The Singapore chapter of publishing house Penguin Books just learned the hard way how open polls can swerve way out of control. Just like how ‘Boaty McBoatface‘ and ‘Mr Splashy Pants‘ happened, the internet hijacked an online poll held by the publishers and voted “chicken nuggets” as their favourite quote by poet Lang Leav.
In case you don’t know who Lang Leav is, she’s a highly polarising poet based in New Zealand whose poems are Tumblr-worthy enough to go viral across the microblogging site. Now a best-selling author of three poetry collections, she has legions of fans (comprised mainly of young ladies) around the world who love her childlike, whimsical take on poetry. On the other end of the spectrum, her critics revile her work for being too full of cliches, over-commercialised, simplistic, juvenile and lacking any depth.
The pollsters probably fall on the latter side, knowing that ‘chicken nuggets’ really could be an actual quote in one of Lang Leav’s many quirky poems. Or, they could just be regular trolls. Yeah, okay they’re trolls — people voted choices like Harambe, #tetek, a line from ‘Stand up for Singapore’, Samurai Burger and a lot more.
Penguin Books, being total saints, are cool with leaving the poll up on Facebook, despite it being way beyond saving.
In any case, it’s helping them promote Lang Leav’s tour this coming December, where she’ll be going bookstore-hopping around Singapore to meet with her cult following.
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