The best internet reactions to "The Slap" heard round the world
Will Smith slapped Chris Rock on stage at the Oscars, setting the stage for one of the best nights on the internet in the long time. Here's the best things I found.
Hello friends,
Anything interesting happen last night??
There’s no point in sharing with you the usual weekly lineup of the best content on the internet, because all anyone is talking about today is “The Slap.”
I can’t imagine any of you all don’t know what happened at this point, but for the few who have been living under a rock (pun intended), a very quick primer: Best Actor nominee Will Smith stormed on stage during the Oscars Sunday night and slapped comedian Chris Rock across the face, after Rock made a joke about his wife’s shaved head. Smith then shouted expletives at him after returning to his seat. No more than 20 minutes later, Smith won the Best Actor award and had to go on stage and speak to the national TV audience.
It was probably the most shocking live television moment since the infamous Janet Jackson Super Bowl halftime snafu.
But also, it set the stage for one of the great night in Twitter history, and really across the internet everyone was throwing out their best jokes and memes. I figured, why not use this space to recap the best of the best reactions to the slap heard round the world?
What’s the coolest story or thing you found on the internet this week? Reply to this email and shoot me a link. Would love to hear from you.
Here’s the full video of “The Slap,” provided in the moment by a Japanese TV feed (many also saw the Australian feed) because the U.S. feed muted and attempted to cut out the incident from its broadcast.
Best pun headlines: “Swing Richard,” “Best Smacktor,” “The Pursuit of Slappiness,” “Fresh [Hand]Prints of Bel Air”
“Will Smith’s marriage is open to EVERYTHING except jokes.” —@thecjpearson
“Congrats to Coda, huge night for letting your hands do the talking” —@VinceMancini
“what a ceremony to win an award for directing a movie about the violence of repressed masculine anger!!” —@aherman2006
“bronco henry would have never let any of this happen” —@shirklesxp
“That's why he got sent to Bel-Air in the first place. S*** like that.” —@_Zeets
“Men will literally slap the s*** out of an Oscars presenter and then win Best Actor 10 minutes later instead of going to therapy” —@ZackBornstein
“It's actually not funny at all? Will Smith could have killed him with that slap. What if his hand had been full of bees and Chris Rock was allergic to bees and one of the bees stung Chris and nobody had an epipen. Not so funny now is it” —@nomchompsky
“just imagine how this all would have gone down if Chris Rock was a white man, and if Will Smith was a Chinese man, and if instead of slapping him he shot him with a laser tag gun, and if instead of the Oscars this had happened at a laser tag facility” —@django
A frame-by-frame video analysis of the slap, with the signature comedy commentary of @Jomboy_
Will Smith wishes he had the memory eraser flash thingy from Men in Black.
“Andrew Garfield texting the other Peter Parkers to see if Will Smith slapped Chris Rock in their universes too” —@ClintRLamb
Lupita Nyong'o’s reaction sitting right behind Smith.
And oh so many more. Thanks for reading and sharing! Come back Friday and I’ll give my full thoughts on the Oscars ceremony, plus reveal the winners and losers of our picks pool!