Comedian tops Internet awards
Comedian Jimmy Fallon has taken the top prize in the Webby Awards. He took the ‘Person of the Year’ honor after posting clips of routines in progress online to get fan feedback before using them on TV.
Now in its 13th year, the Webby Awards has dozens of categories, mainly for specific genres of Web sites. It’s the work of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a take-off of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Members (who act as judges) have included public figures as diverse as Bjork, Body Shop founder Anita Roddick and CNBC host Tina Brown.
While the 550 judges choose the Webby Award winners, each category also has a People’s Voice winner chosen in an online public vote. The public winners will be announced at a later date.
Fallon earned the prize for his activities before taking over from Conan O’Brien on the NBC late night chat slot. He refined his routine by posting ‘webisodes’ online and asking viewers to critique his work. He also built up an audience through Twitter.
Twitter itself is the winner of a new category, Breakout of the Year. Awards director David Michael Davies told Reuters the honor represented the way Twitter “moved from a geek thing to a mainstream thing.”
The awards will be presented on June 8 as the closing event of a week long event celebrating the Internet’s place in New York’s culture. The ceremony will follow the usual format of restricting winners to an acceptance speech of just five words. Previous speeches include:
- Please don’t recount this vote (Al Gore)
- Sports? Pornography? Sports? Pornography? Sports! (ESPN)
- More than just bare breasts. (National Geographic)
- This one’s for Tinky Winky. (PBS)
- I only get five words? Shit, that was five. Four more there. That’s three. Two. (David Bowie)
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May 6th, 2009
Still another “Award” show? My stomach is definitely revolting at this one. BLAAAAAGH.
I am for total annihilation of all the “Award” shows and their “hosts” (hostesses? like the cupcakes?) It takes a certain kind of mind to even consider watching and listening to the tripe that is supposed to pass for patter.
Perhaps our current crop of high school students find it enthralling, but no half intelligent person would consider it for a moment.