twenty one pilots for President
With the elections starting soon and band twenty one pilots’ Blurryface tour ending quickly, band members Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun made a Twitter poll. At the end of the poll, however, there was a surprising twist.
November 6, 2015
The presidential elections are right around the corner, and from Oct. 28 to Oct. 29, twenty one pilots got in on the action. With the recent new Twitter update of casting polls that people can vote in, twenty one pilots’ two band members, lead singer Tyler Joseph and drummer Josh Dun, created a poll. It came with three hashtags, one of them even trending worldwide – #TOPdebate, #IVotedTyler, and #IVotedJosh.
Basically, Joseph and Dun’s poll was simple – although the question wasn’t explicitly stated in the actual tweet. Would you vote Tyler for President of the United States, or Josh? The poll was released at 10 p.m. EST and stayed up for 24 hours. It would close around the end of the last concert in the Blurryface tour, in Saint Louis, Missouri. Of course, the rapidly growing fan base had a field day with this – much like the actual presidential candidates, there were videos created, “VOTE SO-AND-SO” campaign posters created, and #TOPdebate trended worldwide for a few hours.
Even Joseph and Dun had gotten fully into the festivities. They changed their Twitter icons to their campaign photos, and had small debate videos that were posted to the official Twitter, @twentyonepilots, throughout the day. The debate videos discussed subjects such as the “red bull policy” and “student loans gone. Forever,” as Tyler Joseph states. Then, they edited campaign videos that were also posted. The videos were no more than 2 minutes at most, and all of the videos were comedic and light-hearted.
When the polls closed, everyone who had voted received a notification that the polls were closed. 261,857 people voted. One person changed the entire vote. And, shockingly, that one vote changed so little, that the results still showed 50/50 – either both Tyler and Josh had won that Thursday, or they had both lost. Dun pulled ahead by that single vote, but it wasn’t enough to fully sway the polls in Dun’s favor.
Unanimously, they both decided they had lost. So, on their very last concert of the Blurryface tour, they both had to take up what the loser had to do; in the original post, whoever won would get to tattoo their name on the other in front of their live audience. With shouts from the crowd, they both tattooed the other’s knee, and they closed out their presidential campaigns as losers. Yet, even though they ended up with new tattoos and a tie in the polls, they still had fun with it and now have each other’s name on their legs. Permanently.