The Slow Death of Award Shows 

Ratatouille wins the Zeddy’s for the 15th year in a row? Never thought I’d live to see it

Plottwist: Will Smith decided to sacrifice his own dignity and make his slap trend so that we would never talk to that godawful “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” Oscars performance.

It's a big coincidence how the "We Don't Talk About Bruno" performance changed the lyrics to celebrate the Oscars and Bruno's early production name was, in fact, Oscar

totally agree with EVERYTHING said here. the oscars are trying way too hard to get "good ratings" when tv ratings havent mattered since MASH ended. the people who love movies will watch a 3 hour long ceremony if they feel like it is a genuine attempt to honor and appreciate those movies! thats all there is to it!

Conspiracy theory: Will Smith did that so when you search for “Will Smith Oscar” the results would show you the slap instead of his character in shark tales

Funniest thing ever was director Bong Joon-ho saying that the Oscar’s were just “very local” awards… he was right

Not to mention, covid really showed everyone how INSUFFERABLE these celebrities are. Why would I tune in to see a room full of rich people complaining about whatever ( it's not like they're actually honoring film as an art)?

I wish I could go back in time to 12 minutes ago when I didn't know Megan Thee Stallion performed a remix of 'We Don't Talk About Bruno' at the OSCARS.

I'm increasingly loving the 'out of time' instrumental being a staple of these videos. Everytime I hear it, I just want to go and listen to Dawn FM again for the millionth time. Thank you Nathan

I just want Nathan zed’s opinion on everything he’s so well articulated and the way he shares his opinion is so well spoken and entertaining…get Nathan zed a zeddy 🙏

The people that run award shows are so disconnected from the audience that they’re trying to reach. I legit have no idea who won best picture and this is coming from someone who up until this year tried to keep up with the Oscars because I considered myself a film fan.

"When everyone's famous, no one will be." You just earned my like for that paraphrase of Syndrome's most iconic line. Good job 👍love your videos

When they said : “Animation is something kids enjoy, and Adults have to endure” at the OSCARS this year when an animated documentary about a gay refugee was among the nominees was just disrespectful. ESPECIALLY when Disney is behind the scenes funding homophobic legislation and claiming the one eyed monster from Onward is representation.

I think it’s just the blatant rigging of the shows and also people realising you don’t need critics opinions to like a piece of art. However it is so enjoyable to see your favourite artist/ work of art win an award and it undoubtedly helps more people find out about more art.

My favourite moment of this year's Oscars was the editor of DUNE talking about how his category was edited out of the TV event. The technical awards are the only ones I care about at this point, sets, effects and sound design is where it's at

i agree these shows suck. i think we need a legitimate celebration of film and music for every year that isn’t just Spotify Wrapped or people’s letterboxd lists. they’re just political theater at this point

the bruno performance had me so mad, like why couldn't they let the voice actors do their thing!!!

dropping this video when the GRAMMY’s is live is hilarious 😂 already a classic

I feel like the issue may be the celebs themselves. This may be highly anecdotal, but I look at all these people and I ask myself, 'what does celebrating any of these people do for me?'.

in a world where I can go online and see a list of the nominations/winners of the Grammys and Oscars. spend all of 5 minutes reading it. I don't need to watch a several hour snooze fest filled with celebrities who think they're the second coming and like the smell of their own farts. I get the importance of these events for the artists but it doesn't need to be televised anymore.

the awards show should be a moment to celebrate the work and effort of people working in movies or whatever field is being celebrated. a chance to bring a spotlight to the overlooked people who work in the industry. instead it becomes a gigantic party for rich celebrities lol. the smaller awards shows are legit and do what they should do, recognition of excellence

5:43 Interesting fact: Bruno was originally going to be called 'Oscar', but the name was changed to 'Bruno' to fit the lyrics of the song better.

The kids choice awards are more amusing because people get slimed. LOL

I think the death of award shows has a lot to do with the access we now have to celebrities and as you mentioned the inability of these shows to choose the "winners". We are now seeing a departure from these shows because of this, especially in music grammy or not the song is still good and will be remembered while some of the "winners" are forgotten the next year.

“nobody cares unless somebody gets slapped on live tv” yes exactly why i watched wrestlemania instead of the grammys

We love this man. He truely got his consistency up and we gotta respect him for not being the frank ocean of youtube. Anymore

I think social media have a huge contribution to people not caring about the award shows anymore. You see, hear celebrities a lot these days cause of social media. I mean, there were no sm back then, so a lot of people always looked forward to seeing their favourite celebrities on TV.

Your opinion on everything, including the director of Dune winning ZERO academy awards, is spot on once again Mr. Zed.

Also, we have more access to celebrities now than ever before. In the 90s, if you wanted to see what your fav starlet was doing in real time you had to watch an award show/live performance. This morning, I watched Doja Cat get her hair washed on Instagram. Sitting down on my couch on a valuable Sunday doesn't hold as much appeal anymore. I'll just look up what she was wearing later and watch the highlights of the night on my lunch break.

"I love Anthony Hopkins, he deserved the award! But the way y'all set up the show, that was disrespectful to my boy!" Fresh off watching the Grammy's and oh my God how true is this statement. I just hate the pandering they do to get people to watch and luring these artists into thinking they'll win and like setting them up, to then just disappoint them in the worst way. Like with the Grammy's it is so obvious they would use certain names just to get fanbases to support and watch, and they'll mention these artists every ad break to keep you watching and hopeful and then nothing. Because they'll never give it to someone who isn't their darling, but they gotta pretend that they are actually inclusive.

I think focusing on why these people are nominated instead of focusing on their dresses or controversies would be much better. The Oscars are never going to be as popular as they were; that kind of glamour is outdated because we are tired of being bombarded with it every day, so I would go full academic Nobel-prize style and talk about what it is that these people did that is so good to be recognised and how they achieved it. Also, having almost 10000 voters ensures that most of them will vote not knowing what they are talking about.

The Ratatouille bit is unreasonably funny only Nathan can just move on after that

Beyoncé was really present for Lil Mama crashing Jay Z & Alicia Keys performance, Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift, and Will Smith slapping Chris Rock.. i know she is tired!

i think with the music award shows there’s just no more superstars like we had brittany beyoncé and rihanna all under the same roof before and now it’s just..😵‍💫

"when everyone's famous, nobody is" spot on

Leonardo DiCaprio taking so long to win a Oscar just proves to me that the Oscar’s ain’t shït and will never be shït. That man has given some of the greatest acting performances I have ever seen.

I love how this is timely but without deviating from his usual content

Bruh idk what it is but after quarantine, award shows and concerts don’t hit the same

Your last point is spot on. No matter how much the Oscar’s attempts to pander to the public, people are not gonna watch, so celebrate the movies! Celebrate the people that want to watch and root for cast and crew of these big projects! But no, everyone just punched down and felt embarrassed to even do that, it sucked man.

The main reason why people stopped paying attention to these shows is because of how now people understand (with the rise of the internet and freedom of information) that award shows are HEAVILY rigged. Everyone knows nowadays that these award mean NOTHING, they are effectively self-assigned (only one step up from the JD power award). You pay to get these awards, period. Also, we don’t NEED award shows to tell us what’s good anymore. I can Google whether the new releases are worth my time, I can subscribe to over a dozen different reviewers and get a more complete perspective of the industry in less time with more trusted voices instead of these big budget insiders who are paid to say everything is good (and even when they aren’t paid, they feel the need to say it’s good in order to not burn any bridges).

They should have a "Best Animal Actor" category. Ratings would hit their peak (No cgi animals aloud)

I didn't realize that the grammys was on till reading this comment section.

The funniest thing abt the slap is that Chris Rock don’t even care as much as everyone else do.

THANK YOU! Finally someone said it. That we don’t talk about Bruno performance was WORSE than anything that happened that night! I don’t care if a man slaps another fully grown man, nothing happened to him. But for all the people waiting for the performance of the current most famous song, it was a disgrace...

It's kind of the same reason why RU-vid can't do Rewind now - there's so much content that covers so many different bases that it's hard to represent it all. Everyone has films that they love and ones that they've never heard of. I don't think I've watched an Oscar-winning movie for several years now, but I've seen hundreds of movies in that time. It's not just that they're out of touch, it's that it's impossible for them to be in touch with everything. It was very different when there was only a small amount of films being produced.

Here's a thought experiment: Imagine if a Pulitzer Prize or Nobel Prize winner had to have mass appeal. They'd immediately lose credibility. Awards shows are losing momentum because their purpose contradicts itself. Sure, these shows are supposed to be "popular", but the only people who really care about them are music/movie lovers. So when the shows make a "wrong" decision (like picking Macklemore over Kendrick Lamar), they lose credibility with their core audience. By trying to appease the general public, they're basically telling their most loyal viewers "we don't actually care about your opinion". So now awards shows are competing with online streaming for a general public who just doesn't care that much about who wins.

“Never won anything” he says in front of a gold play button lol

I literally turned off the Oscars as soon as the Bruno performance ended because it was so rancid, so I completely missed the slap. Still agree that the Bruno song butchery was the real travesty of the night.

As teenager who loves film, music, and tv and while nobody of my age group or above agrees but I do like award shows. I think a way to fix the Oscar’s should not joke or try to be cool or appeal to a wider audience at the expense of making it seem your degrading everyone’s opinions of the movies your here to appreciate and I think that the ceremony should be appreciate film for what it is, care less about viewers and remember the purpose of it, but also stop degrading new famous pieces of media that these old men can’t relate to in a new age like animation or blockbuster films. And if something dramatic does happen and it’s talked about then that’s great and at least people won’t shit on the rest of the ceremony saying it’s cringy or had unnecessary hosts or bits

5:36 “it’s finally Oscar night” they had to make the song corny for no reason 😂

Award shows and big companies can't win over us anymore. They are either too serious for our liking or they try to pander and make things worse. 😂

Celebrities are becoming more influencer like. More emphasis is on the personality than their music and individual rewards. Sad but true. Plus the death of cable does not help. We watch tv when we want to.

"I like some of the Tony Hawk KickFlips.... what the heck does he know about movies?!" 😂😂💯

The problem with these awards is campaigning. Producers every year go after the Oscar voters and put together some exclusive parties to show the movie and get votes from the official voters. Harvey Weinstein was one of the best at that and this is why he became so powerful in Hollywood.

"When everyone is famous, no one is famous". No truer words could've been said

You know what's worse than the questionable performance of "Bruno", or Denis Villenueve getting no love as director of "Dune"? Jennifer Hudson and her brilliant performance as Aretha Franklin in "Respect" getting NO love from the Academy, not even a nod. Those quadrilateral Academy members wouldn't know what a good performance is if it went "OOPS!" upside their heads.

I remember back in middle school and high school when all my theatre kid friends and I would be so hyped about the Oscars that we were actually planning our own speeches for when we won our own awards.... And now, twenty years later, I'm just like "meh."

Oscars needs to stop it with the Disney stuff for me. It's constantly Disney owned properties, performances, jokes, etc. obviously because Disney owns ABC. Also keep Amy Shumer far away from it.

they completely bombed the we don’t talk about bruno performance i was 🤨 for WHAT reason?! they also dropped the ball with a west side story performance. especially with ariana debose being nominated?? they should’ve performed america with full costumes and choreo. give the people a spectacle!!

Honestly, the only award show I've ever sat down to watch is the Kids Choice Awards. I feel that the reason these award shows (particularly awards shows for movies and TV shows) are in decline is the growing rift between the tastes of critics and general audiences (movies that are nominated for Best Picture are usually ones that most regular movie goers haven't watched) and the sometimes subjective nature of art in general, which makes it difficult to give a definitive, unanimously agreed upon award based on the choices of a few people.

11:42 "If the oscars had any justice, nacho libre would have won 10 years ago" see this is why i love nathan 😭❤️‍🔥makes me wanna rewatch his nacho libre video. another classic

With some of your videos like "the lost art of live performance" and "the death of teen dystopias" it's not like these things don't happen anymore or are disappearing, trends come, go and come back again a lot--- but these television award shows are something where I truly think it's going to be gone within 30 years. Like if the Oscars/Grammys keep doing what they're doing now, its a wrap for them.

Funnily enough, Tony Hawk was actually in a lot of movies, but only a few like Police Academy 4 , Gleaming the Cube, xXx and Lords of Dogtown where he didn't play as himself.

I felt this on another level. As someone who grew up loving the Oscars, film, and currently a screenwriter, the Oscar’s have pained my soul to oblivion. I miss when it was about the movies, the art, the production, the sets, the way the actors performed. Now it’s nothing but a pandering show, even if the movie isn’t noticeable, why mention that and take away credit and time the cast, directors, producers, etc put into the body of work. I have some, well little faith left that Oscars could turn around one more time but even that would take a miracle. Times are changing with social media around which is why I always admire those actors and actresses who decide not to have social media at all to keep their lives out of the lime light so we can truly enjoy their work and not who they are sleeping with or broke up with and so on.

0:54 Nathan slowly drifting into Kanyes mind. We notice you...

he forgot to mention that big global artists don't attend award shows any more. cause they don't care. Drake even pulled out of all his grammy nominations for 2022.

Well said Nathan. I watch the Oscars every year. They pander to the general public (who aren’t even interested in these cringey changes anyway) when they should be catering to people who do watch every year like myself as a film fan. I want to see the movies nominated respected and celebrated. And I didn’t mind that James Bond and The Godfather had a small tribute, but the execution was weird. The Godfather cast was up on stage for a minute and James Bond was introduced by athletes. How about honoring the stunt people who made James Bond possible? How about honoring each James Bond portrayal? I just want this to be a celebration of film first and foremost. I don’t care about jokes and whatever. Great video!

Lin Manuel's dad said on Twitter Lin didn't write the new lyrics for Bruno performance. It shows. If they wanted to do that performance and change the lyrics they should of opened up the awards with it bc they were singing about the Oscar's. So annoyed the voice cast was only on for like 50 seconds of the performance

can we get a slow rise of something rather than everything dying lmao. awesome vid man

Let’s be honest. This was one thousand times more entertaining than any award show in the past 30 years

Trin Lovell actually made a video about how the oscars vote and it's basically them voting on something that they agreed upon, it's not about whether the film was better than the other. they just end up agreeing like 'okay, it seems that this is the film we all agreed is the best' it's the reason why green book won over roma for best picture as crash one over brokeback mountain for best picture (I'm not over those two)

Giving credit where credit is due... the constant performances at the Grammys keep them a leg-up above the other award shows in terms of how entertaining they are to watch

Love to see this man consistently uploading classics, always makes my day.

The way I don’t care about award shows at all and have no opinion on them, but found myself clicking on this video as soon as I saw it and nodding in agreement the whole time just shows the genius of Nathan Zed

i feel like giving awards is inherently a boring thing, like graduations. it's reading off names. idk why people decided it should be a show and not just like... give people awards. but i'm guessing they were just looking for a way to make honoring people into money, so that it could be less about being nice or incentivizing quality and more about capitalism

Award shows should be award shows and that’s it.

You know, back in the day, when it first started, the Oscars were a non-televised event, it was essentially a dinner, and the awards were all handed out within half an hour.

Sending this to my mom so she can understand why the youths aren’t watching anymore. 😂

I watched the BRITs earlier this year while I was on my phone cause nothing else was on and it was so much better run than the Grammys, it had awards voted by the public and performances from people who are actually the most popular in the country and they mostly went to the most deserving acts

The only Oscar moment I've cared about in a long time was when that Korean actress won for Minari. And her speech was all about how she doesn't believe in competition. So maybe awards have always been a little silly and people are just now waking up to it.

48 seconds, already a certified CLASSIC

Getting a Nathan Zed video is like having a second birthday

Astroworld losing to Cardi B is the best example why no one takes these shows serious anymore

The list of directors who never won an oscar is also the list of the greatest directors of all time. Seriously look it up. Kubrick, Lucas, Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Paul Thomas Anderson, Spike Lee, Nolan, and the list goes on. It is as if they intentionally miss the mark and occasionally accidentally pick the right one (like when Guillermo del Toro won).

Ngl the worst thing was the Kirsten Dunst incident - whack as hell even if it was scripted, felt super distasteful

my take (as a film viewer) is I truly don't care for award shows just as I don't care about critics' opinions about shows and movies. I just feel like it shouldn't matter for us as viewers. on the other hand, I do feel like exceptional performances should be rewarded in some way - it just doesn't need to be televised and be made into such a huge event. like I just don't care about what these people are going to say in a 45 second speech. also, if I wanted to watch such a thing and turned on my tv only to see amy schumer...yeah

1. Shorter attention spans. 2. Award shows are boring as hell. 3. Celebrity culture is dying a slow, painful, and overly publicized death. 4. Social media stars are filling the void.

Lmao the Oscar’s staff popping champagne because will smith is crying on stage made me crack up

You literally said every right thing 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 may the algorithm be in your favor

I feel like i can say the same for korean award shows, the biggest one is MAMA by the network Mnet, everyone used to look forward to it as december comes. and it's not only about the awards either, most of the times fans watch it for the performances, it's the one time where idols from different boybands and girlbands would collaborate and perform these insane stages. but i feel like the last time MAMA was good was in 2016/2017, as the legendary groups starts to retire/enlist in the military, we're left with subpar or just slightly above average performances by the newer groups (don't get me wrong, they're good, but they don't have that star quality the older groups like bigbang and block b has) and the awarding system is a mess too, it's kind of a joke within the kpop fans community where we straight up agree that voting/streaming doesn't even matter because it's a popularity contest, and also an attendance based competition too where basically if u attend u're more likely to win that category 💀 award shows whether it is done by western or east media have REALLY gone downhill man

Yummy being selected to blinding lights was a heartbreak for me

"You were chosen by the streets" is top 10 best line deliveries of all time

When Sir Nathan uploads a video, I usually receive it during a Sunday night (like now) and it gets me prepared for the upcoming dreadful day that is Monday, keep on uploading at this time, grateful I really am

Love the inclusion of that Kanye clip, it literally is why you’ll see more and more artists of all mediums start to not show. Only until they start respecting the craft of each artists will people respect any award or opinion they have to give.

Thanks nathan, for that very subtle "walkin" sample you used, and giving validation to my taste in music. Straight up fire.

"Unfortunately, as a man who's never won anything, i had to come up with my own self worth " holy moly you just gave me a huge revelation, and no this thought won't be in my mind till I die

never won anything? You got a youtube plaque right behind you!

I love how your videos are always both thoughtful and funny.

the year is 3022, humanity is dwindling, the earth is barely holding on, and Nathan Zed still hasn’t missed

You articulated the public’s thoughts soooo well. Another great video fr !!