Zimbio TV Couples March Madness Challenge
| Event | |
|---|---|
| Event: | TV Couples March Madness Challenge |
| Participants: | Zimbio, March Madness |
| Date(s): | March 2012 - present |
| Type: | |
| Fandom: | multifandom |
| URL: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Zimbio TV Couples March Madness Challenge is an annual poll hosted by Zimbio where fans vote for their favorite TV couples, be they canon or non-canon.
64 couples are selected at the beginning of March and are voted on in order to proceed to the next bracket until only one remains. The poll can be voted on multiple times by individuals and is not meant to be an accurate representation of the size of a particular pairing's fandom.
Fan Response
Graphics and edits are a popular response to whichever pairing wins the poll.[1][2] This later developed into creating edits throughout all of March to further encourage fans to vote for their preferred couple.[3]
Fans often organise power hours which focus their fandom to all vote at the same time in order to gain a larger lead.[4][5] It is done in a similar fashion to how some fandoms get hashtags trending on twitter.
Over time there has been some negative response to the March Madness Challenge. The nature of the poll can lead to the further fueling of ships wars if pairings from the same fandom both appear in the poll as well as muli-fandon ship wars. Some have also noted that March Madness, like most online polls surrounding shipping, is simply a way to drive traffic to Zimbio's website and is not worth the drama it causes.[6]
[The Zimbio poll] is media companies, looking for clickbait, create popularity polls that pit popular ‘ships’ against one another and create unreal levels of cattiness amongst fandoms. [...] There is no real prize, nothing but the satisfaction of making (young) people quibble and quarrel over trivia while they rake in the cash.[7]
Accusations of cheating and harassment
Accusations of cheating have been consistent throughout the years the poll has ran.[8][9]
The 2018 challenge saw accusations of cheating as well as harassment of fans and Zimbio staff. Zimbio responded with several tweets on how they were looking into the matter of cheating and made adjustments to the voting system to attempt to prevent further manipulation.[10][11] Two days following these measures being put in place Zimbio threatened to take down the second bracket of voting due to death threats and abusive comments being sent to their staff.[12] The bracket remained open and the poll ran until its conclusion on March 20th.
Past Winners
- 2012 - Rachel/Quinn (Glee)
- 2013 - Dean/Castiel (Supernatural)
- 2014 - Dean/Castiel (Supernatural)
- 2015 - Root/Shaw (Person of Interest)
- 2016 - Clarke/Lexa (The 100)
- 2017 - Clarke/Lexa (The 100)
- 2018 - Emma/Regina (Once Upon a Time)
- 2019 - Kara/Lena (Supergirl)
- 2020 - Juliana/Valentina (Amar a Muerte)
Meta
References
- ^ "congratulations clexa". Archived from the original on 2019-03-30.
- ^ "congratulations bamily". Archived from the original on 2018-12-04.
- ^ "VOTE FOR KARA AND LENA AS BEST TV COUPLE". Archived from the original on 2018-12-16.
- ^ "YOU KNOW THE DRILL - SUPERCORP POWER HOUR". Archived from the original on 2018-12-04.
- ^ "The power hour of 10 PM EST will be DOUBLE power hour! we need all of you swen!! All the fandom will have a date in 3 hours". Archived from the original on 2018-12-05.
- ^ shipsnthenight: Zimbio poll. Every. Single. Year. Stop. Enough. Why. Do. You. Have. To. Fuck. Fandoms. Up. Every. SINGLE. FUCKING. Y E A R. WE. DON’T. NEED. THIS. DRAMA. IN. OUR. LIVES. WE. HAVE. ENOUGH. SHIT. TO. DEAL. WITH. March 15, 2017
- ^ "whuts all the poll stuff? you dont poll/". Archived from the original on 2018-12-06.
- ^ Okay then, who cheated on that Zimbio poll? addieon. 10 April 2013.
- ^ The Bamon fandom are cheaters? Nope! tothecoreofbamon. March 21, 2016.
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