Top FAILS of the Year: Bieber, BP Oil Spill

70813" target=external>Justin Bieber has had a lot of accolades, but he may not be so quick to boast about the latest feather in his cap.

The FAIL blog, the Internet's bastion of blunders and embarrassments, today released its second annual lists of the year's top 10 most memorable embarassing people, moments and videos, and crowned Bieber the "Prince of FAIL in 2010."

With 44 percent of the vote, Bieber won the title by a landslide, beating both reality star Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi and embattled golfer Tiger Woods for the top spot on the list of the most memorable FAIL people. He takes the crown from singer Kanye West, who, last year, was anointed "King of FAIL" for upstaging Taylor Swift at MTV's Video Music Awards.

"We tend to celebrate some of our best, but some of our worst can be just as enlightening," said Ben Huh, CEO of the Cheezburger Network, which runs dozens of Internet humor sites including the FAIL blog.

Since 2008, the FAIL blog has paid close attention to real-life goofs and gaffes, posting videos and photos of corporate embarrassments, political faux pas and personal screw-ups.

To create the lists of the year's "failiest" antics, the FAIL blog's editorial team generates a list of 30 entries for each category and then asks the blog's community to vote on their favorites. In this year's competition for the worst of the worst, Huh said more than 190,000 votes were cast.

The Kardashian sisters of reality-show fame, startlet Lindsay Lohan and "teen advocate" turned "Dancing With the Stars" contender Bristol Palin also made the list of the top 10 most memorable FAIL people.

The BP Oil Spill took the No. 1 spot on the list of the year's top FAIL moments, followed by "Jessi Slaughter's Dad Goes Ballistic." (Eleven-year-old Slaughter became a target of Internet trolls after posting a profanity-peppered video to the Internet.)

The "Lincoln Park Rapist" ranked No. 3 on the list, no doubt boosted by Internet star Antoine Dodson and the remixed YouTube video of him ranting against the intruder who attempted to assault his sister in bed.

The "failiest" video of the year? A wince-worthy clip of a woman who takes a giant watermelon in the face when a slingshot backfires during an "Amazing Race" challenge.

It's painful to watch, but fits the blog's definition of "fail" to a T.

"The vernacular definition of fail is when somebody attemtps to be great at something, somebody attempts to succeed at something and doesn't make it," Huh said.

To see the full lists of this year's top FAIL people, moments and videos, click on to the next page.

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Administrator of BP Fund Offers Bonuses to Spill Victims Who Bypass Suits

People who have already received emergency payments and do not intend to ask for more money from the fund can sign the final release can get paid for doing so — individuals will receive $5,000 within 14 days of signing, Mr. Feinberg said, and businesses will get $25,000.

“Every single claimant will have a choice,” he said. “They ought to fit the choice to their own situation.”

Last month, Mr. Feinberg closed off applications for the first phase of the fund: the emergency payments to people and businesses.

He moved into the second phase of final payment, where people who do not want to pursue lawsuits will be able to settle for an agreed amount of past and future losses from the spill. That agreement comes with a final, lump-sum settlement, but also a promise not to sue BP or others involved in the spill.

To ease the transition, Mr. Feinberg announced at the time, victims of the spill could file for quarterly payments that, like the emergency payments, carry no limitation on the right to sue BP later.

Mr. Feinberg said he was planning to make the official announcement on Monday of the additional signing-bonus wrinkle to the final settlement plan. “This is simply a way to close the file in their own particular circumstances and move on,” he said.

He suggested that the likeliest candidates for the payment might be those who had received emergency funds and had determined that their losses have already been fully covered by the BP fund, or who believe they will not be able to properly document further losses.

To help them make that decision, he said, his team will make free legal advice available and will add to the staff at local centers for the fund to help people fill out their forms for final claims.

The Department of Justice urged Mr. Feinberg last month to clear its backlog of claims by Wednesday. Mr. Feinberg said his team had met that goal, paying about 164,000 claims out of more than 450,000 filed.

That means that more than 200,000 others were denied, mostly because of poor documentation or no documentation for their claims at all. Some 2,000 of the claims are “very suspicious,” Mr. Feinberg said, and many of those have been referred to law enforcement agencies, which last week began issuing indictments.

Mr. Feinberg said people who had been denied emergency claims would have the opportunity to gather more thorough documentation and file for permanent claims.

“One size does not fit all,” he said. “Every claimant should carefully consider your options.”

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