Misha Collins Trolls His Fandom. In Other News, Water is Wet and the Sky is Blue.
Misha Collins has a really hilarious Twitter feed with some 100,000+ followers. (He's also an actor on some TV show with a cool car or something as well.) While he will sometimes make an effort to use his powers for good there are other times when he uses them for the lulz.

This is one of those times.

I can't find the original tweet, but apparently Misha claimed that if that show with the cool car got on the cover of TV Guide, the network was planning to gift him with a live rhino and he promised to share it with his followers. The minions presumably massed on whatever online poll was involved and the TV Guide cover was won and the minions were instructed to send SASEs to obtain their fragment of rhino.

So we get this tweet:

Has anyone who sent in their plastic-lined envelope not yet received their rhino bit? I'm experimenting with something weird... Being fair.

Everybody who sent in an envelope before the arbitrary & unannounced cut-off date was sent a puzzle piece with writing on the back and somehow the minions had to contact others and put together the pieces to acquire an email address.

[EDIT: This is what people were sent. Thanks to galletas for the image link.]

This was the email they got in response:

Dearest Rhino Puzzlers
Your clever participation in Project Rhino has been most pleasing.
And now it is time for the next phase…the RHINO SCAVENGER HUNT…
RULES AND REGULATIONS (these are designed to optimize confusion and red-tape):
As you have already demonstrated your strengths working in teams, we will continue this adventure IN TEAMS with points being awarded according to the master list of scavenger items below.
Now, because I am capricious and arbitrary, I have changed the rules already. I said the first 200 people to respond could go on to the next round, but that’s bullshit. I lied. Everyone can go on to the next round. However, I’m going to award points to the teams according to how quickly they deciphered my email address and sent me a message.
Team 3 – 50 points
Team 2 – 45 points
Team 5 – 40 points
Team 4 – 35 points
Team 1 – 30 points
(There is no team 6. I lied about that too.)
1. Each item below must be submitted electronically to this endangeredspecies email address ON OR BEFORE 2:27 PM, Saturday, February 18th, Pacific Standard Time. Late submissions will be scoffed at and disqualified.
2. All photographic/video submissions must be undoctored! No photo-shop! If I determine that you have forged any of these items, i.e. digitally layered an image of a cockroach on a croissant over an image of the Eiffel Tower, I will deduct 50 points from your team’s total score and I will make a voodoo doll of you and stick it with pins. This is not a photo manipulation contest. If you want the points, you must really have a photo of a person on the Yangtze holding a puzzle piece.
3. All photos require you to show one of your team’s puzzle pieces with the team number showing in order to be credited the points.

4. Once you submit an image to me. I may put it up on a website or in a museum, so if you don’t want pictures of your naughty bits circulated on the web, don’t send them to me.
5. Only one of each item can be submitted from each team. Duplicates will be discarded.
6. Only those individuals on a team who submit at least one scavenger hunt item will be considered a “member of the winning team.” In other words, if you are currently a member of team 5, but you don’t personally submit, by email, one of the items listed below, you will not, in the final tally, be considered a member of the winning team. You must participate to be a winner.
7. PLEASE REMEMBER TO IDENTIFY YOURSELF AND YOUR TEAM NUMBER IN ORDER TO RECEIVE CREDIT FOR YOUR EFFORTS!
8. All entries will be judged by me, Misha Collins, and I will determine whether the entry is valid. My decision will be final - no matter how many times you email, pleading for another chance, there will be no mercy.
9. The team that has accumulated the most points by the deadline will be the winning team. There will be only one winning team. Second and third place are not “silver” and “bronze,” they are simply losers. This is a cut-throat, winner-take-all situation.
10. Winners will receive the ever-lasting admiration of their peers and something awesome from me. I’m not going to tell you awesome thing is yet (because I don’t know), but I promise it will make your friends jealous.

The full list of items can be read here. It really does include A photo of a person holding an authentic rhino puzzle piece in a small, motor-less watercraft on the Yangtze River - 27 points. (It also includes Written or photographic proof of the existence of life after death - 16 points.)

As it turns out, each team was roughly 61 people and there are only 22 items on the list.

hils is very unhappy about this.

Someone asked Misha for clarification at the con yesterday and he said he hadn't really thought about the fact that he'd requested fewer items than there were team members but that he was sticking by the rule that anyone sending in a duplicate wouldn't count as being on the winning team. When asked what about the people who could only do something someone else has submitted his response was allegedly 'fuck them'.

So, naturally, the team members are now falling over themselves making sure they're the one to find whatever it is and not giving a shit about anyone else on the team. I've already had one girl jump in and submit the item I was supposed to be doing (giving me pretty much a 'fuck you' response when I called her on it). It's incredibly divisive and causing a lot of friction amongst people who were getting along just fine two days ago.

Sadly this just reeks of a social experiment to me. I'm just imagining Misha watching us all turning on each other and knowing that he made it happen with just a few words. It's just really disappointed me. I thought he was better than that.

Meanwhile on spnanonhaven, the nonnymice are laughing their asses off.

It should be interesting indeed to see how this develops, since we're not even at the deadline yet. Given that the 18th of February isn't on Saturday until the year 2012, this may be going on for a while . . .

ETA: Link to the original rhino promise has been added. Hat tip to omgpolarbear.