<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"FacebookPinterest\n\nWe woke up to the breaking news today that a Boston radio contest featuring a chance to meet Taylor Swift was abruptly canceled. The unconfirmed rumor is that the contest was canceled because one of the leading contestants turned out to be a 39-year-old man who'd been ushered to victory on the back of a 4chan and Reddit campaign*. The contest was put on by Kiss 108FM and required fans to vote on who they thought was most deserving of the honor to meet the former Conor Kennedy flame. A 39-year-old man who went by the moniker Charles Z. was among the (mostly female teenage) contestants and, since the Internet can't resist the idea of sticking it to Taylor Swift, someone decided to rouse the masses to vote Mr. Z in. Then things got weird. According to the original 4chan poster, who claimed to be a friend of the contestant, Charles was a \"creepy 39 year old\" who wanted a chance at making a \"complete ass of himself by blatantly just sniffing (Swift's) hair.\" We wanted to get to the bottom of all of this hair sniffing and creepiness, so we tracked down this mysterious Charles Z. to hear what he had to say.\n\nGQ: So this Taylor Swift thing really blew up for you. How did it all get started? Did you know the anonymous 4chan poster?\n\nCharles: I thought it would be great to meet Taylor Swift, so I told my friends, and my friends told everybody. This became the weirdest possible game of telephone. \"I want to meet Taylor Swift!\" turned into \"What's that? You're a fat, old maniac and want to smell Taylor Swift's hair?\" I never asked anyone to do anything other than vote for me. My friends took it and ran with it. I'm not entirely sure what a \"4chan\" even is. I entered the contest and my friends liked it and started to share it with their friends and it blew up from there. I guess the sorcerers of the Internet adopted me. I'm still not sure what happened, other than that I won, and everyone that helped was awesome. But to answer your question, no, I had no idea. I don't know who did what.\n\nWhen did you find out that all of this was happening?\n\nEveryone I know emailed, texted, Facebooked, Tweeted, and/or sent me a Western Union telegram at the same time to let me know I was all over the Internet.\n\nWas your motivation simply to meet Taylor Swift?\n\nI thought it would be fun. Seriously. That's it. And it was fun. At one point the leaderboard was 50 happy 13-year-old girls, then there's a picture of me, hungover, in my bathroom. That's good stuff.\n\nFacebookPinterest\n\nHave you ever been to a Taylor Swift concerts before?\n\n I've never been to a show, but I think she's great. Her music is fun. We've all had our hearts broken, and she makes sadness into dance songs. She seems like a sweetheart.\n\nOk, now for the question most people want to know about, what's with the hair sniffing? Did you actually say you wanted to sniff Taylor Swift's Hair?\n\nI'm sure her hair smells like a magician's assistant's hat full of pirate treasure, but I never said I wanted to sniff it. But I'm not going to lie, if I get to meet her, I may lean in for a whiff. I'd be crazy not to at this point. The people of the Internet demand it, and who am I to cheat them?\n\nSo once you won the contest, it was canceled. Any ideas why? Do you think it was the \"creepy\" guy and hair-sniffing comments? Or do you think it was the way you won, with the 4chan campaign?\n\n I have no idea why they cancelled it. No one contacted me. All I know is people around the world legitimately voted for me and had my back on this, and I thank them for it. Kiss 108 needs to tell these people what happened. Kiss ran a contest and I won. As far as I can tell, all those (4chan) kids have been amazingly nice to me. All on their own. I don't have a bad word to say about any of them. Well, one guy Photoshopped my face on Stalin. I love America too much to get behind that.\n\nHow has it felt to suddenly be labeled by the Internet as the \"creepy 39-year-old\"? Do you think it's unfair that a 39-year-old man who likes Taylor Swift is labeled as creepy?\n\nIt was like waking up to find a werewolf in your living room. And no one bothered to ask my side of the story before they published. It's like watching a movie about your life written by maniacs. As far as my age goes, John Mayer was in his thirties when he dated Taylor Swift. Is anybody keeping an eye on him? If there's a creep election, I'm going to have a hard time beating him in the swing states.\n\nHave you ever entered a contest like this before?\n\nThis was the first and only one. I think I'm a fast learner, because I'm one for one in meet-the-celebrity contests. I'm also one for one in having those contests shut down, apparently. Still. That's a pretty good average.\n\nWhat are your plans now as far as the Taylor Swift show? Will you get tickets and go anyway? Will you still try to meet her?\n\nMy plans are to be Taylor's escort to the VMAs. Like when Michael Jackson took his monkey. Only I would be the monkey. Seriously though, I'd love to meet her, but that's up to her obviously.\n\n *4chan is an imageboard website and Reddit is a social news website where users can post links to content on the web. Both allow the ability to mobilize scores of people to rally behind contests, causes, and anything else really that requires large numbers for influence, like for instance a radio contest. These numbers can become even more inflated with the use of Internet bots, which automate tasks, such as voting for someone to win an online contest, at a much higher rate than an individual person can. It is very likely that Charles Z. was voted to the number one spot in the Kiss 108FM contest by Internet bots thanks to tech savvy users on 4chan.\n\nCorrection: A previous version of this article stated that Charles Z. was the winner of the contest, when in fact the contest was canceled before a winner was declared."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/exclusive-we-talk-to-the-creepy-man-behind-the-canceled-taylor-swift-radio-contest>