Oscar Night Buzz Report: Twitter Emerges As The Destination For Everyone’s Academy Awards Take

Some aspects of the annual Academy Awards are reliably consistent – acceptance speeches both awkward and touching, the presence of Meryl Streep, and NMS clients in the winner’s circle.

This year, films that we worked on racked up 36 nominations and captured 10 Oscars, with a special congratulations to our friends at Summit Entertainment. The Hurt Locker, a film we loved working on and watching as it gained a following, took home historic wins for Best Picture and for first female Best Director Kathryn Bigelow among its six total statues.

In the social media universe, Twitter interaction during the Academy Awards exploded, as film and pop culture fans communicated and participated in the live discussion like never before. Our gut told us that 2010 would be Twitter’s year to drive the water cooler talk… and the micro-blogging hub did not disappoint. Our buzz report reflects just how much Twitter’s usage and impact has grown over the last 12 months. The five most discussed films were mentioned approximately 52,500 times, up 287% from last year.

Individually, Avatar was mentioned the most times (27,706), while Precious (10,502) and The Hurt Locker (10,462) each received more mentions than last year’s Best Picture winner, Slumdog Millionaire (6,369, the most of 2009).

Sandra Bullock was talked about the most amongst talent (13,817 discussions), followed by Mo’nique (12,110) and Jeff Bridges (5,935), all well above 2009’s Twitter buzz dynamo, Sean Penn (3,040).

The following charts show the 2010 Academy Award Twitter buzz leaders in comparison to 2009.

Our 2009 NMS Oscars Buzz Report can be found here.

However, sheer volume isn’t the only Academy Award trend emerging this year. Experts were more active and strategic than ever before, using their Twitter handles as a platform to increase their own visibility.

Battle Of The Live-Tweeting Pundits

Did you expect Twitter to make you feel like you were actually at the Oscars this year? Or, at the very least, to feel like you were watching alongside your favorite blogger? If so, then 2010 was your year – live tweeting amongst film-industry bloggers surged. Numerous online pundits claimed to be the up-to-the-minute source for Oscar commentary and insight – from standard film sites like Rope Of Silicon, to entertainment heavyweights like Entertainment Weekly, to awards-centric pundits like In Contention, to the sardonic like Film Drunk.

As they competed for your attention, some bloggers shared thoughts and information by the minute, with many tweeting as often as 25 times an hour during the height of the ceremony. Between 9am PST March 8 and 9am PST March 9, Sascha Stone from Awards Daily tweeted 223 times, starting with a strong opening tweet of “It’s a beautiful day in LA. Does this mean maybe we get a shirtless Taylor Lautner on the red carpet after all?” and ending on an informative note, linking to an interview with Elinor Burkett aka “Lady Kanye.” Not all live-tweeters attended the event, but even these were not at a loss for material – as post topics included red carpet fashion, award upsets, acceptance speeches and after party namedropping.

Bloggers also often displayed a snarky attitude toward nominees and presenters. Both Roger Ebert and Stone shared fairly scathing critiques of the event’s hosts, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin.  During the ceremony, Stone commented that the presenters are “like a bomb ticking,” while Ebert insisted that the duo “just plain aren’t funny.”  

Within this battle for Twitter influence, there were definite winners. For instance, Ebert’s handle saw an increase of 6,575 followers on March 8, whereas it normally experiences an average daily increase of “only” 2,013.

Everyone’s A Critic

While the experts took advantage of Oscars Tweeting as a means to increase their visibility, standard users similarly jumped at the chance to publish their opinions in real time – albeit to a smaller audience in most cases.

Users shared their thoughts on a wide variety of topics, starting with the expected: The Hurt Locker and Avatar pulled huge numbers, while fashion commentary was also rampant. But Twitter users didn’t merely stick to congratulating winners and commenting on Miley’s poor posture. They were also creating a conversation of their own. Quick moments that would have otherwise gone unnoticed became immediate Twitter sensations. Would you have ever guessed that “Kathy Ireland” and “Kanye moment” would have been trending topics at the Academy Awards?

Before the ceremony even began, users were abuzz with pre-show commentary on the pre-show commentators. Notably, former supermodel Kathy Ireland received some vocal criticisms for her unique interviewing style:

• @AdamRichman: Kathy Ireland is talking as though she’s just discovered English. The awkward way her interviews end is cracking me up.
• @scottEweinberg: Wow, it is Kathy Ireland. She looks like a robot two sparks away from a mass murder.
• @ProseandIvy: was that an Avatar of kathy ireland perhaps?

The Twitosphere also blew up after embittered ex-producer Elinor Burkett raced on stage and cut the winning director of Music by Prudence off. Users rallied together to put a Twitter stamp on her “Kanye moment” (à la West’s interruption of Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Music Awards):

• @twilighterz: Yo purple dress lady,Imma let you finish, but Kanye had the best interruption of all time.OF ALL TIME!
• @monkeyofshaolin: I jokingly wondered about the possibility of a Kanye moment at the Oscars… and it happened. Way to go, Elinor Burkett.
• @leagoldman: Irony of the day: Elinor Burkett, Oscar’s “Lady Kanye”, has a book entitled “So Many Enemies, So Little Time.”

While many were quick to make snarky comments in the attempt to entertain followers, others turned to Twitter to join a chorus of criticisms. For instance, Farrah Fawcett’s name trended – and was even posted more times than several Best Film nominees – after users felt she was unfairly left out of the In Memorium tribute. And, while Inglourious Basterds was nominated for eight Oscars, the debut of the Apple iPad garnered more tweets than the film’s title.

Clooney and Cameron weren’t the only ones garnering discussion last night. It was often the smaller, quirkier and not necessarily film-related moments that grew into virtual water cooler topics within the Twitterverse. In an age of superfast micropublishing, everyone has a platform to be their own pundit, and last night’s Academy Awards revealed the extent to which online users are now utilizing Twitter to enter the real-time conversation.

This post was written by McLean Donovan and Maggie Pitts with help from Dan Williams, Jayar Donlan and Brent Mosley.