This week’s leading story has centered on the results of the year’s DJ Mag polls, with Belgian-Greek duo Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike‘s highly contested placement in the #1 spot. From vicious social media outpourings to the stories of festival attendees who were bum-rushed by the group’s iPad-wielding employees, the general consensus about DVLM’s legitimacy is anything but positive.
Now, several days after the results were officially released, we have finally received comments from management themselves. In her statement, Debby Wilmsen admits to engaging in promotional campaigns to secure their votes, but says that it was ultimately their status as artists that won them first place.
We have indeed conducted promotional campaigns, like all the other DJs. But Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike have deservedly won. Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike now travel all around the world. Wherever they are, they sell out the show in no time. That’s why they have won, not because the of the iPad votes. It’s fun to win, not to lose.
Next, Het Laatste Nieuws spoke to one of the infamous iPad girls:
We were sometimes 60 girls across the locality and the most effective areas were the schools. We visited in the breaks and asked students to vote. I earned 10 euro per hour doing it.
It seems that despite the management’s admittance to creating these campaigns, they fail to acknowledge any of their ethical misdeeds. Even though their aggressive and almost bewildering attempts to corner students while at school and harass festival goers with their votes were legal, they did not embody fair play in any sense of the term. They made a concerted – and expensive – effort to directly take advantage of people who they knew would be too indifferent to refuse. This kind of bullshit (pardon me) is something that anyone with a real passion for the community or music would easily detect and refuse to be a part of. It’s clear from the above conversations, that DVLM’s management, team, and DJ Mag’s knowing list curators are not these kind of people.
To them, the ends justify the desperate, silly and underhanded means.
For more information on why this competition is terrible, visit this link! 🙂
