5SOS leading votes for MTV VMA
5 Seconds of Summer are leading the votes in MTV’s new VMA award category, ‘Song of the Summer’, for their latest single She’s Kinda Hot.
According to a live voting tally on the official MTV website, the She’s Kinda Hot music video is placing first among the list of nominated artists, which include Fifth Harmony, Jack U and Demi Lovato. As of the time of publication, She’s Kinda Hot has amassed over 1.5 million fan votes.
Fifth Harmony’s Worth It is coming at a close second, with over 1.4 million votes.
It seems that coordinated, fan-based power plays a huge role in affecting the voting outcome. Although She’s Kinda Hot has over 7 million views of YouTube since its video release early this month, it is only a fraction compared to hundred millions of views garnered by their competitors. The Weeknd’s Can’t Feel My Face video, released a week before 5SOS, already has over 25 million views, while fellow nominee Taylor Swift’s has hit 459 million views with her hit Bad Blood.
As The Verge points out, She’s Kinda Hot is the only track on the list that hasn’t appeared on Spotify’s Top 50 list for daily streams, and one of only two nominated songs that isn’t on Apple Music’s Top 100 list.
Additionally, She’s Kinda Hot peaked on the Billboard charts at no. 34 – the lowest ranking out of all 12 nominated songs.
Interestingly, OMI’s Cheerleader is ranking last with a dismal 815 votes, despite reigning at the top of the Billboard charts this week.
The ‘Song of the Summer’ category was only announced by MTV yesterday, and is the only category which allows the general public to cast their votes via Twitter or Instagram. Users are encouraged to vote up to 12 times per user each day, using the hashtag of the song name, followed by the letters ‘VMA.’ In the case for Australia’s own rock sensations, the hashtag #ShesKindaHotVMA has been thrown about Twitter and Instagram over 1.5 million times.
The winner will be revealed live during the VMA’s pre-show at L.A.’s Microsoft Theatre. Australian viewers can catch the full VMAs on August 31st, aired exclusively for MTV on Foxtel.
