So InsideNoVa partnered with Ashley Furniture to put on a Build-a-Snowman contest. The grand prize being a new recliner from Ashley Furniture. We submitted my mom's Lorax, that I suggested because Bug's favorite movie right now is The Lorax & because when I was super little my momma instilled in me the importance of knocking heavy snow off of trees to prevent them from breaking...she really does "speak for the trees!"
About a week after we submitted our Lorax the site was open for voting. It was kind of a pain in the butt to vote because they required a registration that asked for your email and phone number along with creating your own profile on the site. I know that some people didn't vote simply because it took more time than the facebook contests that only you require you to "like" something. But even with that annoyance we got 40+ votes fairly quickly.
I created a facebook event and invited everyone so they could easily get to the link. My dad did the same and soon we were doing pretty well. We started off in 3rd place but overtook to claim second in the first day. The contest allowed registered users to vote once a day for a week, the contest set to expire at 11:59:59 on St. Patrick's Day. As they days went on our vote total steadily increased...but so did another the votes for another entry.
Now I have to admit that I would probably vote for that snowman if my own weren't part of the competition. I wasn't surprised when I saw it take an early lead and stay there. From time to time we looked like we were closing the gap and during the last day of voting we were as close as 15 votes behind. All of our friends and family rallied behind us and kept banging out votes. Then this snow zombie launched up almost 40 votes. It was pretty disappointing.
Several of my father's friends started speculating that it was getting fake votes and even that it wasn't from Virginia. At first I dismissed these claims and starting to resign myself to the fact that we were gonna lose. Even if we ended up losing I was super happy and grateful for all the support we got. Then one of those friends said they found the same picture at a website called Alaska Commons. I wasn't sure if that meant but thought I'd check into it a little, if just to put the whole thing to rest.
I started off using Google Image Search where you can upload a photo and search for it online. The zombie snowman showed up 300+ times online. Now, that could mean nothing at all. Zombies are pretty popular right now and it's easy with all the social media sites out there for photos to be shared thousands of times in less than a day.
Then I heard from my dad that he followed the Alaska Commons appearance to George Takei's Facebook page and when he looked into that he found this comment: "Colleen Kittrell - this was taken near Neosho, Missouri, and posted Feb 27. I didn't take it but Neosho is about an hr from here so I reposted it. I didn't send it to George, but I'm glad he saw the humor in it. March 3 at 4:06pm"
I did some more checking on facebook and found the same photo on another page, Alien Invasion Zombie Apocalypse Fitness, which again credits it to Neosho, Mo. Clicking on the photo from there I got back to the original post, Joplin Zombie Defense Network, which is dated Feb 26th and once again says it was "Seen today in nearby Neosho MO."
With all of that it seemed obvious that the person who submitted the photo had stolen it and claimed it as their own. Even if the snow zombie belonged to the submitter part of the contest rules stated that the winner had to live within 60 miles of Leesburg, which just makes sense considering that the prize is a recliner that they'll have to ship.
I wrote up what I found and submitted it via a feedback form. I wasn't sure what was going to happen but I hoped that they would at least consider the evidence.
Well, I didn't have to wait long. Within minutes both my father and I received emails from editor of InsideNoVa and the Marketing & Events Coordinator letting us know that the zombie snowman was pulled from the competition. It turns out that beyond the evidence we had found they also said there were more than 200 suspicious votes from different email addresses, but from the same IP address.
Now doesn't that seem like a lot of work to cheat at a snowman building contest?
With that out of the way we were clearly in the lead. With only 30 minutes left till the end the snowman in second place only had 112 votes. When the clock struck midnight...
Several of my father's friends started speculating that it was getting fake votes and even that it wasn't from Virginia. At first I dismissed these claims and starting to resign myself to the fact that we were gonna lose. Even if we ended up losing I was super happy and grateful for all the support we got. Then one of those friends said they found the same picture at a website called Alaska Commons. I wasn't sure if that meant but thought I'd check into it a little, if just to put the whole thing to rest.
I started off using Google Image Search where you can upload a photo and search for it online. The zombie snowman showed up 300+ times online. Now, that could mean nothing at all. Zombies are pretty popular right now and it's easy with all the social media sites out there for photos to be shared thousands of times in less than a day.
Then I heard from my dad that he followed the Alaska Commons appearance to George Takei's Facebook page and when he looked into that he found this comment: "Colleen Kittrell - this was taken near Neosho, Missouri, and posted Feb 27. I didn't take it but Neosho is about an hr from here so I reposted it. I didn't send it to George, but I'm glad he saw the humor in it. March 3 at 4:06pm"
I did some more checking on facebook and found the same photo on another page, Alien Invasion Zombie Apocalypse Fitness, which again credits it to Neosho, Mo. Clicking on the photo from there I got back to the original post, Joplin Zombie Defense Network, which is dated Feb 26th and once again says it was "Seen today in nearby Neosho MO."
With all of that it seemed obvious that the person who submitted the photo had stolen it and claimed it as their own. Even if the snow zombie belonged to the submitter part of the contest rules stated that the winner had to live within 60 miles of Leesburg, which just makes sense considering that the prize is a recliner that they'll have to ship.
I wrote up what I found and submitted it via a feedback form. I wasn't sure what was going to happen but I hoped that they would at least consider the evidence.
Well, I didn't have to wait long. Within minutes both my father and I received emails from editor of InsideNoVa and the Marketing & Events Coordinator letting us know that the zombie snowman was pulled from the competition. It turns out that beyond the evidence we had found they also said there were more than 200 suspicious votes from different email addresses, but from the same IP address.
Now doesn't that seem like a lot of work to cheat at a snowman building contest?
With that out of the way we were clearly in the lead. With only 30 minutes left till the end the snowman in second place only had 112 votes. When the clock struck midnight...