Last month Music Feeds reported on a competition wherein pop star Taylor Swift agreed to perform at any school in the USA depending on which campus scored the most votes in the online contest. The concept was ‘swiftly’ hijacked by popular sites Reddit and 4Chan, who reached out to the masses and convinced them to vote for the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
The votes came in thick and fast and shot Horace Mann to the head of the pack. The prospect of having Swift attend and perform at the hearing impaired institute had school headmaster Jeremiah Ford giddy with excitement. He said that his students would enjoy the performance as much as any other school.
“There are accommodations that make music come alive for deaf people… “They have different abilities. They’re not disabled. They’re not impaired,” said Ford.
However, Ford did acknowledge that the online campaign spearheaded by Reddit and 4Chan may have come from a place of insensitivity as opposed to championing equal opportunity.
“It might have been done with malintent, and shame on them, but what a great opportunity for us,” Fold told Boston.com.
Now it seems that Miss Swift, along with the singer’s management and competition sponsors, agrees with Ford that the movement to help Horace Mann gain the most votes was done with less then honorable intention, and thus listed the specialty school as ineligible in the contest.
Still, as reported by The Guardian, Horace Mann has been left far from empty handed. Swift, along with CoverGirl, Papa John’s Pizza, American Greetings and Chegg donated $10,000 each to the school while VH1’s Save the Music program also gave Horace Mann $10,000 worth of instruments, amounting to $50,000 worth of donations in total.
“Are we the winner? Absolutely,” Ford told the Boston Globe.
