How the Oscars impacted the Internet (at least in the US)

The 94th Academy Awards held on March 27, 2022 saw a significant impact on internet traffic, particularly in social media platforms like Twitter and TikTok. There was a spike of 32% more DNS requests for Twitter after Will Smith's altercation with Chris Rock, peaking at 51% more requests during his acceptance speech for Best Actor. TikTok also experienced an increase of 20% in requests following the incident and peaked at 40% more traffic right after Smith's speech. IMDb.com saw a 93% increase in traffic before the Oscars started, with another spike when Ariana DeBose won Best Supporting Actress Oscar for West Side Story. ABC.com and Oscars.com had between 200 to 600% more traffic than usual during the event, while the official Oscars website saw a 1,300% increase in traffic after Questlove's Oscar win and The Godfather reunion. Movie news sites like Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Vulture or E Online experienced an 833% growth in DNS requests on Oscars Sunday compared to the best days of the week, with even higher traffic the next day.