Uproar against Oprah

So Opera is running a contest to find the next TV talk show host, though usually I wouldn't care for these things one of the entrants has proposed an excellent idea and seems to be a really honest down to earth guy. His name is Zach Anner, a 20-something year old guy with cerebral palsy and has an enticing video about traveling, his video entry is here.

The contest supposedly began around May 14th, 2010 with a site allowing people to put in submissions for videos and there will be live casting calls involved. But to the heart of the whole issue, is that Zach Anner went viral by June 14th. Interestingly with help by 4chan and social websites like reddit and has hit 3 million votes. Interestingly out comes a unknown entrant going by Dr. Phyllis and her entry is here. Earlier today Dr. Phyllis was leading Zach Anner by a ~200,000 votes, which is odd considering someone with very little web presence. Ironically the people at 4chan, enraged by the whole ordeal has spread news of the vote rigging, started voting campaigns only to find that Dr. Phyllis to continue to lead. In short, what we are seeing right now is blatant vote rigging by Oprah's website, and I have a feeling that Dr. Phyllis was Oprah's favorite from the beginning to have her own show.

Democracy against totalitarianism at it's best. Apparently 4chan is pissed and has started "Operation SyPhyllis", involving macros to start auto-voting but it seems their votes are going elsewhere. They are, exceptionally pissed. I am really curious to see where this drama goes. One of the reasons why, it is hypothesized that Zach might not be the "right candidate" for a show hosted by Oprah is that he wouldn't cater to the demographics of her brand (housewives) as opposed to people like Dr. Phyllis, whom is a black lady in her middle ages. Seriously, 5 million votes for Dr. Phyllis over 1 month!? That would be at least 170,000 votes/day and Zach is at 4.7 million now. For those 2 alone Oprah's site would need at least 300k visitors/day, just for those 2 contestants alone and assuming a 100% voting rate. There is no way that Oprah's website would naturally generate that much traffic and I would honestly call bullshit on the whole thing.

Personally, I stand with Zach Anner because I liked his video think that he would be awesome on a show. For a guy with cerebral palsy to come so far is admirable and I am not a huge fan of Oprah right now. So I hope things play out like this:

1. Zach Anner loses to an Oprah "favorite"
2. The internet, news and tabloids go into an uproar
3. Oprah is ridiculed
4. Some other network seeing the value of Zach picks him up
5. Zach's show rocks
6. Oprah selected favorite starts her show and bombs

Justice is served.