Pitbull to visit Kodiak, Alaska, Wal-Mart after social-media prank

The Internet has spoken: Pitbull shall perform in Alaska.

In a product-promo move, the “International Love” rapper, real name Armando Christian Perez, agreed to visit the Wal-Mart that generated the most Facebook likes.

Sounds fun, right? How could social-media democracy possibly go awry?

Enter Boston Phoenix writer David Thorpe, a man so put off by celebrity marketing stunts that he rallied Web troops to “Help us help Wal-Mart exile Pitbull to Alaska.”

“As of now, the Kodiak Walmart has over 22,000 new ‘likes’ on Facebook, putting it far ahead of any other Walmart in the nation — far ahead of Kodiak’s actual population, in fact,” Thorpe wrote.

By Pitbull’s deadline, more than 70,000 users had liked the store, located on a southern isle of the Frontier State with a population of about 6,200.

The Miami-based artist responded to Thorpe’s prank in a YouTube video posted on his Facebook page: “I heard that Kodiak, Alaska has the most likes due to someone that thinks he was playing a prank. I said, ‘Okay, great, this sounds pretty good.’ You got to understand I will go anywhere in the world for my fans,” adding that Thorpe too is invited.

Mr. Worldwide is a classy, classy celeb.

Details of the trip are still being worked out, a Wal-Mart representative said.

“I guess my one regret is that everyone on the corporate side will probably spin this as a Big Social Media Win, which is kind of gross,” Thorpe told the Associated Press.

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Follow Danielle Paquette on Twitter @DpaquetteLA. Follow the Ministry of Gossip on Twitter @LATcelebs.

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