Honoring the promise he gave during the press conference, Psy ended the Social Star Awards with a bang with his power-packed finale that got dozens of people standing, dancing and singing along to his latest “Gentleman” and the world phenom “Gangnam Style”. The best response any act has received for the night. There’s no doubt that the 35-year-old Korean star lived up to his name of being a global sensation and a spectacular performer on stage.

Despite giving out an unprecedented 288 awards, the most for any award ceremony anywhere, the inaugural Social Star Awards was a captivating rendezvous filled with glitz and glamour.  Dubbed the Oscars of social media, the award ceremony was held at Marina Bay Sands on May 23 and streamed live on YouTube. Organised by Starcount, the website that totes the statistics and popularity of stars on social media, it’s a platform to recognise and celebrate new superstars of social media.

The presentation of 288 awards recognising popular stars and brands was a butt-numbing 24-hour event, with most of the winners accepting the award “virtually”, from wherever they were in the world in a pre-recorded video.

Only the biggest 11 awards were saved for the last 3 hours at the ceremony, hosted by the charming ‘Entourage’ of Jeremy Piven and the gorgeous ‘Dark Angel’ Jessica Alba in Singapore.

What better way to kickstart the show than having the Original Harlem Shakers performing the viral YouTube trend they started, The Harlem Shake, with storm troopers and shakers from Singapore and the crowd joining along.

The Most Popular Music Solo Artist Award went to the pop sensation Justin Bieber who owes his discovery to YouTube. Bieber later went on to win the biggest award of the night, the Social Star Almighty Award for being the social media giant among celebrities and brands. The award was based on Starcount data, which gives points and ranks by measuring the social media activity of 1.7 billion people across the 11 biggest social media networks in the world.  Justin Bieber has close to 55 million Facebook fans alone.

Photo: jovenatheart.com

The first performer of the night, Aerosmith, despite being a lot older than the typical social media enthusiast, thoroughly entertained the audience with 3 of their famous hits, “Cryin”, “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” and “Walk This Way”. Lead singer and former American Idol Judge, Steven Tyler, stole the limelight with his signature Rock God look, enigmatic stage presence and his fans’ beloved screams. The 65-year-old ladies man even pulled the hosts to dance along during their last song “Walk This Way”. Which led to Alba murmuring, “He still takes my breath away.” Hikakin later joined them on stage to rap as Tyler was captivated by his beatboxing.

English-Irish boyband One Direction captured the Most Popular Music Group Award to the delight of their huge female fan base. The boys accepted the award in their video, “We wanna say a massive thank you for the Best Social Star Group of the year award. Thank you for our Starcount award, and we will see you soon!” It could be a hint for fans in Singapore much to their delight.

Carly Rae Jepson clad in a shiny purplish pink blazer over a cropped-top and high waist shorts, lifted the crowd’s spirits with her vivacious performance of her song “Tonight I’m getting over you”on stage. Based on social media statistics, her number 1 fan is from Singapore. The lucky fan, Fatin had her wish of sharing stage with her idol fufilled when she was invited to join Jepson on stage and even video record it as the Canadian songstress performed her biggest hit “Call Me Maybe”.

The award show was like a big party, and no party would be complete with electro dance music and the Party Rock People. Despite his partner Redfoo not being with him, LMFAO‘s SkyBlu still managed to hype up the crowd with their most renowned and revolutionising shuffling hit, “Party Rock Anthem”.

The biggest mobile phone game since Angry Birds, the Candy Crush Saga won the Most Popular Game Award. However, it was also mocked as deserving the “wasted youth award” by Piven.

There were other special performances throughtout the night that hyped up the crowd. These include Japanese beatboxer Hikakin, Dubstep dancer Marquese Scott, Tummy Talk, a duet by Andrew Garcia and Chester See, Blush, Eric Benet featuring Big Gipp, and the jaw-dropping performance by famous Japanese Tron-inspired dance crew, Wrecking Crew Orchestra.  The choreography using the luminous suits was so amazing that you would really think there were a handful of them performing.

Alba and Laina Morris (a.k.a. the Overly Attached Girlfriend (OAG),) even had a stare-off. They both started intensely but ended up in guffaws shortly, with Morris taking the win.

Swedish YouTube game commentator, Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie (Pew-dee-pie) snagged the Most Popular Show Award with his hilarious videos that garnered him over 8 million subscribers on YouTube.  The 23 year-old YouTuber also appeared on a few award nomination teasers throughout the show.

Another stunning performance of the night would be by Cee Lo Green. The “F*** You” singer and The Voice US judge performed the good ol’ hit single “Crazy” from his old days when he was part of soul duo Gnarls Barkley. The full back cladded star ended his set on a high with the crowd singing to his popular hit “F*** You”.

 

Here are the winners for the other awards for the night:

 

Most Popular Sports Star: Cristiano Ronaldo

Most Popular Sports Team: Barcelona FC

Most Popular Actor/Actress: Selena Gomez

Most Popular Film: The Twilight Saga

Most Popular TV Show: The Ellen DeGeneres Show

The complete list of winners can be found here.

 

Photos: Starcount and Action Images