GameStop Be A Star Sweepstakes
The GameStop "Be a Star" Sweepstakes was a competition run by the video game retailer GameStop to promote Guitar Hero: World Tour, which Chris entered around October 2008. The competition required the entrant to send in a photograph of themselves in a "guitar hero pose".
First prize was a $400 GameStop gift certificate. Rumors also circulated that the winner would star in Guitar Hero: World Tour; these proved to be incorrect.
Several trolls caught sight of Chris's entry and, mistakenly believing that the person with the most votes would indeed star in the Guitar Hero game, they encouraged people to vote for him by posting on /b/ and ED, hoping to troll gamers everywhere by permanently marring a hit release with Chris's fat autistic presence.
Despite some disputes between trolls as well as some warnings to GameStop's management about what was transpiring, Chris went on to win the competition.
In a later video he thanked his fans for voting him, he announced the $400 gift card would be shared with the congregation of his church. Chris ended up spending only a little less than half on his congregation — buying a copy of Animal Crossing City Folk ($50), plus two copies of Wii Music ($100) with a Wii Speak accessory ($30) for a grand total of $180 — with the remaining $220 going to himself[citation needed].
Although his victory is largely considered a major failure in trolling efforts, it did have the unintended side effect of reaffirming Chris's belief that he has a huge, dedicated fanbase. This should make trolling somewhat easier, as Chris is even more inclined to open up to his supposed legions of fans, and some trolls have used his victory in the contest as leverage to guilt him into doing things like giving interviews or drawing more comics.
See also
- Captain's Log, Stardate December 28th, 2008
- PaRappa the Rapper contest — A similar contest Chris entered the year before.
- Sonic the Hedgehog Watch & Win Sweepstakes