The World is Not Watching: Grammys and Golden Globe s Have Record-Low Viewership

We as a society may finally be over awards shows. If you really think about it, they’re one of the dumbest things we do: rich celebrities giving other rich celebrities little golden statues to tell each other what a great job they did and how important they are. And then the celebrities who win, or don’t win, make it sound like the recipients of these little statues are a matter of the highest importance to our society.

There are probably a dozen of these that count as “major” awards, and people are finally tired of watching them.

I found it a little strange that the other networks had new episodes of their Sunday night shows against the Golden Globe and Grammy Award ceremonies as it’s not usually done, but clearly, they were on to something as the two shows both pulled record-low audiences. The Golden Globes only managed to attract about a third of their 2020 audience and the Grammys only got about half of their previous record-low ratings.

While The Weeknd and Zayn Malik are complaining about the way the awards are given out, the general public seems to care less than ever. I really don’t think that’s because the nomination process is too opaque.

Glenn Close was nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars from the same role she was nominated for Worst Actress in at the Razzie Awards. I get it, people like Glenn Close, see her name and say “Oh, let’s give her a little gold statue to tell her how much we like her!” It’s okay to admit Glenn Close was in a bad movie.

We all get a dopamine hit from having someone else say they like the thing we like, but do these awards actually mean anything? The winners are mostly the result of “for your consideration” campaigns and does anyone decide to watch a movie because it won an Oscar? You know what would happen to someone who did that? They’d have watched Green Book. Is that a price worth paying?