Okay so, I don't know if some of you guys use Twitter, I do on a very regular basis, but there's been a lot of havoc about the whole voting thing right now. 

It's a completely legitimate thing, you know, wanting your favourite group or band to get the best result possible because let's be honest: they all deserve it. They've all been working their asses off ever since their debut and even before while being in training. 

Now this is the point where things get a little bit more complex.

Because while it's legitimate to feel the need to make them win, there is a certain line that should not be crossed in any kind of competition:

One. Should. Not. Cheat.

In order for it to be a real competition it needs to bear the most important characteristic which is a very simple and basic one but yet seems so hard for some people to adhere to, namely fairness.

I've seen many many people on Twitter claiming to be in a certain fandom in order to receive more ID's, bashing their own real fandom during the whole process, before switching back to their actual fandom and voting for their actual favourite band. There are many things that irk be about this sort of behaviour and I'm just going to go ahead and bring you an example. 

Let's say we're in a running competition, both athlete A and athlete B have running shoes appropriate for their sport. However, shortly before the competition, athlete A goes ahead and takes athlete B's shoes and wears them himself. Athlete B is left with no shoes and unable to run the competition. Athlete A has now two pairs of running shoes but wears athlete B's shoes for the competition while his own are left to be used during their next competition. He may give athlete B's shoes back once the competition is over.

This is of course not the same scenario and I exggarerated quite a lot with this example but I honestly do not see that much of a difference if you look at the key points of it. In both cases something necessary for the competition is being taken away, resulting in the competition to not be an actual competition.

But coming back to the actual topic, what bugs me the most is the question of what kind of ethic this is? Claiming to be part of a fandom you are not part of (which most of the people who have done this actually despise in reality), putting your actual favourite band momentarily down (I've even seen insults) before jumping onto the wagon like nothing happened doesn't make your favourite band proud. In fact, I'm pretty sure they're damn ashamed of having immature fans who have this kind of work ethic that results in unfair competitions. Cheating also doesn't make one a good person and I'm pretty sure it only results in being a, pardon, "fake ".

I luckily do not know any of the people who behaved this way and thank god for that, really, honestly, cross my heart! But it's the fact that most of them are very likely to be 13/14 years old that makes me question this kind of behaviour on various aspects. I honestly feel ashamed and I'm not even part of the particular fandom I've seen this happening in! It makes me wonder how they're going to behave themselves in the future, are they always going to stick to unfair methods and ruin things for other people? Have they not been taught the basics of moral behaviour?

Sighs, I guess this is just my philosophy/ethics major shining through.