Taylor Swift fans are up in arms over a stalled fan video contest promoted at LiveDaily.
Hundreds of Taylor Swift fans are upset after participating in her “Fearless” fan video contest. It seems that while the promotions for the contest cited that winners would be chosen weekly, and a grand prize winner would receive gift certificates, signed albums and exclusive meet & greets with Taylor, there is no sign of any winners. The Taylor Swift Fearless contest even states in detail on her LiveDaily page that Taylor herself will choose which talented fan will win the exciting grand prize. However comments on her YouTube channel point out that the number of video views on Taylor’s page has not changed in over 3 months, meaning that she has not even looked at any of the entries. To quote a letter I received on the matter:
“461 video responses were sent with some contestants saying that they put two weeks of work into their entries… The contest held in association with LiveDaily.com was supposed to be run for four weeks starting from November 10th which means it finished Sunday December 7th although the site was still accepting entries after that date? More controversy, what if the chosen winner, if it ever happens that there is one, is one of the videos entered after the close off date?”
It is understandable that an artist’s schedule can get hectic, however the takeaway impression left by this contest is that it was a cheap publicity stunt to get devoted fans to buy and promote the new album. Now those same fans have agreed to file a fraud complaint against Taylor Swift and her management team unless the terms of this contest are met. Hopefully there is a reasonable explanation for this that will help to reconcile any hard feelings created between Taylor and her fans. In the meantime, my hat’s off to the mass number of fans who are willing to hold mainstream artists accountable for the promises they make!
UPDATE: It appears that in the 24 hours after this article was published, the contest page at livedaily was updated to reflect 4 finalist up for fan voting. Since there are no contest terms posted, and the contest video from Taylor has been removed, then there is no way of proving that this method of selecting a winner is different than what her statements in the video had implied (in the video it stated that weekly winners would be chosen, then SHE would choose the grand prize winner). Either way, with the wording chosen on the contest page, I can only hope that the fans’ voices were heard. “But this is a contest and someone has to win, so Team Taylor has selected their Top 4 videos for you to vote on“. Country Music Photo Gallery
She has to have her wisdom teeth pulled out today, shes had the AMAs, it was her birthday on the 13th, She has had to do promo for the album and do tv shows and grammy nominations. give her a break mate.
So what you’re saying is that since Taylor had to prepare for and recover from all of these things, that means that nobody on her entire management and publicity team is capable of following through on promises that were made to the fans that support her? You do realize the negative impact this has on her credibility right? Or on her following of devoted fans who are now feeling quite personally insulted? The artist-to-fan relationship should be the number 2 priority for ANY big-label management team, right behind making sure the artists’ image itself is never spoiled. So between this contest and Taylor’s CMA disaster I think she aught to be looking at new management. She is a 19 year old kid, being led around by highly-profiting puppetmasters who can’t seem to hold up their own strings at this point.
~WC~
Great post! I think it’s great Taylor is going to be forced to learn a little accountability at young age. Shame on her management and label!
This is so typical, this was just a ploy to get people to buy her new album. This was never going to happen. They have just allowed 20 to 50 more videos through even though the contest ended Sunday the 7th. If I were a contestant I would be outraged at everything that has happened. If one of the newcomers wins that will be a damn shame. For the sake of the kids who worked hard and did great I wish them luck. Hopefully this all turns out well in the end, but if not Taylor and her team will hear about this for some time, there will be a lot of disappointed kids!
Have you checked the contest page at LiveDaily? They’ve got finalists chosen and voting for a final winner going on.
http://www.livedaily.com/taylorswift
Yes weve seen what is on Livedaily.com
and not an apology in sight !!
At least fan power will get a winner now. Originally Taylors team wouldnt even reply to contestants asking why there was no winner announced, a week after the contest had finished…. you do know this contest is actually meant to be finished?
Did you also know that the original contest video has Taylor saying she will pick the winning video?
Not, “oops we forgot all about the fact we were having a contest to help promote Taylors new album. Hell what if Taylor finds out we messed up.. lets just do a cover up and hope she never hears how much we pee-ed off a heap of her fans … if we get the people to vote for a winner Taylor will never know that we forgot to remind her that she was supposed to pick the winner”…..
Baddddd management
The whole contest has turned out to be a piece of crap. Great for the finalists, I suppose, but considering people changed the rules and whatnot, who gives a shit about the winner now?? If TAYLOR HERSELF is not choosing the finalist, then how is that special? THAT was one of the best aspects of the contest, but she slyly changed the rules and, soon after, her contest videos disappeared as well. Good going, “Team Taylor!” Way to pull the wool over the fans’ eyes.
Personally I agree with a lot of upset people. I’m not trying to really brag, but aside from two of those chosen mine was a far cry above the competition. I can’t believe that she made the announcement video private. Yeah, private. Try and watch the video on youtube where she talks about the video. You can’t: She blocked all users from it because so many people were leaving angry comments about how poorly the contest was run. Take a look at the following videos,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO5E3iUxIUw&fmt=18
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJlNPzEvNzo&fmt=18
The first was done by myself and I worked forever on it with my girlfriend. We spent TWO weeks doing the FULL instrumental of “You’re not sorry” ALL by ourselves and filmed a music video. Yet somehow a guy who can’t sing and three girls are chosen. (Two of the girls happen to be my friend, but the other two are garbage).
The other video is done by Emily Harder who is a great musician and also did the full instrumentals for “Love story”
PLEASE explain to me how the finalists were better… they werne’t… her producers didn’t even watch half the videos. JOKE of a contest, she should make a public apology.