Why Woz Is My Favorite Reality TV Star
We thought only geeks would dig Steve Wozniak when the rotund Apple cofounder took to Dancing with the Stars. But with his clumsy moves, injuries, and conspiracy theories, he's proving perfect fodder for reality TV!
The latest on Woz, who performed last week with a fractured foot: He's going on air tonight having pulled a hamstring and accused DWTS producers of rigging the vote.
Last week, he emailed supporters claiming that results were getting manipulated to juice ratings:
The producers play games to get viewers and don't disclose the numbers. If they disclosed the numbers, it would be less of a game, but still suspect. If tomorrow, they claim I'm in the bottom 2 dance teams, including viewer votes, I believe that it's an outright lie....
I'm sure they want me in this dance-off to get higher Tuesday ratings, and they have preplanned it so that I win. If my leg acts up tomorrow, they will either have to announce another pair as being the lowest or send me home, and I don't think they will give me up.
He's since apologized:
I have been around the internet conspiracy theory forums for too long.
We know how easy it is to espouse a lot of ideas and build conspiracy theory. No conspiracy theory can be proven wrong, so there are always plenty of die-hard followers.
Yesterday I wrote my suspicions of the secret Dancing With The Stars audience vote tabulations. I wrote that the producers were liars, simply because I truly believed in that possibility, not because I had a shred of evidence.
I hurt a lot of honest people.
If anyone's manipulating the results, it's surely Woz, who's using his website, email list, and Facebook group to decimate the competition — at least the competition for online attention. Did you know that Lil' Kim was competing in this season? Belinda Carlisle? Lawrence Taylor? If you did, it's probably only because Woz has blogged about them. Will he dance on, despite his injury? Woz recently complained about the press's obsession with the health of his partner in founding Apple, Steve Jobs. Maybe he was just jealous his own health wasn't getting more attention.
(Photo by Janet Wozniak)