By Katie Meyer

It’s not a good time to be a little gold statue. This year, all twenty Oscar nominees in the acting categories were white. The Academy members who determine nominations are 95% white, while 1 out of 10 Americans is African-American and 3 of 10 are people of colour.

How did social media users react to all-white nominations? #OscarsSoWhite is a trending topic on Twitter for the second year in a row and its impact cannot be underestimated.

Should the Academy be held responsible for the lack of diversity? In the escalating conversation around the nominations on social media, some pointed to deeply rooted diversity issues that start in the writing room, while others blamed the Academy for overlooking deserving minority stars (like David Oyelowo and Michael B. Jordan). After #OscarsSoWhite went viral for the second year in a row, Spike Lee, Will Smith, and Jada Pinkett have boycotted the show. On Twitter, Pinkett asked: “Should people of color refrain from participating all together?”

With the big show just days away, how is the Academy handling the onslaught of criticism online?

The Big Lull (Again)

Though Oscar nominations and wins overall roughly match the African American proportion of the population, movie fans have found two all-white years untenable. Much like they did in 2015 — as well as 1995, 1997, and every year between 1975 and 1980 — when all the acting nominees were white.

The all-white nomination years indicate that the makeup of the Academy, not the audience, determines nominations.

In 2015, #OscarsSoWhite also damaged the Academy on Twitter. Crowdbabble’s analytics engine shows that the engagement rate was unusually low in the month leading up to the organization’s namesake event.