Type of site | Entertainment website |
---|---|
Owner | VoteForTheWorst.com |
Created by | Dave Della Terza |
Commercial | Yes |
Registration | Optional |
Launched | 2004 |
Current status | Shut Down June 2013 |
VoteForTheWorst.com (VFTW) was a website devoted to voting for the worst, most entertaining, most hated or quirkiest contestants on the Fox Network television series American Idol as well as the NBC Network television series The Voice. Smaller campaigns have also been started on the site for CTV's Canadian Idol , Fox's On the Lot and The Next Great American Band , NBC's America's Got Talent , and ABC's Dancing with the Stars . The website was started in 2004 during the third season of American Idol. Vote for the Worst also had a weekly radio show that has featured guests such as Ayla Brown, Trenyce, [1] Leslie Hunt, [2] Steffi DiDomenicantonio, [3] Alex Wagner-Trugman and Todrick Hall. The site closed down in June 2013. [4]
VFTW started at the Survivor Sucks message board [5] and moved to a GeoCities website during season three of American Idol. The very first VFTW pick during Season 3 was Jennifer Hudson, dubbed "Boomquisha Santiago" or just "Boomie," during the semi-finals, but the site never picked her again as she improved in further weeks. [6] When Hudson sang "Circle of Life" during finals, the camera went to a shot of Hudson's family members, with a cousin who sat with her arms folded while the others cheered. This cousin was dubbed "Whatevia," the namesake of VFTW's annual awards. The site began to upset regular Idol viewers with their support of John Stevens and Jasmine Trias, but it was largely unknown to the general public at this time.
During American Idol's fourth season, the site moved to its own domain name. VFTW gained its first bit of notoriety when Scott Savol outlasted Constantine Maroulis in the top 6 of Idol's fourth season [7] and again appeared in the news when young crooner Kevin Covais made it to the top 11 in season five. [8]
Season six of American Idol became a turning point for the website due to its support of candidates Antonella Barba and Sanjaya Malakar. Vote for the Worst was one of the first websites to break the story about Antonella Barba's racy online pictures. [9] The site then made headlines by proving that the raciest pictures that appeared online (involving a Barba lookalike performing a sexual act) were not of Barba. [10] After Barba and Sundance Head (another VFTW candidate) were voted out of the competition, Vote for the Worst selected Sanjaya Malakar as their pick. Malakar went on to last 6 more weeks in the competition, becoming a cultural phenomenon while gaining momentum along the way with support from celebrities such as Howard Stern. [11] Entertainment Weekly called Malakar "the most popular Vote for the Worst candidate ever" and Malakar helped make Vote for the Worst a household name. [12]
Season seven of American Idol saw the site stir up some major controversies. As the season began, Vote for the Worst posted a blog that season seven was being stacked with contestants with prior music industry experience [13] and the controversy was picked up by news sources, including MTV, who decided to ask American Idol producer Ken Warwick about the issue. [14] The site went a step further to also prove that Randy Jackson, a judge on American Idol, was the vice president of A&R at MCA Records while Carly Smithson, a season 7 contestant, recorded an album there. [15] The second controversy started by the site was exposing contestant David Hernandez as a former gay stripper. [16] Outside all of the controversies, Vote for the Worst supported Kristy Lee Cook and Brooke White when more popular Carly Smithson was eliminated. [17]
During season eight of American Idol, Vote for the Worst's longest running contestant was Megan Joy, [18] a quirky singer from Utah who made bird noises. [19] The site also posted pictures of popular contestant Adam Lambert kissing another man, [20] leading the general public to question Adam's sexuality due to the fact that he had not discussed this topic on the show. [21] Bill O'Reilly ran Vote for the Worst's pictures of Adam during a news segment, but the show cropped the pictures to eliminate the actual kiss. [22]
During season nine, Tim Urban broke the record for Vote for the Worst's longest-running American Idol pick ever, as well as tying for longest pick ever with Jaydee Bixby of Canadian Idol Season 3. He remained their pick for nine weeks: from the top 24 to the top seven. He was eliminated in 7th—the same week as Sanjaya Malakar in Season 6. Michael Lynche was originally selected for Top 5 week, but after the performances, the website switched to Casey James, marking the first time the website had changed its mind on which contestant to vote for based on performance alone. VFTW chose Lee DeWyze for the finale, and he won. This supported VFTW's theory that a female will never win the show again. According to bloggers at VFTW, the seasons have resulted in "3, white, male, brunette, soft-rockers" winners in a row.
Vote for the Worst was successful during seasons ten and eleven, supporting the 4th and 5th "white guys with a guitar," Scotty McCreery and Phillip Phillips, to win the title in five years.
In January 2013, the site's creator, Dave Della Terza, announced that the site would be shutting down, but not before covering one final season of American Idol. The shutdown was planned for June 2013, though it was not specified whether the site would simply be discontinuing all updates and left behind as an archive, or whether it would disappear entirely. [4] As of April 2014, visiting the site results in a page indicating that the domain name has been "parked" with Go Daddy and is available for purchase.
Because of the success of their American Idol campaign, Vote for the Worst has expanded its site to sometimes include other shows. The site helped support Casey Leblanc's 6 week run during Canadian Idol 3, [23] Jaydee Bixby's unprecedented 9 week "worst" run from the final 10 to the final 2 during Canadian Idol 5, [24] and Bristol Palin on Dancing with the Stars.
Vote for the Worst's mixed bag extends to other shows. The site had some success with a group like Light of Doom during The Next Great American Band , [25] but was unable to help others such as Boy Shakira during America's Got Talent . [26]
American Idol producers rarely acknowledge the site, but Nigel Lythgoe, an executive producer, did issue a statement, calling Vote for the Worst "a fly buzzing around a cow" during season six of American Idol to play down any press the site had received about being influential. [27] In later seasons, Lythgoe has had a more playful repartee with the website, sending humorous tweets to the site's Twitter account. [28] Legal action has been threatened against the website from fans of American Idol, but to date neither Fox nor the series have issued statements regarding any lawsuits. [29] Della Terza claims that lawyers involved with the program have contacted him twice about filing a lawsuit, but nothing has yet been filed against the site. [30]
While many American Idol fans claim Vote for the Worst promotes hate speech and bullying on their message boards and online comments, some lesser known contestants from American Idol, have embraced the site. Josiah Leming, a contestant from season 7, is a member of the website and gave an interview to their weekly radio show. [31] Chris Sligh, a season 6 contestant, gave a shoutout to site creator Della Terza during the top 11 performance show by saying "Hi, Dave." [32] Sligh and fellow contestant Phil Stacey have also posted on the site's message board, [33] [34] along with many other former contestants such as Brenna Gethers, [35] Chris Labelle, [36] Phuong Pham, [37] and Montana Martin Iles. [38] Season 7 finalist Amanda Overmyer has also been vocal about her support of the website. [39] Even season 9 runner-up Crystal Bowersox has posted on American Idol's Facebook and Twitter that she loves VFTW. [40]
American IdolSeason 3 [41]
Season 4 [42]
Season 5 [43]
Season 6 [44]
Season 7 [45]
Season 8 [45]
Season 9 [45]
Season 10 [45]
Season 11 [45]
Season 12 [45]
Canadian IdolSeason 3 [46]
Season 4 [45]
Season 5 [45]
Season 6 [45]
On the LotSeason 1
America's Got TalentSeason 2
Season 5
Season 6
Season 7
The Next Great American BandSeason 1
Clash of the ChoirsSeason 1 America's Best Dance CrewSeason 2 Season 3
Season 6 Dancing With The StarsSeason 5 Season 7 Season 11 I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!Season 2
X Factor (UK)Series 6 Series 7 Series 8
X Factor (US)Season 1
Season 2
The VoiceSeason 1
Season 2
See alsoRelated Research ArticlesAmerican Idol is an American singing competition television series created by Simon Fuller, produced by Fremantle North America and 19 Entertainment, and distributed by Fremantle North America. It aired on Fox from June 11, 2002, to April 7, 2016, for 15 seasons. It was on hiatus for two years until March 11, 2018, when a revival of the series began airing on ABC. Canadian Idol is a Canadian reality television competition show which aired on CTV, based on the British show Pop Idol. The show was a competition to find the most talented young singer in Canada, and was hosted by Ben Mulroney. Jon Dore was the "roving reporter" for the first three seasons. Elena Juatco assumed the role for season four, Dave Kerr had the role in season five and Jully Black in season six. Franchell "Frenchie" Davis is an American Broadway performer and a soul, dance/electronica, and pop singer. She came to public attention in 2003 as a contestant on the singing competition show American Idol. Davis began performing in Rent on Broadway soon afterward, and was a member of the cast for four years. In 2011, Davis reached the top 8 on the first season of singing competition The Voice. The American singing competition show American Idol has generated controversy over the years in numerous areas. American Idol Extra is a television show that was shown on the Fox Reality Channel and Star! and billed as "the show that picks up right where American Idol leaves off". The program featured the first full-length interview with the most recent eliminated contestant and various behind-the-scenes material. The sixth season of American Idol premiered on the Fox Broadcasting Company as a two-night, four-hour premiere special on January 16 and 17, and ran until May 23, 2007. Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson returned as judges, and Ryan Seacrest returned as host. A new record of 74 million votes were cast in the finale round, and a new record of 609 million votes were cast in the entire season. Jordin Sparks won the competition, while Blake Lewis was the runner-up. DialIdol is both the name of a computer program for Microsoft Windows and its associated website that tracks voting trends for American Idol contestants. The program allows users to automatically vote for the American Idol contestants of their choice using their PC's modem. The program then reports back to the main website, which keeps track of the results based on the percentage of calls for each contestant that result in a busy signal. DialIdol assumes that more busy signals means more callers are attempting to vote for that contestant. DialIdol was created during the fourth season of American Idol and was released to the public at the start of the fifth season. The fifth season of Canadian Idol is the fifth installation of the Idol series in Canada. It was again hosted by Ben Mulroney, with Farley Flex, Jake Gold, Sass Jordan and Zack Werner all returning as judges. The show premiered on June 5, 2007, with a 90-minute episode. Voting began during the fourth week. New events introduced that season included the Help Idols build a house and the Kraft Confidential with David Kerr. The elimination song for this year was Walk on Home by Kalan Porter. The final episode of the season was broadcast on September 11, 2007, when Brian Melo was crowned Canadian Idol. Sanjaya Joseph Malakar is an American singer, who was a finalist on the sixth season of American Idol. He gained national attention on the series, controversially advancing to 7th place with public votes, despite being poorly received by the show's judges, particularly Simon Cowell. Charles Christopher Sligh is an American singer, songwriter, producer and pastor who was a finalist on the sixth season of American Idol, finishing in tenth place. 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Kris Allen was announced the winner of the competition on May 20, 2009, defeating runner-up Adam Lambert after nearly 100 million votes were cast. American Idols Live! Tour 2007 was a summer concert tour in the United States and Canada featuring the top 10 contestants of the sixth season of American Idol, which aired in 2007. It was sponsored by Kellogg's Pop-Tarts. The 59-date tour started on July 6 and ended on September 23. Carly Sarah Smithson is an Irish soul and pop rock singer who was the sixth place finalist on the seventh season of American Idol. In 2001, Smithson released her first studio album for MCA Records called Ultimate High. Smithson was dropped from the record label in 2002. After being introduced to former Evanescence guitarist Ben Moody in early 2009, plans for Smithson's post-Idol solo album were scrapped and instead she became the lead singer of the rock band We Are the Fallen. So You Think You Can Dance is a televised dance competition and reality show that launched in the United Kingdom in January 2010 with a format based on an American show by the same name. The show was broadcast on BBC One. The presentation of the show is similar to that of the Pop Idol series of singing competitions, also created by Simon Fuller and Nigel Lythgoe. The show focuses not only on the dancers' talent, but also showcases new works by notable choreographers, crafted specifically for the dancers and the show. Timothy Joseph Urban is an American singer who was the seventh place finalist on the ninth season of American Idol. Following his participation in the series, he released two EPs: Heart of Me in 2010 and New York Sessions in 2014. So You Think You Can Dance, an American television dance competition, returned for its ninth season on May 24, 2012, on FOX Television. Fox and series creator Nigel Lythgoe have each independently confirmed that the weekly results show, a staple of the series in seasons 2–8, has been cut from the show format and that only one episode will air each week for the show's ninth season. This season has marked three firsts in the series history: this season had two winners, as opposed to the single winner format used in previous seasons, a contemporary dancer was not amongst the contestants remaining in the competition in the finale, and lastly, a ballet dancer is the winner of the competition. References
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