The Shorty Awards, also known as the "Shortys", is an annual awards show recognizing the people and organizations that produce real-time short form content across Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch and the rest of the social web. The annual ceremony began in 2008 with awards for achievements on the Twitter platform. Since then, the awards have recognized content creation on other social networking sites, including YouTube, Tumblr, Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, YouNow, Periscope and Facebook. The awards ceremony is held each spring and streamed live. Each award recognizes the entire body of work of the content creator for the calendar year, rather than an individual tweet or post. A 2012 Forbes magazine article about the awards commented: "The Shortys recognize that social media is about more than who can get the most followers... we are creating millions of pieces of new writing that will define our generation.... These writings... are creating our history of record."
List of ceremonies
The 1st Annual Shorty Awards
The awards were created in 2008 by tech entrepreneurs Greg Galant, Adam Varga, and Lee Semel of Sawhorse Media. They invited Twitter account holders to nominate the best Twitter users in general categories such as humor, news, food, and design. Winners were chosen by more than 30,000 Twitter users during the voting period. The founders of Twitter first heard about the awards after the contest had gotten underway and expressed support for it. The first Shorty Awards ceremony was held on February 11, 2009, at the Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn, New York. Approximately 300 people attended the event. The event was hosted by CNN anchor Rick Sanchez and featured appearances by prominent Twitter users MC Hammer and Gary Vaynerchuk and a video appearance by Shaquille O'Neal. The awards, in 26 categories, were voted on by Twitter users.
Voting for the second Shorty Awards opened on January 5, 2010, in 26 official categories. A Real-Time Photo of the Year category was added to the list of official categories for the first time, recognizing the best photo posted to services such as Twitpic, Yfrog, or Facebook. The second Shorty Awards competition introduced a panel of judges called the Real-Time Academy of Short Form Arts & Sciences whose members were Craig Newmark, David Pogue, Kurt Andersen, Caterina Fake, Joi Ito, Frank Moss, Alberto Ibargüen, Sreenath Sreenivasan, MC Hammer, Alyssa Milano and Jimmy Wales. After public nominations determined the finalists, the Academy decided on the winners. Winners were announced at a ceremony held in the Times Center in The New York Times building in Manhattan, and were streamed online. The ceremony was hosted by CNN anchor Rick Sanchez, who presented awards in the official categories as well as the newly added Real-Time Photo of the Year and a special humanitarian award.
The 3rd Annual Shorty Awards
The nomination period for the third annual Shorty Awards opened in January, 2011, and ran through February 11, 2011, except for new categories that had extended nomination deadlines. There were 30 official categories, and five special categories. In addition to Real-Time Photo of the Year, for the first time the awards accepted nominations for Foursquare Mayor of the Year, Foursquare Location of the Year, Microblog of the Year on Tumblr, and a Connecting People award. The awards also introduced new Shorty Industry Awards to recognize the best uses of social media by brands and agencies. A Marketing Jury within the Real-Time Academy of Short Form Arts & Sciences judges the Shorty Industry Awards and determines the winners from among the paid entries. Winners were announced at a ceremony on March 28, 2011, hosted by Aasif Mandvi in the Times Center. Other Shorty Awards presenters were scheduled to include Kiefer Sutherland, Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara, Stephen Wallem, Miss USA Rima Fakih, and Miss Teen USA Kamie Crawford.
The 4th Annual Shorty Awards featured Ricky Gervais and Tiffani Thiessen. 1.6 million tweeted nominations were made across all the categories to honor the top users on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Foursquare, YouTube and other internet platforms.
The 10th Annual Shorty Awards, took place on April 15, 2018, at the Playstation Theater, New York City. The ceremony was hosted by actress, singer, songwriter, Keke Palmer with a musical performance by Betty Who.
The 11th Annual Shorty Awards
The 11th Annual Shorty Awards were held on May 5, 2019, in New York City at the Playstation Theater. The ceremony was hosted by American actress and comedian Kathy Griffin, with a musical performance by Tank and the Bangas.
The 12th Annual Shorty Awards were held on May 3, 2020. Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the ceremony took place online for the first time, with presenters and award winners filming from their own homes. The ceremony was hosted by actor J.B Smoove, with a remixed performance of Trap Queen by Fetty Wap. Award winners included Supercar Blondie, Rose and Rosie, and Greta Thunberg.
