Attention on the 2012 Emmy Awards soared in September 24 after a comedian gamely 'passed out' to invite a hoard of tweets.
Awards night host Jimmy Kimmel (
@jimmykimmel), known for his Twitter and YouTube-based challenges for his audience, used the micro-blogging platform to prank Emmy viewers, and perhaps also to get more attention for the show.
Live on television, Kimmel told the audience both at the theater and at home to tweet in unison:
The 'news' immediately sparked 25,000 tweets and generated some unconfirmed thousands of fresh viewers to the show.
Of course, comedian Tracy Morgan (
@RealTracyMorgan) didn't really pass out. He just gamely lay on his back onstage, even as the award for Best Writing for a Drama was being announced ('Homeland' won, by the way).
Effectively, the prank got both hashtags
#tracymorgan and
#emmys trending worldwide on the social media platform.
Here's the activity on #tracymorgan the moment the prank was pulled at around 8:00pm, garnering 116,235 impressions at its peak.
The hashtag #emmys was the most used concurrent with #tracymorgan. See here how it suddenly spiked at about the same time, generating 467,923,387 impressions at its highest.
Here's a chart of the related hashtags used with both.
The stunt was a success overall and the show got the attention it was aiming for. Most thought the move was hilarious. Some Twitter users, however, weren't too happy about what happened.
What is your opinion of Kimmel and Morgan's Emmy stunt? Tell us in the comments!
Courtesy of Hashtags.org Analytics
Courtesy of Hashtags.org Analytics
Courtesy of Hashtags.org Analytics
