A star-studded backstage photo from Oscar’s host Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) became the most-retweeted tweet ever, according to Twitter. The show aired Sunday night; as of Monday afternoon, the photo had already seen over 2.8 million retweets.
If only Bradley’s arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscars pic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap
— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) March 3, 2014
The traffic from Ellen’s photo was so intense that Twitter service was disrupted for more than twenty minutes (oops). However, Ellen temporarily “breaking” Twitter also meant the social platform received a ton of publicity.
The tweet was also a huge win for Oscar sponsor Samsung. The selfie was taken (by Bradley Cooper, actually) with a Samsung Galaxy Note 3, in what the Los Angeles Times calls an “epic product placement for the Apple competitor.”
The record was previously held by President Obama’s “four more years” tweet after winning re-election in 2012; that photo earned nearly 782,000 retweets.
Four more years. pic.twitter.com/bAJE6Vom
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 7, 2012
The Twitter blog reported some more big numbers from the Oscars. During the live show there were more than 14.7 million tweets worldwide containing terms related to the Oscars; that number jumped to 17.1 million including the red carpet and conversation immediately following the show.
