As awkward silence followed Gretel Killeen’s jokes, the sound of tweets filled the web air. Many celebrities at last night’s Logie Awards busily twittered throughout the ceremony, commenting on critical issues such as host Gretel Kileen dying on stage, the quality of Crown Casino’s food and Annie Lennox’s performance.
The “twitterati” on the micro-blogging site included Wil Anderson, host of ABC’s the Gruen Transfer, Andrew G from Australian Idol, Dominic Knight and Julian Morrow from The Chaser, celebrity agent Max Markson, radio hosts Adam Richard, Myf Warhurst and Brigette Duclos, comedian Josh Thomas and Michelle Bridges from The Biggest Loser.
Gretel’s hosting skills were the most recurrent theme, with mostly negative reviews.
“yep, gretski.. it’s time to go!” — Brigette Duclos
“Gretel’s really good at live television. Unfortunately this is on delay.” — Dominic Knight
“Gretel doing a sketch in heaven… And yet we are in hell” — Wil Anderson
“Is Gretel mistaking the Logies for the Diary Room?” — Julian Morrow
“The biggest winner tonight shaping up to be Wendy Harmer” — Courtney Gibson (head of Content Creation at ABC TV).
Annie Lennox’s performance seemed to be the only Logies moment that all twitterers could agree on.
“Annie Lennox … a class act at the Logies. Now that’s something” — Julian Morrow
“O M G!!! i have just gone to heaven! i just watched annie lennox sing ‘must be talking to an angel’ and that was 2009 highlight! w.a.d.” — Michelle Bridges
“Bit tough to follow annie lennox… She was amazing. New respect for all presenters” Wil Anderson
Twitpics, often fuzzy photos taken on mobile phones and directly uploaded to Twitter were also common.
Max Markson uploaded twitpics (albveit blurry) straight from the red carpet before the ceremony:
Comedian Dan Ilic posted a twitpic of Wil Anderson and Julian Morrow from Chaser tweeting on their iphones during the ceremony, highlighting the continous circle of twitter updates:
Wil Anderson posted a twitpic of a Logie’s cheese platter, with the comment “Cheese arrives, still less than on stage”:
Not that all tweets were mindless. Dan Ilic twittered about the whiteness of the Logies crowd, “I can confirm Lawrence Leung is the only Asian in the room that isn’t pouring drinks … cmon Aussie TV”.
This is the first year that Australian celebrities have twittered at the Logies, a phenomena led by Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher and P Diddy at this years Academy Awards. John Safran said in an interview on the TODAY show this morning, “everyone was Twittering around me. It’s like no one was paying any attention at all”.
None of the most profilic Logie twitterers were major network stars, perhaps giving them the freedom to be more open in their criticisms. Most of the twitterati were young comedians, more adept at using online technology for laughs. “In the limo on the way to the logies. Because I am twittering everyone is yelling “that’s so Gen Y!” it is annoying” tweeted Josh Thomas.
Unsurprisingly, Gold Logie winner Rebecca Gibney doesn’t Twitter. Even if the nannas have learnt to text.
I don’t usually watch the award shows or much commercial tv, but I couldn’t help myself last night, it was like watching a train wreck.
Gretal Killeen appeared to have embarressed, annoyed and bored the socks off that poor 16 year old boy in particular from the audience and managed to achieve to patronise all who were present. I can empathise with the many viewers who were cringing like I was.
Beside the chip on her shoulder airy brainless dull drivel that comes out of her mouth, her body language is also appauling. She constantly points at people while she speaks (AT) them and puts her hands up and pushes them back and forth at people who must find it hard to either stay awake or get a minute to run away, to me she appears to be a condescending idiot who should along with many brainless “stars” get off the tv. The guys from Chasers, Will Anderson or Adam Hills etc, people who are really funny and who seems to experience and see things for what they really should host instead of the usual… (Wendy Harmer excluded)….being so consumed by themselves like Gretal that their brain plopped out of the space in their inflated head, but that’s what commercial networks are mostly made from anyway, and the cream of the crop in my opinion usually stay with the better uncommercial channel.