Did the Oscars just predict the Oscars?
And the Oscar goes to…
Well, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences appears to have some thoughts. On Monday afternoon, the organization appeared to tweet several now-deleted captionless photos that featured the title “My Oscar Predictions,” along with a list of picks for winners. One tweet, in particular, that included Parasite for Best Picture and 1917’s Sam Mendes for Best Director, got heavy pick-up by members of the media and awards lover on Twitter.
The tweet immediately sent film fans into a tizzy, leaving people to wonder if the Academy’s social channels had been hacked, or if the group was even allowed to weigh in this way (especially because Oscar voting doesn’t close until Tuesday, Feb. 4).
The mysterious tweets seem to be connected to the Academy’s launch of an Oscars prediction widget, which went live about an hour and a half before. The Academy seemingly confirmed that by retweeting writer Kris Tapley, who tweeted, “Everyone chill, it’s a predictions app!”
A few hours later, the Academy clarified it was an error and did not reflect their predictions or final winners. Their statement on twitter read, “We invited fans on Twitter to make and share your #Oscars predictions. A ton of you already have! A brief issue on Twitter made some of yours look like they came from our account. They didn’t. This error is now resolved. And we’ll reveal our picks on Sunday.”
With a tight race for Best Picture raging and hours left in the voting window, many observers tweeted about their confusion over the Academy seemingly choosing a horse in its own race — or even potentially spoiling the results, given that many of the picks are in line with projections up to this point.
But once it was all sorted, even some of this year’s nominees joined in by sharing their predictions:
To create your own prediction post, send a direct message to @TheAcademy on Twitter and follow the instructions.
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