Deadmau5 Wants You To Vote For Him In The DJ Mag Top 100
Deadmau5 has had quite the history of trolling the DJ Mag Top 100. With the DJ Mag contest now open, Deadmau5 is showing his unethusiasm for the 2016 popularity contest.
NOOOO VOTE FOR MEEEEE PLEASE VOTE FOR MEEEEEEE I NEED VOTES! PLEASE VOTE FOR MEEE. DJ MAG POLLS ARE SUPER IMPORTANT. https://t.co/6tKTXy3Fe5
— Goat lord (@deadmau5) July 8, 2016
PLS VOTE FOR ME FOR DJ MAG TOP100. I WORKED HARD MY WHOLE LIFE TO HAVE A NUMBER BESIDE MY NAME THAT SHOWS YOU JUST HOW GOOD OF AN IPOD I AM.
— Goat lord (@deadmau5) July 9, 2016
Make music? WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH DJ MAG POLLS!!?? PLEASE. I CAN HYPE! PLEASE FAM. IM YOLO COOL. https://t.co/cAQuf0PKHt
— Goat lord (@deadmau5) July 9, 2016
IF YOUVOTE FOR ME IN THE SUPER IMPORTANT DJ MAG POLLS I WILL LIT A FAM AND COUNT TO THREE SO EVERYBODY CAN PUT PUT THEIR HANDS UP.
— Goat lord (@deadmau5) July 9, 2016
Whether Deadmau5 was mocking other artists or the poll itself, Deadmau5 may get more votes than he anticipated from this charade. So what do you say… let’s get Deadmau5 to be #1 this year.
https://twitter.com/EasyVC/status/751567928223473664
This isn’t the first time Deadmau5 has taken shots at the DJ Mag poll, and it likely won’t be the last. He’s long been outspoken about how little a popularity-vote ranking has to do with actual talent, production skill or musical impact, and this over-the-top, all-caps begging routine reads as a deliberate parody of the campaign-style pleading other artists and their labels use to rally votes every year. By exaggerating the “please vote for me” routine to an absurd degree — joking about being a “yolo cool” hype man and a glorified iPod — he’s essentially mocking the entire system from the inside while still technically participating in it.
The DJ Mag Top 100 has faced this kind of criticism for years. Because it’s an open, unrestricted online poll, the results tend to reward whichever artist and fanbase mobilizes the hardest during voting season rather than necessarily reflecting who had the biggest year musically. Deadmau5 poking fun at that reality, rather than either ignoring the poll entirely or playing along earnestly, fits his long-running online persona of calling out things in dance music culture he finds ridiculous, usually with a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor aimed right back at himself.
Fans clearly got the joke too, judging by the reactions flooding in under his tweets, with plenty of people jumping in to egg him on rather than take the “campaign” seriously, including one fan’s mock “done” tweet showing off a screenshot of votes cast in his favor. Whether or not the bit actually moved the needle on his final ranking, it’s a solid reminder that even a decade-plus into his career, Deadmau5 hasn’t lost his knack for turning a straightforward music-industry ritual into a bit that plenty of fans were more than happy to play along with.
