan. Similarly, Walmart staged a contest in which the local Walmart location with the most Likes on their Facebook fan page would win a visit from R&B singer Pitbull. The contest was quickly overtaken by David Thorpe and Jon Hendren of Something Awful, who started a campaign to exile Pitbull to the most remote Walmart possible — Kodiak, Alaska.
Likewise, community members of Reddit and 4chan are working to send Taylor Swift to Horace Mann. And while the push began as a prank, as of this week, the sentiment among members seems to have shifted. They now believe Taylor Swift's presence at the school would be a positive experience for these students.
Officially, the Papa John's contest runs until Sept. 23, so only time will tell if this plays out in Swift, Papa John's or the school's favor.
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