Just last Sunday, Leonardo DiCaprio finally won his Best Actor Award at the 2016 Academy Awards after 27 years of acting and six nominations at the Oscars. People all over the world celebrated his win through social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and YouTube.

DiCaprio’s win surpassed Ellen DeGeneres’ record-breaking selfie from the 2014 Oscars in terms of tweets – whereby DeGeneres’ selfie garnered 255,000 tweets a minute while DiCaprio’s win resulted in 440,000 tweets being generated a minute. The sharing of DiCaprio’s win on social media platforms no doubt resulted in almost everyone receiving the news – be it through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or even Snapchat where live stories of the Oscars were being broadcasted.

In fact, Snapchat had used the Oscars to launch its web player, allowing users to view the 2016 Academy Awards’ Live Stories on Snapchat on their desktops. Evidently, Snapchat is exploring the idea of going online, just like how many other social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter have done so. As such, users of Snapchat can look forward to Snapchat expanding to online desktop functions and having linkable content to share.

The Oscars has not only helped social media platforms like Snapchat to explore ideas for growth, it has also sent out powerful and important messages to the public: through social media platforms. DiCaprio’s win became the most talked-about moment on Facebook as fans all over the world shared videos of his winning speech on the social media site. This helped to spread DiCaprio’s message on climate change and how we need to address this important issue. There were other important messages being shared online such as Lady Gaga’s moving performance about sexual assault, and Chris Rock’s address of Hollywood’s diversity controversy. Clearly, social media has helped institutions and celebrities spread strong and important messages to the public, allowing for support to be garnered and for us to be more aware of these crucial issues.

Overall, we see how social media has helped to spread news more quickly and spread important messages to people all over the world.

Relevant Websites:

Snapchat’s Web Player

http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/28/snapchat-debuts-stories-web-player-for-academy-awards/?utm_content=buffer2fc9f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Biggest Social Media Moments from the 2016 Oscars

http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/oscars-2016-the-biggest-social-media-moments-w165754

Shermae, G1