“I had nothing to do with it.” Theo Wargo/Getty Images
Kid Rock caused a stir on social media yesterday when he announced his intention to run for the U.S. Senate representing Michigan in 2018. It’s not clear yet whether the singer is serious about his political aspirations or just punking the internet—for what it’s worth, the Michigan GOP said it hadn’t heard anything from Rock’s team yet.
Rock (whose real name is Robert Ritchie) registered the domain name KidRockForSenate.com, which currently features a picture of the singer along with a link to buy T-shirts, hats and bumper stickers. The merchandise page is actually hosted by Warner Brothers Music, which made some people think the whole campaign was a hoax.
Whether or not Rock is for real, he’s already made one rookie mistake: He didn’t purchase every possible URL for his name—a mistake the internet immediately exploited.
Twitter user @Freeyourmindkid tweeted this urgent message to his followers last night:
But “Black Aziz Ansari” isn’t a rabid Kid Rock fan—he’s just a brilliant internet troll.
Rock and his team neglected to register the domain name KidRock4Senate.com, so somebody else did. And they redirected it to the donation page for the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), which “defend(s) and advance(s) the rights and opportunities of low-income immigrants and their family members.”
It’s not clear yet whether Black Aziz Ansari, the NILC or someone else purchased the URL: a domain registry search revealed the site was registered yesterday in Panama through Namecheap, a domain name seller and registrar in California. The names of the registrar and administrator were blocked through the WhoisGuard privacy protection service.
The NILC did not respond to an Observer request for comment
While Rock hasn’t said anything publicly about immigration, he holds staunchly Republican views. He recently visited President Donald Trump in the White House with Sarah Palin and Ted Nugent, he’s displayed the Confederate flag at concerts and earlier this year he promoted his “American Badass” grill by shooting foreign-made grills to smithereens.
Rock isn’t the only would-be politician who’s had domain name problems recently—many people seeking public office have taken steps to prevent these issues. For example, now-President Trump purchased over 3,000 domain names after his campaign began to keep his image from being tarnished online.
Rock should do the same thing if he plans to spend “All Summer Long” on the campaign trail.
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