Date: Fri 05-Jun-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

iinfo-Brand-Hank-Angry-Dwarf

Full Text:

INTERNET INFO FOR REAL PEOPLE: Hank the Angry Dwarf

By Bob Brand

The polls are closed.

Starting Monday, April 27, People magazine ran the third Annual Most Beautiful

People Poll on its website. The winner was to appear on the cover. They

quickly backtracked. On Thursday, the 28th, I saw a posting on the

web-consulting listserv, Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf (HADD) had garnered 404

ballots by Tuesday night. Websites urging netsters to vote for Hank sprang up

faster than you could say "Monica Lewinsky." In just two days, Hank jumped to

first place with a staggering 144,122 votes. I visited the website late Friday

morning. By that time, HADD amassed 194,557, ahead of DPK (a bogus entry)

60,115, Linda Comer 9,880, Leonardo DiCaprio (the only name I recognized)

9,270 and a long list of other beautiful people. By this time, the main stream

media tapped into the evolving story. ABC News reported how shock-jock Howard

Stern listeners had highjacked the contest by entering a regular Stern guest,

Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf.

Stern's radio and television popularity has spilled over into cyberspace. With

several websites (official and unofficial) and very active discussions in a

usenet newsgroup (alt.fan.howard-stern), it is no wonder Stern-crazies turned

out in force for the Hank-ster.

High Activity

It became immediately apparent that the people at People were ill prepared for

the cyber onslaught. Prank prone netsters used software robots to cast massive

votes for unknown candidates. The site was taken down briefly for adjustments.

The rules were quickly modified to become one vote per visit. When I cast my

first vote on day four, the DPK candidate had disappeared, but ballots for

Hank had climbed to 207,935.

By May 5, Hank accumulated 218,213 while DiCaprio garnered 13,254. In 12th

place was Rick Flair (who?) with 3,300 votes. On May 7, the standings shaped

up with HADD 227,017, Flair 14,909, and DiCaprio 14,135. The polls closed on

May 8. The final tally listed HADD 230,169, Flair 17,145, and DiCaprio 14,471.

It turns out that Flair is a big name in the WWF (World Wrestling Federation).

Many around the Net savored the Hank victory. Perhaps, it can be summed up in

the words of Doug Rushkoff from the Online Guardian: "We have a deep-rooted

resentment for the media empires attempting to impose these

advertiser-friendly role models on our psyches. We also resent when polls,

demographic research, and ticket sales figures are used to "prove" that these

media are merely responding to the public appetite."

What All This Means

Like so many others, Hank gained my "protest vote" on five separate visits to

the site. I do not like media buffoons like Stern, Springer, and their

imitators who rely on audience shock as their gimmick to bolster ratings.

However, when a mass media giant like Time Warner (who owns People Magazine )

attempts to "legitimize" a popularity contest by conducting it on the

Internet, a thumb of the nose is certainly in order. Given the current state

of the Internet, it is doubtful that the Web could ever be used for conducting

any type of meaningful, large scale, survey. Shenanigans and hijinks abound.

Perhaps this will change some day, but I don't see it coming any time soon.

While I remain skeptical of surveys in general, I have even less confidence in

those that are web-based.

By the way, you don't have to worry about Hank. He now has several websites, a

usenet newsgroup (alt.fan.hank-the-angry-drunken-dwarf) and a fanclub. They're

calling it Hankmania!

URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) of interest:

http://www.pathfinder.com/people/50most/1998/vote/index.html

http://www.koam.com/people-poll.html

http://www.case-against.com/culture/dwarf.htm

http://www.tabloid.net/1998/04/30/

http://hank.overhere.org/

(This is the 106th of a series of elementary articles designed for surfing the

Internet. Next, "Buying a Removable HD" is the subject on tap. Stay tuned.

Until next week, happy travels through cyberspace.

Previous issues of Internet Info for Real People (including links to sites

mentioned in this article) can be found: http://www.thebee.com. Please e-mail

comments and suggestions to: rbrand@JUNO.com or editor@thebee.com.)