Taylor Swift Officially Excluded From Triple J’s Hottest 100 Of 2014

UPDATE: The Hottest 100 of 2014 winner has been announced!

Triple j’s Hottest 100 of 2014 has just kicked off and the national youth broadcaster has already put the lid on this year’s biggest can of worms — Taylor Swift is officially out of this year’s countdown.

Presenter Lewi McKirdy addressed the controversy even before launching into the first song of the Hottest 100 countdown. “Taylor Swift. Is she in this list?” he asked, before triggering an ignominious buzzer sound. “No,” was the blunt response.

McKirdy directed listeners who wanted to know more about why Swift had been disqualified to a new website, triplejfeed.com. The name of the site is a jab at popular viral news website, Buzzfeed, who spearheaded the #Tay4Hottest100 campaign.

The announcement overloaded the new site in seconds, with the page still inaccessible at the time of writing. Triple j’s music news page has since confirmed the news, posting only a screenshot of part of the site and stating, “That’s right, she’s out,” before again directing readers to the new site.

The screenshot shows a Buzzfeed-style listicle titled ‘8 Hilarious But Totally True Reasons You Won’t Hear “Shake It Off” In The Hottest 100’, where the station lays the blame for the social media campaign’s failure squarely at Buzzfeed’s feet. “Their #Tay4Hottest100 campaign bought Tay a one-way ticket to Bansville,” the listicle’s opening paragraph reads.

“It became pretty clear, pretty quick that a lot of people just wanted to prod some ‘hipsters’ for the lulz,” the post continues.

It was reported earlier in the week that triple j staff had been banned from speaking about the controversy, with a leaked email, apparently from station manager Chris Scaddan, stating that all would be revealed today.

Keep up with all the winners and the rest of today’s milestones on our live updates page.

UPDATE: The site seems to be live, for now. Here’s a rundown of the reasons triple j have listed for disqualifying Swift from the Hottest 100. Check out the full, reasonably humorous listicle here.

1. Don’t (Buzz)feed the trolls

“Whilst [Buzzfeed’s] advertisers enjoyed the sweet page views, it’s not legit for other media to try and troll the poll.”

2. Haters gonna vote, vote, vote

“It became pretty clear, pretty quick that a lot of people just wanted to prod some hipsters for the lulz.”

3. Do we really want to talk about this every year?

“If we allowed talented/unemployed web developers to spam one track into the Hottest 100 via a web app…then we’d have to sit back every year while internet chuckleheads started campaign after campaign…”

4. Not every KFC idea is a good idea

“We’d prefer it if people voted for the love of music, not the love of cholesterol.”

5. More like #Tkay4Hottest100

“Tkay Maidza made it into the list at #100. Imagine if that didn’t happen because a joke Buzzfeed campaign got a song that triple j never played onto the list instead.”

6. 13,511 more reasons

“Taylor Swift got played on triple j a total of 0 times in 2014… Luckily other Australian radio stations picked up the slack and played Shake It Off 13,511 times…”

7. I’m number one, so why try harder?

“Shake It Off didn’t get nearly enough votes to be at the top of the Hottest 100. Had the campaign not been invalid, the Buzzfeed clickbait-fest would have trolled enough votes to be number 12…”

8. We ain’t even mad

“To be clear, triple j doesn’t have beef with Taylor Swift. She’s smart, she’s cool, she’s successful, and she has great taste in BFFs.”

Read the full listicle at triplejfeed.com

Gallery: Triple j Hottest 100 of 2014 Frontrunners