Last night was the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards out here in LA at the Staples Center. Originally, I wasn’t planning on watching it, but seeing my Twitter timeline blow up with activity from people whose opinions I care about convinced me to give it a shot. The actual telecast wasn’t that bad, once I got over the fact that it wasn’t as much about the awards as it was an encapsulation of pop music over the past year. (The numbers show that last night’s telecast was the highest rated Grammys in over a decade.)
I don’t know about you, but I’m really excited social media has caught on the way it has because if anything else, it’s made watching awards show a more entertaining, communal experience. And when I say “caught on the way it has,” I mean the general populace at large, not just the informed, insightful people that make up Lalawag readers. As you’ll soon see, without these… less savvy people, the Grammys wouldn’t have nearly been as entertaining as they ended up being.
CBS certainly knew people would talk about the show on social media because they cut to video of Ellen Kay “Tweeting” on a mocked up iPad before commercial breaks. Sure there were some memorable performances like CeeLo’s flamboyant puppets and Rihanna and Drake’s fertility dance, but what really stood to be remembered on the internet were these three items:
1) Public “outrage” over the fact that Arcade Fire won the “Album of the Year” award.
On the one hand, it’s a little presumptuous to expect everyone to know who the Arcade Fire are, even if they are one of the bigger “indie” bands out there right now. At the same time, it’s pretty damn funny to see ignorant people hang themselves by using any combination of the following: factually incorrect statements, all caps, superfluous punctuation, and offensive curse words. Ladies and gentlemen, we have our official internet meme of February.
http://whoisarcadefire.tumblr.com has many more of these tweets captured if you’re in the mood for a good facepalm.
UPDATE (7:45PM):Thanks to LA music site The SceneStar(@TheSceneStar) for notifying us that the Who Is Arcade Fire tumblr was started by LA’s own Paul Tao (@paultao), label manager at IAMSOUND records. Not only does LA have a booming startup scene, we also start internet memes too!
2) Justin Bieber fans (allegedly) valdalize Esperanza Spalding’s Wikipedia page.
Credit goes to Gawker for screen capturing Ms. Spalding’s Wikipedia page as it was being vandalized. For those who didn’t catch the Grammys, Esperanza Spalding is a jazz artist who won the “Best New Artist” award over more well-known figures like Justin Bieber. Whether or not it was actual Bieber fans who marked up the page or if it was internet trolls looking to make some lulz, the fact remains that poor Ms. Spalding was caught in the crossfire for simply being a good musician.
Some of the other highlights from the vandalizing:
- Her middle name is “Quesadilla“
- “She now has the 2011 Grammy for being the Best new Artist! Even though no one has ever heard of her! Yay!“
- “ JUSTIN BIEBER DESERVED IT GO DIE IN A HOLE. WHO THE HECK ARE YOU ANYWAY?” (n.b. this does not really seem to be a “fact” about anyone)
- “HaHa Justin Bieber, you’re just a little boy with no Grammy for Best New Artist.irehjbpojeh[ker“
- “(Dan cannot believe the Biebs did not win)“
3) CBS LA news reporter talks in tongues.
Though the east coasters got to see the Grammys telecast first, those of us in the Los Angeles area were treated to a spectacular flubbing of lines by local reporter, Serene Branson, during a local news piece on the Grammys after the awards telecast. Those on Twitter laughed heartily until discovering that Ms. Branson was examined by paramedics due to a possible stroke. The air was somber until early today when CBS Los Angeles released a statement that Ms. Branson was not hospitalized and was ok:
Serene Branson was examined by paramedics on scene immediately after her broadcast. Her vital signs were normal. She was not hospitalized. As a precautionary measure, a colleague gave her a ride home and she says that she is feeling fine this morning.
It’s presumably OK to laugh again, but something doesn’t sit right with me about her flub. She didn’t apologize or curse or react in a way that most of us would if we just messed up a live telecast. Perhaps she just performed the best save ever by pretending her gibberish was completely normal. Either way, we certainly hope Ms. Branson’s health is not in jeopardy.
