Leonardo DiCaprio broke the internet when he won Best Actor for his film The Revenant at the 88th Academy Awards held on Sunday. The win was long-awaited, and before the awards ceremony, many rooted for the 41-year-old actor to receive his first Oscar award. When he finally did, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms were flooded with congratulatory messages to Leo.
Thank you to the Academy and the incredible cast & crew of #TheRevenant . #Oscars
— Leonardo DiCaprio (@LeoDiCaprio) February 29, 2016
In fact, as People reports, Leonardo DiCaprio’s win is now the most tweeted Oscar moment to date. According to Twitter, DiCaprio’s Best Actor win was tweeted 440,000 per minute.
Months before the Oscars, memes of Leonardo spread like wildfire on the internet, poking fun at the actor who has not won an Oscar award despite being nominated several times before, including two Best Actor nominations for his work in The Aviator and Blood Diamond .
Sadly, it’s time to farewell all the “Leo Wants An Oscar” memes https://t.co/SACyKbWH22 pic.twitter.com/5DenqJM2A4
— BuzzFeed (@BuzzFeed) February 29, 2016
Leonardo DiCaprio is aware of the outpouring of support from everyone, and he said that he is grateful.
“It all feels incredibly surreal. It’s surreal because you can’t reach out and physically meet everybody. You hear it on the Internet, you hear it from other people, and the truth is, we always strive for the best in what we do, but this year in particular I’ve been overwhelmed with such support.”
“Really, truly, by so many fans and so many people in the industry. It’s quite shocking, actually, and what can you say except I’m very grateful. I really am.”
Well said, @LeoDiCaprio . pic.twitter.com/Fibksgu8ea
— The Academy (@TheAcademy) February 29, 2016
Before Leonardo DiCaprio’s Oscar win, the most tweeted Oscar moment was back in 2014 when Ellen DeGeneres posted a group selfie with many celebrities including Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep, Kevin Spacey, and more. According to Fortune , the group selfie’s record was 255,000 tweets per minute . The group selfie has officially been dethroned by Leonardo DiCaprio.
There’s also a big difference between the top two Oscar moments. While Leonardo’s winning moment was spontaneous, Ellen DeGeneres’ selfie was a marketing strategy by Samsung, an advertiser for the Academy. In 2014, the CEO of marketing and advertising giant Publicis, Marice Levy, shared that the group selfie is valued between $800 million to $1 billion because of the amount of shares on social media.
“This is something we did for Samsung. It’s us. The two selfies that are so famous — the one with all the actors at the Oscars and the second with President Obama — the two were done by our team,” Levy said.
If only Bradley’s arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscars pic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap
— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) March 3, 2014
To date, Ellen DeGeneres’ Oscars selife has been retweeted more than 3.3 million times and has been liked by more than 2 million users.
Aside from Leo’s Best Actor win, other moments from the Oscars that were tweeted the most include Mad Max: Fury Road ‘s award for sound mixing, which was its sixth win for the night, and the moment when Spotlight won the Best Film category.
With Leo finally winning an Oscar, the “Leo Wants an Oscar” memes have finally died, but the moment spawned new Leonardo DiCaprio memes, this time with him finally having a gold statue. View Leo’s Best Actor acceptance speech below.
. @SamsungMobileUS presents Leo’s Best Actor #Oscars acceptance speech! https://t.co/4LDPWoVSKv
— ABC Network (@ABCNetwork) February 29, 2016
[Photo By Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP]