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Ellen's selfie for the win: the Oscars are must-meme TV and Hollywood knows it Ellen's selfie for the win: the Oscars are must-meme TV and Hollywood knows it
(6 months later)
After an arduous campaign resulted in his After an arduous campaign resulted in his 2012 re-election, Barack Obama thanked his supporters with an inspirational tweet: “Four more years”. The “humblebrag” earned Obama a massive 781,436 retweets – a record high for Twitter. The president was a officially a man of the internet people, a new standard for those who matter. No wonder the Academy Awards chased the same epic goal.
2012 re-election, Barack Obama thanked his supporters with an inspirational Last night, of course, and on purpose, Ellen Degeneres obliterated the hug RT’d ’round the world by tweeting a photo straight from the aisle at the Oscars. Brad Pitt, Angelina, Jolie, Julia Roberts, Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Channing Tatum, Bradley Cooper, Jared Leto and Lupita Nyong’o, fresh off her Best Supporting Actress win: they all crammed into Degeneres’s “selfie” – that 21st-century reduction of self-portraiture that’s both groan-worthy and essential to befriending the Twitter masses. Half an hour and a couple hundred thousand retweets later, Obama’s record had been shattered and the internet was more or less upside-down.
tweet: “Four more years”. The “humblebrag” earned Obama a massive 781,436 “So?” says the grump waiting on the telecast’s Nielsen ratings to publish from a dusty dot matrix printer.
retweets – a record high for Twitter. The president was a officially a man of the internet people, a new standard for those who matter. No wonder the Academy Awards chased the same epic goal. So, behold: the Oscars just earned bank in the form of internet culture’s greatest currency. No, not Bitcoin.
Last night, of course, and on purpose, Each year, producers, filmmakers, media pundits and loud-mouthed audience members damn the Academy Awards for being a show that serves absolutely no one. The ceremony is too long, the Best Picture nominees are too “art house”, the host is too mean/too crass/too gentle/too stuck-up the asses of the celebrities he or she is supposed to be skewering. The Oscars are pointless.
Ellen Degeneres obliterated the hug RT’d ’round the world by tweeting a photo straight from the aisle at the Oscars. So pointless, in fact, that nearly a million people anxiously waited for said host – too plugged-in, it turned out, and not in a trolly way – to post a picture on the internet. Those were nearly a million people (now 2.6 million people, and counting) who were already glued to their television screens, watching live, embracing the Oscars as must-watch TV. And you can bet they were the young people who everyone’s certain only care about superhero movies.
Brad Pitt, Angelina, Jolie, Julia Roberts, Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron came prepared to strike Internet gold this year. Sure, ratings were up in 2013, but backlash deemed that a flub: host Seth MacFarlane antagonized audiences with comedy “bits”, while Internet target number one Anne Hathaway was front and center in Les Misérables tributes, and the ceremony’s undeniably GIF-worthy moment – a one-second loop to be shared across Tumblr blogs for all eternity – was the schadenfreude pratfall of America’s sweetheart, Jennifer Lawrence. To be sure, 2014 would be an uphill battle to win back respect.
Meryl Streep, Channing Tatum, Bradley Cooper, Jared Leto and Lupita Nyong’o, Zadan and Meron knew theatrical showstoppers, knew spectacle of the Hollywood “golden age” ilk, but they didn’t know how to appeal to the Internet-savvy, an ironic and silly bunch that still savors the celebratory they’re-just-like-us vibe of the Oscars, that still influence a show’s lasting impact as much as Us Weekly readers pack a supermarket checkout line.
fresh off her Best Supporting Actress win: they all crammed into Degeneres’s The producers must have learned a thing or two from their tremendous hit, Sound of Music Live!, a true TV event that remained faithful to the musical’s spirit while winking an eye at its own stupidity. Their live musicaldemanded “live-tweeting” from on-lookers, dropping in hashtags, flooding YouTube with short promos, and promising an “Is this really happening?” level of camp. Likewise, last night’s Oscars weren’t waiting for the web to meme-ify – the show flipped the switches, provoked the stars in their midst, prefabbed the GIFs and spelled out the hashtags. And it all worked, for once.
“selfie” – that 21st-century reduction of self-portraiture that’s both groan-worthy and essential to befriending the Twitter masses. Half an hour Ellen’s built-in Twitter appeal didn’t hurt, but the group photo was only the beginning. Dishing out pizza to Hollywood’s absolute A-list and watching them scarf it down in tuxedos and ballgowns? That’s the kind of oddball stunt concocted in the trenches of Reddit. (Macaulay Culkin actually pulled the same move last December.) At one point, Ellen popped out from behind Leonardo DiCaprio – controlled chaos frozen in time, prepared especially for the now image-heavy Twitter.
and a couple hundred thousand retweets later, Obama’s record had been shattered The rest of the show fed off Ellen’s meme energy. A noticeable extension of the acceptance speech time limits paved the way for inspirational quotes (to be inevitably plastered, LOLcat-style, over telecast screencaps in the AM) and snippets of social fun, like Cate Blanchett and Julia Roberts’s hashtag in-joke “#SuckIt”. It didn’t hurt that seats were assigned to maximize internet darlings: sprinkled throughout the selfie participants were Benedict Cumberbatch (overlord of the Cumberbitches), the object of the web’s affection, Michael Fassbender, and Matthew McConaughey, who spouted his own viral catchphrase, “All right, all right, all right”, during his acceptance speech.
and the internet was more or less upside-down. Forget if the Academy Awards “gets it right” or not – this is an awards show that’s evolving in the right direction. It is a telecast for an Academy sporting members like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lena Dunham and Milla Jovovich, who use social media to interact directly with their fans and use it well. If the Oscars want a legitimate audience down the road – 2.6 million and many, many more watching live, plugged-in and laughing with the audience – then siphoning Twitter followers is a must. Making a tweet count is a thankless task, but it’s not impossible. There’s a middle ground between rigid rituals filled with overly written banter … and factory-manufactured, legitimately buzzworthy skits. The 2014 Academy Awards figured out how to juggle both and reap the retweets: let the stars loose. #NoJoke.
“So?” says the grump waiting on the
telecast’s Nielsen ratings to publish from a dusty dot matrix printer.
So, behold: the Oscars just earned bank in
the form of internet culture’s greatest currency. No, not Bitcoin.
Each year, producers, filmmakers, media
pundits and loud-mouthed audience members damn the Academy Awards for being a
show that serves absolutely no one.
The ceremony is too long, the Best Picture nominees are too “art house”, the
host is too mean/too crass/too gentle/too stuck-up the asses of the celebrities
he or she is supposed to be skewering. The Oscars are pointless.
So pointless, in fact, that nearly a
million people anxiously waited for said host – too plugged-in, it turned out, and not in a trolly way – to post a picture on the internet.
Those were nearly a million people (now 2.6 million people, and counting) who
were already glued to their television screens, watching live, embracing
the Oscars as must-watch TV. And you can bet they were the young people who
everyone’s certain only care about superhero movies.
Oscar producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron
came prepared to strike Internet gold this year. Sure, ratings were up in 2013,
but backlash deemed that a flub: host Seth MacFarlane antagonized audiences
with comedy “bits”, while Internet target number one Anne Hathaway was front
and center in Les Misérables tributes, and the ceremony’s undeniably GIF-worthy
moment – a one-second loop to be shared across Tumblr blogs for all eternity –
was the schadenfreude pratfall of America’s sweetheart, Jennifer Lawrence. To
be sure, 2014 would be an uphill battle to win back respect.
Zadan and Meron knew theatrical
showstoppers, knew spectacle of the Hollywood “golden age” ilk, but they didn’t
know how to appeal to the Internet-savvy, an ironic and silly bunch that still
savors the celebratory they’re-just-like-us vibe of the Oscars, that still
influence a show’s lasting impact as much as Us Weekly readers pack a
supermarket checkout line.
The producers must have learned a
thing or two from their tremendous hit, Sound of Music Live!, a true TV
event that remained faithful to the musical’s spirit while winking an eye at
its own stupidity. Their live musical demanded “live-tweeting” from on-lookers, dropping in hashtags, flooding YouTube with short promos, and promising an “Is this really happening?” level of camp. Likewise, last night’s Oscars weren’t waiting for the web to meme-ify – the show flipped the switches, provoked the stars in their midst, prefabbed the GIFs and spelled out the hashtags. And it all worked, for once.
Ellen’s built-in Twitter appeal didn’t
hurt, but the group photo was only the beginning. Dishing out pizza to Hollywood’s
absolute A-list and watching them scarf it down in tuxedos and ballgowns? That’s the kind of oddball stunt concocted in the trenches of Reddit. (Macaulay
Culkin actually pulled the same move last December.)
At one point, Ellen popped out from behind Leonardo DiCaprio – controlled chaos
frozen in time, prepared especially for the now image-heavy Twitter.
The rest of the show fed off Ellen’s meme
energy. A noticeable extension of the acceptance speech time limits paved the
way for inspirational quotes (to be inevitably plastered, LOLcat-style, over
telecast screencaps in the AM) and snippets of social fun, like Cate Blanchett
and Julia Roberts’s hashtag in-joke “#SuckIt”. It didn’t hurt that seats were assigned to maximize internet darlings: sprinkled
throughout the selfie participants were Benedict Cumberbatch (overlord of the
Cumberbitches),
the object of the web’s affection, Michael Fassbender, and Matthew McConaughey,
who spouted his own viral catchphrase, “All right, all right, all right”,
during his acceptance speech.
Forget if the Academy Awards “gets it
right” or not – this is an awards show that’s evolving in the right direction. It is
a telecast for an Academy sporting members like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lena
Dunham and Milla Jovovich, who use social media to interact directly with their
fans and use it well. If the Oscars want a legitimate audience down the road – 2.6 million and many, many more watching live, plugged-in and laughing with the audience – then siphoning Twitter
followers is a must. Making a tweet count is a thankless task, but it’s not
impossible. There’s a middle ground between rigid rituals filled with overly
written banter … and factory-manufactured, legitimately buzzworthy skits. The
2014 Academy Awards figured out how to juggle both and reap the retweets: let
the stars loose. #NoJoke.