Fug Madness 2012: Dewey Defeats Truman, a.k.a., What Almost Ran Before Vanessa’s Last-Second Comeback

You guys did it again: Fug Madness brought all the drama that the actual March Madness tourney totally lacked. The final battle between Vanessa Hudgens and Lindsay Lohan raged so ruthlessly that, ten hours after we posted the matchup, we STILL had copious lead changes. Throughout the day we got countless tweets from people who voted and then discovered they’d broken an absolute deadlock. Vanessa started out in the lead, then Lindsay came on strong, then Hudge again, and on it went — twenty votes here, three votes there. Around 2 p.m., Lohan jumped out to a 51 percent haul, and given that it had been 50-50 up until that point, I told Jessica I thought that was the game right there. Four hours later, Hudgens had not only closed the gap but surged ahead again. On and on it went, through and long past the anticlimactic Kentucky-Kansas game. When I went to bed, with Kevin cutting away on our One Fugging Moment montage, I still thought we had a potential Dewey Defeats Truman issue on our hands.

So who is it? Whose fug reigns supreme?

Last year, I suggested this was Hudgens’ destiny, and I came tantalizingly close to donning a turban and calling myself Miss Cleo. But when the polls closed, Lilo had clung to her 51 percent, and Vanessa’s campaign died a mighty, feisty death.

In fact…

Those photos are oddly, eerily similar. Do you see it, too? Chilling. Perhaps it was destiny. Congratulations, Lindsay. Some of Fug Nation declined to vote for you out of mercy; many others voted FOR you for much the same reason, as our past Fug Madness winners — in order: Bai Ling, Aubrey O’Day, Amber Rose, Taylor Momsen — have dropped off the radar immediately after, and so they figured you and the radar could use a similar break from one another. Still others just flat-out hated your wardrobe (and hair choices) more. In the end, your amassed fuggery was enough to put down the most putrid arsenal of trousers I’ve seen in many a year, and we suppose if you can’t have an acting career, at least you can have that.

And now, the montage, the fromage, the melange: “One Fugging Moment.”

NEVER FORGET. Should you need further procrastinatory material, or want to compare Lindsay’s run to that of past winners (and see where she got knocked out in years past, including a surprise first-round defeat in ’08), allow me to present links to other fuggers’ triumphs: One Fugging Bai (2008), One Fugging Aubrey (2009), One Fugging Amber (2010), and One Fugging Momsen (2011).

Thanks to everyone for enjoying Fug Madness as much as we do — or at least pretending to — and thank you again for helping us win, in dominating fashion, The Atlantic’s inaugural Best of the Brackets (we even beat the Muppets, people! THE MUPPETS!). Fug Nation is the best. You know why we think this is the best of the brackets? Because of YOU. See you next March. Well, actually, we’ll see you later today, and tomorrow, and the next day, but… you feel me.