Comedian Conan O’Brien. (Photo by Paul Marotta/Getty Images)
Getty Images
You can talk about which movie picked up Best Picture, what writer received Best Screenplay or who was named Best Director, but according to the online world there was only one true winner at the 2025 Oscars: Conan O’Brien.
Throughout and following the 97th Academy Awards, social media has been aflame with praise for the comedian who hosted the ceremony.
This rare display of unification shows how social media can be a positive force, not only snowballing praise of a public figure performing at the height of their craft, but also bringing people together in a shared moment of collective joy.
We’ll get to this conclusion in good time, but let’s get a little context about what happened at the 97th Academy Awards.
Conan O’Brien is a comedian, writer and television host who’s best known for his long career on talk shows, specifically Late Night with Conan O’Brien and The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.
He was chosen to host the Oscars for the first ever time for this 2025 edition, a decision that has proven to be incredibly popular.
How Did Conan O’Brien Do As The Oscars Host? And How Did The Online World Respond?
“Conan O’Brien is the best American we have,” said one user online.
“God DAMN I love Conan O’Brien,” stated another.
This trend of superlative descriptions of Conan lasted not only through the Academy Awards themselves, but continue at the time of writing.
Besides this straight-up praise, users also went online to share their favorite Conan moments from the ceremony, including a joke about Kendrick Lamar and Drake, a crack about the number of swear words in Anora, and this performance where he sings a song about not wasting time:
There was also a lot of discussion around how refreshing it was to have Conan hosting the 2025 Oscars. “Give [him] a lifetime contract,” one individual said, “what a breath of fresh air vs the last few years.”
Many others concurred: “they really should just let Conan host every year, or like every other year or something.”
One of the reasons people brought up to explain his success was the specific style of humor he utilizes:
It was this ability to laugh at himself, to puncture the self-seriousness of the Academy Awards and the acting trade in general, that endeared many online to Conan.
As an account on Twitter put it: “guys I think Conan O’Brien might be really good at comedy.”
In fact, surfing through social media it’s tough to find almost anyone speaking negatively about the comedian’s performance while hosting the 2025 Oscars. As much as anything online can be universal, Conan’s hosting performance is already going down as one of the most beloved in the history of the Academy Awards.
Really, this is summed up by another person: “CONAN PRAISE ON THE TL FROM ALL TWITTER NEIGHBORHOODS.”
Why Did People Love Conan O’Brien Hosting The 2025 Oscars?
The first, and most obvious, answer to this is that Conan O’Brien did a good job hosting the Academy Awards.
It’s not a given that the person presenting the Oscars hits the right tone and actually entertains the audience at home. There are a raft of examples of other hosts not getting the tone quite right, making bad jokes (like Neil Patrick Harris) or singing songs some found offensive, such as Seth MacFarlane.
According to the online world, in comparison, Conan knocked it out the park with his jokes and songs.
Yet there are some deeper considerations we can make about the positive reaction.
First off, Conan has become somewhat of an elder statesman in comedy and television. He was on late night television for nearly 30 years, meaning that many people grew up with him on their screens.
Part of the glowing response to O’Brien hosting the 2025 Oscars will be tied to this long-standing relationship fans have with him. Studies show that early exposure to artists impacts how people feel about those individuals over time.
When someone comes across a figure like O’Brien at a young age and enjoy his work, this positive view stretches into the future.
But it goes even deeper than that. Over time, fans develop what a unique relationship with the figure in question, instigating an often long-term commitment to the artist.
In other words, the millions who grew up watching Conan may feel a personal attachment to him, so when he does a universally praised job of hosting something like the Oscars, it almost feels like a personal victory.
What social media can do in a situation like this is amplify and connect people who feel similarly. This causes a snowball effect where the algorithms on various platforms are serving this content to users, because people are engaging with it.
Effectively, this is an echo chamber, but rather than focusing on partisan politics or strange takes, it’s working to bring together movie and comedy fans, uniting them behind an Oscars performance that made the event a whole lot more interesting.
What we’re witnessing is a global watercooler moment, where nostalgia and performance collide, and individuals rush online to share this. It’s a personal experience writ large across the world.
At the end of the day, Conan O’Brien may not have a golden statue to take home, but if you spend any time online today, you won’t be in any doubt that he was the real winner of the 2025 Oscars.
