The shirt was intended to portray the way that music has changed throughout the years, but the reference to evolution caused creationist parents to react in a very typical way: they threw a tantrum. The superintendent, seeking to simply bypass the controversy, opted to pull the shirts. The local paper responded by putting a poll about the shirt onto their website, the Sedalia Democrat. (no political affiliation, despite the name) By the time the poll closed, the results stood with fully 97% of respondents holding that the critics and the district were overreacting, with only 3% claiming that there was anything wrong with the shirt.
What's notable, however, is that the poll received a response of more than 6,600 votes. For a point of reference, the standard response to their polls is only around 150 votes. Not only that, but responses were coming in not just from the town, but from all over the world, including Germany, England, and Australia, among others. What, then, would explain this odd turn of events? A significant part of the explanation lies in the linking to the poll on the noted science/politics blog, Pharyngula.
The practice is known as poll crashing, and it's a common feature on blogs across the internet, for reasons ranging from a desire to influence the results to simple boredom. Pharyngula blogmaster PZ Myers explains his motivations for the practice as follows:
"It's a regular feature of the blog: someone, somewhere puts a poll on the Internet, which will accumulate responses that someone will use to justify a position, despite the fact that these things are grossly unscientific and arbitrary,” he said. We look for such polls, and 'pharyngulating' just means that readers of the Pharyngula blog go there to vote."
Now, depending on the person, one might view this as a respectable goal, as dishonest and underhanded, or simply as a waste of time. One thing that cannot be denied, however, is the growing influence to the global community that things like this represent. This, no less than the "Twitter Revolution" for Iran, demonstrates the new world of global politics we have entered into. When such a small-town matter can gain the attention of people worldwide, it has become clear that the notion of provincial politics is a thing of the past. It may seem cliche to claim that "the world is watching", but the new power that the internet provides makes it more true than ever before.
Sedalia Democrat article on poll results
The 2001 overthrow of Joseph Estrada was largely organized via SMS.
ReplyDeleteWell, i have one thing to say is that I'm damn surprised that the freaking mainstream network media didn't pick this up and make it into a big ordeal...wow did they miss a good religion story huh? Other than that, I get that the poll was probably kind of interesting to see what others who visit this particular blog think, but at the same time when the local newspaper published the article I do feel as though they should have only published what the true locals felt. If this was an area with many conservative Christians the wishes of that community should have been respected. Given it is a freedom of some sort of speech and no matter where we go we will have someone's views pushed upon us, but was there another option in shirt designs for those students who did not personally approve of the design this shirt had. That should be the reality of it all is that this is a high school band tee shirt not something someone buys through their own free will and if a student doesn't feel comfortable wear their own colors or representing their own school and hobbies what makes them feel good about their endeavors?
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