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zach anner
An investigative report and analysis by Jay Hathaway and Cole Stryker

We've been gushing quite a bit about the talent and heart of Zach Anner, the wheelchair-bound Austin, TX guy who recently appeared on Oprah and has a chance to win his own travel show. We love Zach and we're totally rooting for him to win this thing, but is his sense of humor even better than we thought? Rumors are swirling around the internet that Zach is an agent of 4Chan, helping them pull the ultimate prank on Oprah.

Consider his name: Zach Anner ... Z4ch Anner ... Z4channer ... Z 4 Channer? Say it ain't so, Zach!

Well, there's definitely a conspiracy of fake voting here, but it looks like 4Chan and Zach didn't start it. In fact, the rigged votes have been going to "Dr. Phyllis," a lady no one has ever heard of, who briefly passed Zach in the rankings. Phyllis rocketed to the top of the poll in under 20 minutes, causing Digg and Reddit to cry foul.

Who's behind this voting conspiracy? Is Zach Anner for real? What does 4Chan have to do with this? Urlesque investigates, after the jump.
Who Rigged the Poll?
Hint: Oprah Probably Doesn't Hate Zach Anner
So, where did all of those fake Dr. Phyllis votes come from and who's out to get Zach?

One intrepid Reddit user proffered this chart that seems to indicate that there is some funny business going down. It seemingly proves that someone was running code that gave Dr. Phyllis 2 fake votes for every real vote Zach got.

We also checked Digg to see how they felt about the issue. Basically the same as Reddit, only a lot dumber!

Reddit is using hardcore statistics and an organized, civil, back-and-forth cooperative discussion to determine if there is rigging (a lot of which is over my head), while this is the top comment on Digg and one of the more erudite ones at that:
Wait, wait, wait.

You're saying Oprah would rig votes against Zach Anner, someone with cerebral palsy, in an attempt to create another show starring a similar loud, obnoxious, dramatic, black woman -- like herself?

I DON'T BELIE--

Actually, yes. That seems pretty likely.

Go ***** yourself, Oprah.
Oh, shut up, Digg.

Geekosystem has a detailed analysis of the situation, showing that the actual code for Dr. Phyllis' vote button differed from all of the other contestants' buttons. This code has been removed, but while it was there, Phyllis was getting 1,900+ votes per minute. After the mysterious code was removed and the playing field was leveled, she dropped to only 3.

Online, Oprah caught most of the blame for the hacked poll and "Oprah rigged votes against Zach Anner" became a top search on Google that day. The "Oprah Hates Zach Anner" posts -- and the ridiculous "Oprah is discriminating against the disabled" and "Oprah wanted a black woman to win" theories -- are probably just made-up linkbait. We haven't seen any evidence so far to link Oprah to the hacked poll.

It could very well have been a rogue Oprah employee with access to the code and mischief on their mind, though. Based on what Geekosystem found out, the extra number in the code was a userid, possibly for an account that could have rigged the voting. The id number corresponds to an account for "LillianSkincare," which is not following or followed by anyone. It seems totally unrelated and maybe designed to throw people off the trail of the real culprit.

Oprah's people have now agreed to investigate the matter, according to Entertainment Weekly (via Geekosystem).
Contacted by EW, a spokesperson for OWN issued the following statement: "The online voting rules for the 'Your OWN Show' video submission competition were carefully crafted to be fair to everyone. Any allegations of impropriety will be investigated and the appropriate actions taken to keep the process unbiased."
We're reasonably sure that the votes for Phyllis weren't rigged by 4chan. A lot of votes for Zach definitely were, though ...
Zach Anner, 4Channer?
Probably Not, But 4Chan Loves Zach!
Reliable sources -- who obviously wish to remain Anonymous -- have confirmed that 4chan is behind Zach's surging vote totals, putting him at the top of the poll again tonight.

This isn't the first time an online contest has been suspected of rigging. 4chan has a long history of "bombing" contests with hacks or bots that manipulate contest rankings. This is why 4chan's founder Moot won the Time 100. Anonymous loves to throw their weight around, whether through hacking or "google bombing." Similarly, Reddit loves to bare its teeth by "poll bombing," harnessing the power of social networking to persuade a ton of people to vote in a particular poll.

Of course, 4chan's power does not lie in numbers alone. A lot of them know their way around a script, a piece of programming code that can be used to execute certain commands. We found scripts to automatically vote for Zach on a handful of message boards, but none of them were explicitly linked to 4Chan. It's also possible that some 4chan troll who wants to go against the grain could have written one for Dr. Phyllis.

Just because he's getting a boost from 4chan doesn't mean Zach is working with them, though. His disability, his personality and his show idea are all undoubtedly genuine. We found Zach's Facebook and YouTube pages and they're definitely for real (he's been doing comedy on YouTube since at least 2008).

There's still the matter of his name, but we'll just have to write it off as a perfect coincidence. If Zach is in cahoots with 4chan, it doesn't change the fact that he's extremely talented.

If you're still in doubt that Zach Anner is a 4chan favorite, check out this strange pro-Zach video from a guy in an Anonymous mask.
Bonus: Zach Answers Questions from Reddit
Find Out How Many Explosions He's Slowly Wheeled Away From, Without Looking Back!
Three, he says. Three explosions. He didn't address the vote-rigging controversy at all in this video, but it's still hilarious and makes a good case for why he should win the contest and get his own show.