The Oscar Selfie refers to a 2014 selfie taken by actor Bradley Cooper at the 86th Academy Awards. It features a variety of popular celebrities. The host of the ceremony, Ellen DeGeneres, urged viewers of the ceremony to make a tweet with the picture the most re-tweeted tweet in history, which was accomplished before the broadcast was over at over 2 million retweets. The virality of the tweet caused Twitter to temporarily crash and be offline. The incident raised $3 million for charities. It has since been praised as successful product placement and marketing for Samsung, the company's phone, the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, having taken the picture. The picture also sparked controversy over copyright laws in the United States in regards to user-generated content on social media after DeGeneres granted the license to Associated Press, despite Cooper having taken the photo. It also inspired the "sealfie", a trend by Canadian Inuit protesting DeGeneres's donations to groups promoting anti-seal hunting beliefs. In subsequent years, it has been named one of the most influential and important pictures of all time.
The selfie features a variety of A-list actors and famous movie stars.[1]:90[2]Bradley Cooper took the photograph,[3]:566 which was then uploaded to Ellen DeGeneres's Twitter account.[3]:565 The selfie was taken on a Samsung Galaxy Note 3; Samsung was a major advertiser at the Academy Awards.[4] Samsung had spent $20 million for advertisements during breaks between segments at the ceremony.[5] It was taken live during the broadcast of the 86th Academy Awards on March 2, 2014, and was posted immediately to DeGeneres's Twitter account.[6]:226
During the broadcast of the 86th Academy Awards on March 2, 2014, host Ellen DeGeneres urged watchers to make the tweet the most re-tweeted in history;[11][12] the record was met less than an hour later.[11] The tweet garnered 700,000 retweets and 200,000 likes within 30 minutes of it being posted.[4] Before the broadcast for the ceremony was over, the tweet had been retweeted over 2 million times.[13][14] As of March 2014, the tweet had 2.7 million retweets and 1.4 million likes, becoming the most retweeted tweet of all time, surpassing a tweet from Barack Obama celebrating his win in the 2012 United States presidential election with 778,000 retweets.[4] As a result of the virality, Twitter was offline for a brief period of time, between 19:05 and 19:29 PST.[4] After the crash, DeGeneres said "We got an email from Twitter and we crashed and broke Twitter. We have made history".[14] Twitter activity jumped over 3000% following the tweet.[15] The tweet was also seen by 37 million people, compared to the ceremony's 43 million.[16]
By the end of the year, the tweet was the most re-tweeted post of the year, peaking at 3.3 million retweets. 255,000 tweets per minute were posted discussing the picture that night.[20] Commentators noted that despite the Samsung sponsorship, DeGeneres had sent the tweet from an iPhone, Samsung's major competitor and rival. Other tweets by DeGeneres during the night were sent via Samsung. The company declined to comment to CNN.[21] Samsung insisted that the selfie was not planned, and that the ensuing popularity was spontaneous.[22] The tweet was valued at an estimated $800 million to $1 billion by Publicis, the company which handled Samsung's international marketing.[23][16] Samsung was mentioned over 900 times per minute on the site immediately after the incident.[24]:459 The tweet's most-retweeted record was held until 2017, when a tweet by a 16-year-old boy asking for free chicken nuggets from Wendy's broke it.[25]
"Sealfie" and other campaigns
DeGeneres, who raised awareness for the Humane Society of the United States during the broadcast and raised $1.5 million for them, faced backlash from Canadian Inuit due to the organization's anti-seal hunting efforts. The "sealfie" was posted by Inuit as protest, referencing DeGeneres's Oscars selfie.[18][17] The photos consisted of Canadian Inuits wearing sealskin clothes, taken as a selfie.[2] The idea came to be by an Inuit youth on YouTube, who suggested the idea of showcasing sealing as an ethical, sustainable, and traditional activity.[26]:398 The campaign first began on March 26, 2014, and was popular on YouTube and Twitter.[27]:70
Canadian Inuit who traditionally hunted seals for resources claimed the donation and awareness was in poor faith and spread misinformation about indigenous practices. DeGeneres previously hosted an anti-seal hunting page on her website in 2011, calling the act "one of the most atrocious and inhumane acts against animals allowed by any government".[17]:118 The "sealfie" phenomenon attracted widespread journalistic attention.[17]:119 DeGeneres had not commented on the campaign as of 2023.[26]:398 Despite this, the campaign was considered "an unprecedented outpouring of contemporary Inuit political expression" by academics Kathleen Rodgers and Willow Scobie.[26]:398[27]:70 Canadian Inuk singer Tanya Tagaq was a prominent figure leading the campaign.[28]:131
The selfie also prompted the "#ashtag", promoting Ash Wednesday and encouraging people to post selfies with ash crosses on one's forehead.[29]
The image sparked debate over copyright laws in the United States.[13]Associated Press received licensing to the image by Ellen DeGeneres, who first posted the picture to her Twitter account, and is featured in it; however, this decision came under scrutiny due to the fact that the selfie was taken by Bradley Cooper, not DeGeneres.[13] The controversy also brought attention to the fact that copyright laws regarding user-generated content on social media was ambiguous in the United States.[3]
Analysis
Lawyer Paul Fakler for ArentFox Schiff criticized the discussion for perpetuating misinformation regarding copyright and intellectual property laws.[13] Alli Pyrah for Managing Intellectual Property disagreed with Fakler's stance, and referred to the event as a "golden opportunity" to have discussions about and educate the public on intellectual property.[13] Michael Reed for the John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law argued that DeGeneres had enough claim of co-authorship for the photo, as she initiated it and directed Cooper in taking the shot after he offered to take the picture when DeGeneres could not fit everyone into frame. The phone was deliberately positioned with the screen facing DeGeneres so she could do this.[3]:576
Legacy
The image has been assessed as one of the most influential and important images of all time by Time[30] and Life.[31] It was called the "most famous selfie in the world" within a few days.[17]:114 The image is credited with popularizing the word "selfie" in the general media,[32]:191[6]:40 and selfies have since been established as a common visual trope indicating an important event due to the image.[6]:71
The selfie's virality was noted as successful product placement for Samsung by Los Angeles Times.[4] Alli Rosenbloom for CNN, in an article commemorating the photograph's ten year anniversary, called it "one of pop culture's starriest images to date".[8] The International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion considered it the epitome of the celebrity selfie.[33]
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