Most Influential Person is Moot
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James Joyner | Monday, April 27, 2009 |
The dude who gave us Lolcats and Rickrolling is the world’s most influential person, TIME reports:
In a stunning result, the winner of the third annual TIME 100 poll, and new owner of the title world’s most influential person, is Moot. The 21-year-old college student and founder of the online community 4chan.org, whose real name is Christopher Poole, received 16,794,368 votes and an average influence rating of 90 (out of a possible 100) to handily beat the likes of Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin and Oprah Winfrey. To put the magnitude of the upset in perspective, it’s worth noting that everyone Moot beat out actually has a job.
Let’s just say I question the methodology.
Image: Icanhascheezburger
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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As well you should - some of 4chan's posters talked to a tech journal about how they hacked the poll. Read down the 1st letters of the winners starting with moot, and you get MARBLECAKE ALSO - a hidden message.
Oops - reading down further, you get THE GAME. So the letters spell out MARBLECAKE, ALSO THE GAME.
Looking at some of the people needed to get those letters in, who couldn't tell the vote was hacked?
Kittehs rocked the vote, eh?
Ha! Ha! Ha! A buncha of basement dwelling oldfags who adore Creepy Chan, hate Boxxy and know how to blankpost have barrelrolled Time. That is so cash! Epic win, /b/tards!
I'm shocked Time still went with the poll data and apparently isn't aware their poll was manipulated. This hacking story made a lot of rounds a couple of weeks ago;
http://musicmachinery.com/2009/04/15/inside-the-precision-hack/
I'm shocked Time still went with the poll data and apparently isn't aware their poll was manipulated. This hacking story made a lot of rounds a couple of weeks ago;
I'd think that the very fact that a horde of /b/tards voluntarily promoted their founder to the top of the list is evidence enough of his influence, wouldn't you?
It occurs to me after my post that Time may just be willing to play along with the whole thing, as there could be commentary to be had there about influence in different "worlds", but I don't think they're trying to capitalize on it, so it's hard to believe.
I don't think however that this incident reflects his influence on a world view at all. After Time tried to block the initial manipulating attempts, they say they were enraged, so it really just became about pulling it off, supporting moot became more a way to support themselves.
William d'Inger is such a "special" person :)
I'd think that the very fact that a horde of /b/tards voluntarily promoted their founder to the top of the list is evidence enough of his influence, wouldn't you?
I don't know the exact #, but it seems like they wrote programs to continually vote and shift other people down. Could have been a small group with mutliple voting.
Matt,
O rly? Thank you.
This whole thing is so ludicrous that I felt a post in /b/tard-ese would be appropriate. The phenomenon fascinates me. I figure 4chan would be good for a master's thesis in Social Psychology. The Creepy Chan meme alone is worth a hefty research paper or two.
I consider the Time poll a wakeup call for people still ignoring the influence of the Internet.
William
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