Skip to main content

Who did the Internet love this year? Webby Awards go to Grimes, Frank Ocean, Obama for America, and more

Webby_LogoYou can’t win an Oscar for an online short yet, but the Webby Awards are the Internet’s most prestigious honor, and this year’s crop highlights how sophisticated Web projects have grown. The 2013 Webby Award winners range from indie superstar Grimes to Kevin Spacey. The 17th annual Webby Awards honor a variety of Internet publications and sites.

While we recently explored some of the most intriguing nominees, the winners have officially been announced. So who took home the gold – er, silver, spirally trophy? Here are a few of the coolest projects that took home the top prizes:

Recommended Videos

Webby Breakout of the Year – Obama for America’s 2012 digital campaign took home the award for its ability to use the Internet in an effective political campaign.

Webby Lifetime Achievement Award – Steve Whilite, creator of the GIF file format. An incredibly appropriate win considering 2012-2013 may go down in history as the Year of the GIF.

Webby Person of the Year – Frank Ocean, for a Tumblr post on his sexuality. Ocean made a bold move for an up-and-coming R&B singer and described his bisexuality in a moving post.

Best Individual Performance – Charlize Theron, for Charlize Theron Gets Hacked, a Funny or Die short. Basically, the equation of beautiful person plus ridiculous situation still almost inevitably deserves props because someone is indeed both funny and improbably good-looking.Screen Shot 2013-04-30 at 9.34.28 AM

Branded Entertainment Short Form – Red Bull Stratos (took home the Webby Winner and the People’s Voice award). The Red Bull Stratos also took home the Events and Live Webcasts Webby. That’s not surprising, considering Red Bull Stratos was potentially the most bonkers branded event ever, since it involved someone jumping from the edge of outer space. I don’t know how they’re ever going to beat that without causing death and destruction.

Music – Sigur Ros for “Fjogur Piano,” otherwise known as the music video with naked Shia Labeouf. It’s a beautiful song, but to be honest, not sure the glory of the sound counterbalanced the creepiness of the music video enough to validate this win.

 News and Politics, Series – Vice Media took home the Webby Winner and the People’s Voice award for Vice News. Vice had a big year at the Webby’s, picking up a few additional awards, including the award for News and Politics, Individual Episode for its episode “The Mexican Mormon War.” More evidence that Vice is moving away from fart jokes and towards hard journalism (or at least a combination of fart jokes and hard journalism.)

Viral – McCann won for its “Dumb Ways to Die” video, though I think “Grandmas Watch Kardashian Sex Tape” was ROBBED.

Webby Special Achievement Awards – Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti picked this one up for their work with the Netflix series House of Cards, since it basically took everyone’s unhealthy TV binge-viewing habits and validated them. Jerry Seinfeld also won an achievement award for his web series Comedians in the Car Getting Coffees.

grimesWebby Artist of the Year – Grimes, everyone’s favorite ethereal Canadian song-maker. She embraces the Internet to connect with fans and released most of her early work for free online through Arbutus Records, a badass homebrew Montreal record label.

Webby Athlete of the Year – Continuing the Webby trend of honoring people who speak up in favor of LGBT issues, Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe won this year for his outspoken stance towards marriage equality – and his decision to use the Internet to spread his message.

Best Use of Photography – Humans of New York won the Webby and the People’s Choice for its gripping collection of photos Screen Shot 2013-04-30 at 10.39.44 AMof ordinary inhabitants of NYC. The blog also took home the People’s Voice award for Best Cultural Blog.

Best User Experience – Tumblr may have recently shut down its original journalism project, but it came out on top when it came to user experience, picking up the Webby and the People’s Voice for its simple, intuitive interface.

For the full list of winners, check out the Webby Awards homepage.

Kate Knibbs
Former Contributor
Kate Knibbs is a writer from Chicago. She is very happy that her borderline-unhealthy Internet habits are rewarded with a…
Topics
Bluesky finally adds a feature many had been waiting for
A blue sky with clouds.

Bluesky has been making a lot of progress in recent months by simplifying the process to sign up while at the same time rolling out a steady stream of new features.

As part of those continuing efforts, the social media app has just announced that users can now send direct messages (DMs).

Read more
Reddit just achieved something for the first time in its 20-year history
The Reddit logo.

Reddit’s on a roll. The social media platform has just turned a profit for the first time in its 20-year history, and now boasts a record 97.2 million daily active users, marking a year-over-year increase of 47%. A few times during the quarter, the figure topped 100 million, which Reddit CEO and co-founder Steve Huffman said in a letter to shareholders had been a “long-standing milestone” for the site.

The company, which went public in March, announced the news in its third-quarter earnings results on Tuesday.

Read more
Worried about the TikTok ban? This is how it might look on your phone
TikTok splash screen on an Android phone.

The US Supreme Court has decided to uphold a law that would see TikTok banned in the country on January 19. Now, the platform has issued an official statement, confirming that it will indeed shut down unless it gets some emergency relief from the outgoing president.

“Unless the Biden Administration immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement, unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19,” said the company soon after the court’s verdict.
So, what does going dark mean?
So, far, there is no official statement on what exactly TikTok means by “going dark.” There is a lot of speculation out there on how exactly the app or website will look once TikTok shutters in the US.

Read more