WV News REEL LOL Video Contest: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the WV News REEL LOL Video Contest?

WV News, a newsroom publisher whose headquarters stand at 324 Hewes Avenue in Clarksburg, West Virginia, with mail reaching it at PO Box 2000, Clarksburg, WV 26301, ran the REEL LOL Video Contest as a public vote on viewer-made videos. The ballot lived on Second Street, the engagement platform the publisher also uses for its county Best of ballots and prize drawings, under WV News' own account at wvnews.secondstreetapp.com.

The module behind it was Second Street's user-generated-content voting build for video entries, the shape a platform offers when the thing being judged is footage submitted by the audience rather than a list of local businesses. Visitors to the page saw the plain title REEL LOL Video Contest, a short invite reading "Check it out now!", and the entries themselves. No county or city tag rode along in the name, which sets it apart from nearly everything else the publisher stages on the same account.

Format-wise the programme sits in the same broad best-of territory as the publisher's other ballots, though the object under judgement is a piece of moving picture rather than a shop, a restaurant or a civic institution. That makes it a single-topic community vote: the whole ballot exists to rank video clips, and the core structural facts sit in the table below.

What dates governed the 2025 REEL LOL vote, and what stays unprinted?

The documented run opened on March 1, 2025 and shut on April 15, 2025, both bounds taken from the ballot's own schedule. The contest now sits closed, so the address presents a finished edition rather than a live form.

This is the first confirmed edition; whether it returns next year is not yet published; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

Several omissions matter to anyone planning around a possible future run. No slate of categories for the video entries ever appeared in the ballot text the publisher put out. Nothing accompanies the programme about how many times one supporter may back an entry, whether returns on later days were allowed, or who qualified to take part. And no printed note describes an entry or nomination round ahead of the public voting stretch.

A revival, if it comes, would surface through WV News' own channels, since every Second Street programme the publisher stages gathers under the same account at wvnews.secondstreetapp.com. Watching there beats guessing at a calendar that nobody has printed, because the publisher announces each new promotion, ballot or drawing, on that shared account before anywhere else.

How does a supporter cast a vote on this ballot?

Voting on this ballot followed the plainest public-vote path. A supporter loaded the REEL LOL page at wvnews.secondstreetapp.com/REEL-LOL-Video-Contest while the run was live, looked over the video entries posted there, picked a favorite and registered a choice for it straight from that entry's spot on the page. Casting the choice cost nothing; the format is a public vote rather than a paid entry or a members-only poll.

Because the confirmed run closed in April 2025, those steps describe how the ballot behaved while it lasted. Should WV News stage another edition, its ballot pages are where fresh instructions would appear, so lean on whatever the live page shows then rather than on memory of this run. The REEL LOL page itself never displayed whether a sign-in step sat in front of the vote control.

Second Street ballots load in an ordinary browser, so a phone handles the vote as readily as a desktop; testing the page on your own device removes any doubt before a choice counts toward the tally. That same portability is worth something to an entrant too, since supporters reached by text or social app can act on the link the moment they see it instead of waiting until they reach a computer.

How does this video ballot sit beside WV News' other contests?

The same Second Street account that carried REEL LOL hosts a crowded calendar of WV News promotions. The county Best of ballots lead it: 2026 Best of Upshur County ran from July 8 to September 22, 2026; 2026 Best of Marion County followed from August 21 to October 2, 2026; 2026 Best of Preston County opened on September 3 and closes on October 20, 2026; and Best of Mineral 2026 wrapped up between May 8 and June 26, 2026. Each is a nomination-and-voting ballot aimed at one county's readership inside the publisher's West Virginia coverage area.

Around those sit prize draws and one-off events. The 2026 Q3 $5,000 Sweepstakes ran from July 27 to August 26, 2026, the 2026 Q4 $15,000 Sweepstakes is slated for November 2 through December 9, 2026, and the 2026 All County Sports Awards Ceremony collected responses as a survey from May 18 to June 22, 2026.

Within this line-up REEL LOL differs in its subject. Where the county ballots ask readers to pick favourite local businesses and institutions, this contest asked them to judge moving pictures, and its title carried no county name at all. Readers comparing public-vote programmes across the state can also look at 2026 Best of Harrison, covering the county where WV News itself is based, at Best in the Tri-State, a best-of ballot from a different publisher, the Herald-Dispatch, at the ABB Scarecrow Contest in Bridgeport, another narrow single-topic community vote, or at 2025 River Cities Best of the Best, a further West Virginia best-of programme.

Getting more backing for an entry in the video contest

Backers of an entry in this contest work with a simple reality: the ballot tallies direct public support, and nothing published suggests any judging layer that could override the count. Visibility therefore does the heavy lifting. Sharing the entry link while voting runs, rallying a school, workplace or friend group around a clip, and concentrating outreach in the ballot's opening days instead of holding everything back for the closing stretch are the levers a supporter actually controls.

For broader technique, the site's guide to getting more votes online collects methods that transfer across public ballots. Paid vote services exist as well, and the overview of buying votes online explains how such purchases fit into a campaign, with the legal footing covered separately. No paid push of any size guarantees a win, since the tally on WV News' ballot alone decides the outcome.