Conan O’Brien may have lost the Emmy, but he won the internet

Last night, Conan O’Brien was the clear fan favorite to win at the Emmy’s in the Outstanding Variety Talk Show category. It was viewed as a chance to honor the talk show host for his nearly 30 run in the game. Even Jimmy Kimmel, who was nominated in the same category, made it clear that he wanted Conan to win. But history wound up repeating itself, and Last Week Tonight w/John Oliver won the gold.

However, O’Brien made his presence known on multiple occasions. When Oliver shouted out O’Brien during his speech, saying the win was bittersweet as he also was sort of rooting for O’Brien, Conan stood up to audience cheers, before jokingly getting depressed and sitting down. When Stephen Colbert won later on in the show, he ran up onstage with Colbert’s crew, and stood all smiles in the background, acting as if he was part of it.

But without a doubt, the main highlight came when the chairman and CEO of the Television Academy Frank Scherma was walking onstage to present. After the music dies down, you can hear a man shouting in the background. The home viewers were confused, but the audience in the room were clearly very amused at whatever was going on. When the camera finally cut to him, O’Brien was standing up, cheering and mock-saluting Scherma. Why? All for the laughs.

Conan stole the emmys just listen for him in the background 😭😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/MOI3WfxzrU

— Levi (@TheDevil0fHK) September 20, 2021

These moments wound up taking the internet and social media by storm, calling him the ultimate Emmy’s troll. Even though O’Brien lost, he was clearly the fan favorite last night. Seth Rogen also won fanfare for biting the hand that was giving him stage time as a presenter and calling out just how stupid it was that they were all gathered in a small space during COVID. Apparently, they sold it as being outdoors, but it really was just in a big tent, with nobody wearing masks. Rogan declared that he wouldn’t have gone had he known. Additionally, the internet also got very upset when Hamilton beat Bo Burnham for Outstanding Pre-Recorded Variety Special.

As predicted, Ted Lasso made a big sweep, including for Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Actor as well as Actress in a Comedy Series for Jason Sudeikis and Hannah Waddingham, respectively. Also as predicted was Jean Smart’s well-deserved win for Hacks, which surprisingly managed to beat out Lasso in the Outstanding Writing category. And Saturday Night Live is still sweeping the Outstanding Variety Sketch Series Emmy, as evidenced by the fact that nobody even looks excited anymore when they win. They all just stood up to walk onstage. Barely a smile was cracked.

All in all, it was these moments that made up an otherwise forgettable and lackluster Emmy Awards.