Globalvision Season 9

The 9th season of the Globalvision Song Contest (also stylized as GV9 or Globalvision IX) that strated officially on October 26th, 2018 with the finale being held on November 24th of the same year. This one became the most controversial one due to the ban of the game on GagaDaily in the middle of the season. In the end the finale could be held on another platform, Tapatalk, and it didn't have a major impact on the results, with only a few withdrawals or disqualifications.

28 countries were ment to participate at the very beginning of the season, but in the end 23 made it to the final. Greece and Faroe Islands were on the first list of participants but both withdrew before the announcement of the first songs, probably because they didn't send a song on time. It would have been the first time that an autonomous country or region participated in the contest, as Faroe Islands are officially part of the Kingdom of Denmark. (Not counting Kosovo in this matter as it has declared independence from Serbia, making it the only not fully recognized country to have ever participate in the contest rather than an autonomous country). Portugal, New Zealand and Dominican Republic were disqualified before the final after having their songs released.

New participants that appeared for the first time in this season and made it to the final were: @rumours, @TOMP and @Infinity Wave.

The winner of this contest was Ava Max with her song "My Way who represented the United States, being this the first victory of the country and also the first victory for a non-European country. @bloodygrammys was the user that took the price, being this also his first victory. Australia and the Netherlands came very close to the victory, with 3 and 5 points of difference from the winner respectively.

Theme
Yin yang was the main theme for this season, with the main symbol of this philisophy being used for almost every visual of the season, including the logo and the images with the points. Black and white colors were mainly used for the country names to remain close to the symbol.



Tapatalk mess
On November 12th, the game was closed on GagaDaily by the mod @Haroon, due to a break of rules of the forum by one of the participants and the later cover up made by other participants of the game. It was actually @TheAlpha the one that broke the rules, as he was banned and he wanted to remain present in during the season, he secretly made a new account @Pantera. No one knew about his double account until a few weeks later, so as everyone thought he was banned and that @Pantera was a new participant, the host proposed to let him participate even though he was unable to post on the thread. That way he had two countries chosen, Dominican Republic for his banned account and New Zealand for @Pantera.

As songs were revealed and voting was already open, some of the participants started to suspect the attitude of @Pantera, as he treated some of them in a similar way @theAlpha did, and also the fact that he edited many of his posts in the same way was even more suspicious. That led to speculation until it was finally confirmed, but still that confirmation was edited so only a few participants that were present in the forum in that moment could actually know about it, because he later edited his posts so no one else could read it. But the host didn't find fair his double participation, so Dominican Republic was disqualified on November 11th.

The paticipants that knew about this still joked about @Pantera in a subtle way, but soon it became obvious what was going on for more persons. This whole mess led to final intervention of the mod @Haroon, well known in the forum for being usually strict about the rules. He investigated the whole conversations, as mods are allowed to see the texts that were posted before they were edited, so he actually found out what was going on. He even talked with some of the participants that found out about the double account of @TheAlpha, but he finally chose to punish the game and closed the thread because no one reported @Pantera. Due to this incident, the host had also lost his Community Committee status.

A day later, as the game couldn't remain on GagaDaily at least for that season, @TeenIdle contacted all participants by direct messages and told them that the game would continue on the app Tapatalk. Many participants joined the app just to follow the rest of the season, but others decided to send their final points and just get the results after the final by a direct message on GagaDaily. That way everything went still as planned but the ban took out fun of the ceremony, as many participants didn't attend.

Final
The finale was held on Tapatalk on November 24th, 2018. 3 countries were disqualified after being drawn: Portugal due to not submitting their votes on time, would have been 4th in the draw; New Zealand and Dominican Republic would have been 9th and 14th respectively, but both were disqualified for being the reason of the ban of the contest on GagaDaily.

For the first time ever, a different jury vote system was used, due to the lack of jury members apart from the host @teenidle. Instead of the usual format of points given to only the top 10 countries of each jury member, this time each country got points depending on their position in the top 23 of the host, with the favorite country of the host being given 23 points and the least favorite 1 point. With the old format the winner would have been Australia instead of United States, that would have ended 3rd, 1 point behind the Netherlands.

Uniqueness award
The award was announced during the final ceremony on Tapatalk held on November 24th, 2018. It was won by Mónica Naranjo who represented Spain with her song Europa 4.0, the user who had chosen this entry was @Maic, being this his first award.

Globbys
During this season it was announced by the host @teenidle, that a new bucnh of awards was going to be introduced to the game. Those awards received the name of Globbys similar to the Grammys. Right after the last songs participating in season 9 where announced, the host also announced the Globby nominations, with around 15 categories posted. These categories were:


 * Best Winning Song
 * Best Runner-up
 * Best Pop Girl Bop
 * Best Hunty Bop
 * Best Duo / Group
 * Best Scandinavian
 * Best Central / Western European
 * Best Balkan
 * Best American
 * Best Eastern
 * Best Ballad
 * Best Electropop / EDM
 * Best Chill Bop
 * Best Undeserved Flop
 * Best New Act

Results will appear on the page of the Globbys

Other participants
@Johnny Wayne, currently known as @Sharpay, got disqualified for not submitting his votes on time. He was representing Portugal with the song "Faz Gostoso" by Blaya.

@Blue Madonna withdrew after participating in season 8 and right after confirming initial participation when the season 9 started, due to personal reasons, citing that he needed a break. He eventually would come back in season 10.

South Korean entry
When voting was already open it came public that the South Korean entry "Whatta Man (Good Man)" by the girl group I.O.I, had a second video that was deleted. It had over 80 million views meaning that it broke the 50 million streams rule, but as almost none of the participants knew the song before it was sent to the game, it was still granted permission to remain in the game.

K3
When the belgian entry was announced, it received many negative comments meanwhile other participants appreciated the choice as K3 was already a well-known band in the Benelux, reminding them of their childhoods. The song itself didn't cause any major impact on the results as it ended last with just 12 points, but with the video and its lack of seriousness, this entry became quite iconic and memorable. Even the promo made by @hausofcy became a meme as it was very simple.