A shoutout to everyone who voted on one of the most important elections of our lifetimes. The name for our Bay Blend manatee, who remained yet nameless after the podcast — and our beloved mascot — turned 1.
We received hundreds of votes, and there was definitely some suspicion of ballot stuffing and election fraud going that I tried to stamp out.
But in the end … we’re talking about a cartoon manatee. Can’t call the supervisor of elections for this one, they’ll tell me to get professional help.
Anyways, on to the votes. I’ll name the top 4. With 11.6 percent of the vote – Blenda. Blenda, you had a nice run, you just couldn’t run fast enough in the end of it all.
With literally just one more vote in third place, I hate to say it, is Blendjamin. That was the one I was biased toward since it was my suggestion. It actually got the first couple votes and I was thinking of stopping the count, but I didn’t. That wouldn’t be fair. The people have spoken, and Blendjamin gave his concession speech to a dwindling crowd and just called the winning candidate.
Also having to call the winner is the name that got second place, with just over 21 percent of the vote, and that is Baylee. Throughout the week I had accepted in my soul that Baylee was going to win because she had a really strong push the first three days. But she said a couple controversial things during her campaign, like her stance on whether a hot dog is a sandwich or not. I’m not going to read her opinion on that here because this is a family podcast.
But on to the winner.
Gathering close to a third of the votes, with a late push the final couple days, and the now, the official name of the Bay Blend manatee — Mateo the Potato!
Huge shoutout to Jenny Monaco from Sarasota for the suggestion! You’re a real one! The name has been growing on me throughout the week, and this weekend I had a lot of time to think about it. He does look like a Mateo, I think it works, and we’ll only pull out his full name, Mateo the Potato, when he’s about to get down and party. His professional working name on Linkedin from now on says Mateo the Bay Blend Manatee.
Once again, thank you to every single person who participated, submitted a name suggestion, and voted on the final eight names. To get so many responses and opinions from this community is just amazing, and it really shows how far this show has come in just one year. I couldn’t ask for a better group of listeners than my bay blenders. And we’re just getting started.
