Dissing David Archuleta?

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If you told me when I woke up this morning that I was going to personally cause an uproar among several die-hard David Archuleta fans today, I would have laughed.

However, the story of how my day started is one you really don’t make up. Currently nominations for the Shorty Awards are taking place: awards for best tweeters in certain categories (humor, cooking, nonprofit, life, business,etc). I skimmed through the current nomination leaders and noticed that David Archuleta’s Twitter account was one of the top five nominations for many categories. Categories that were completely unrelated (i.e. Customer Service?). Seeing how Twitter and online voting has a tendency sometimes to be more of a popularity than a content contest, I posted my observation on his pending success in the awards:

“Looking at the Shorty Award leaderboard, either David Archuleta’s votes are inflated or he is the most well-rounded tweeter ever”- @drewhawkins

Just an observation I had about the current award list. In my opinion, a fairly objective one. However, I didn’t expect the firestorm to come. Obviously he has a strong Twitter fan following and a few high-spirited fans immediately went to his “defense.” Below are some of the responses I had sent my way:

@pam05: FYI David Archuleta @DavidArchie he tweets about food, exercise, family, charity & has good morals & values. Great role model.

@pam05: Have you heard him sing? He can actually sing, no auto tone needed!

It was good to learn why he may be popular. I appreciated the positive reinforcement. Then it got interesting.

@maxie2g0: what the…it’s obvious u know nothing about @DavidArchie. He just happens to have a fan base that luvs him as a whole

@maxie2g0: and shows it. I assure u only a portion of his base is reg. here so even voting in the #Shorty’s. What’s wrong with you?

Trying to put out a potentially absurd fire, I re-instated that I wasn’t dissing Mr. Archuleta personally or his craft. I have nothing against the guy at all, no reason for disrespect. Just making a casual observation about a contest. This somewhat resolved things…sorta.

@maxie2g0: if no dissing of David was meant then we’ll accept ur word. We don’t lie to David about our feelings regarding him or his work.

Fortunately, there was another normal Archuleta fan that came to my defense!

@andreaonFOD I can assure you what you said about David was not out of line. Sorry for some of those comments to u from DA fans.

Thanks @andreaonFOD for the positive reinforcement. Also thanks for thanking my mom for voting for him on American Idol. Thanks to @pam05 for keeping a positive spin on her defenses. Finally, thanks to @maxie2g0 for making my day that much more entertaining.

Weird how fast the internet carries information right? This is a good example of how fast information can get around, even if you have no real intent. There were several other responses but these were a few. With this loyal of a fan base, I reckon he’s doing something right.