Twitter Exploded When The Oscar For Best Picture Was Announced & Fans Are Clearly Torn

Jimmy Kimmel isn't the only one who's had anxiety dreams about the announcement of the Best Picture winner at the 2018 Oscars. No matter how emotionally invested you were in this year's crop of Best Picture nominees, you still probably got a little anxious when the time came for the Best Picture to be announced at the 90th Academy Awards. The Shape of Water ultimately snagged the night's biggest prize without a repeat of last year's Envelope-Gate, and tweets about The Shape of Water winning Best Motion Picture are all over the place.

Going into the Academy Awards, one of the biggest focal points was Hollywood's continuing discussion of the industry's treatment of sexual abuse and harassment. The issues have been in the spotlight for every previous awards show this season, but the production team's new solution to prevent an incorrect winner being announced also took precedence alongside current events at the Oscars ceremony.

Following last year's upset when La La Land was mistakenly deemed the Best Picture instead of Moonlight, staff and attendees were banned from using phones or social media backstage at the 2018 show. Another accounting partner also joined the traditional number of two accountants who double check the list of winners when categories are announced.

Of course, even with these new procedures instilled, host Kimmel and his writers couldn't help but joke about the historic blunder that has easily crushed the validity of any other awkward Oscar moment.

At the start of the ceremony, Kimmel mentioned that the ceremony's accountants were completely focused on delivering the correct results this year. He joked about what the group's focus could have been the previous 89 years, which I think we could all agree with. You had one job, guys!

Luckily, a monstrous mistake wasn't the case for the Best Picture winner this year. Presenters Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty named The Shape of Water as the milestone winner, which was a bit surprising based on the way past award ceremonies played out. At the SAG Awards, the ensemble cast of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri took home the top prize, while the film won for Best Drama opposite Lady Bird's Best Musical or Comedy win at the Golden Globes.

Meanwhile, The Shape of Water, the Academy's most nominated film this year, swept up more wins at smaller, independent award ceremonies. In the last few weeks before the Oscars, its campaign for Best Picture gained steam, making it a strong contender to win.

With these past accolades in mind, Twitter was initially surprised about the win, but many viewers were totally down to make Fish-Man jokes. We all may pretend to be hoity-toity watching the Oscars, but clearly some of us are still 13-year-olds at heart.

While it's questionable if the people poking fun at fish actually saw The Shape of Water, other Twitter users were clearly genuine fans of the film.

While Best Director winner Guillermo del Toro was the favorite to dominate that category for his work on The Shape of Water, an overall win for the film seemed less likely to happen. Despite receiving criticism about its redemptive storyline, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri remained in strong favor to win at the Oscars.

When The Shape of Water was declared the winner, other people on Twitter were disappointed, claiming that Three Billboards and indie darling Get Out were more worthy of the title. Meanwhile, I'm sitting over here crying about Lady Bird walking away without any awards, so I feel everyone's pain.

While the win wasn't universally loved, it does mark a unique moment in the Academy Awards' history. The film, often classified as science fiction, represents a genre that the Academy doesn't often recognize. Seeing as the 90th Oscars should award something that displays how much cinema has improved, The Shape of Water is actually a strong choice. However, its win also brought up the question of why similar films weren't signaled out in previous years.

With this win in books, I'm placing my bet on an upcoming influx of Fish-Man teen romances à la what Twilight did for vampires. We'll have to wait and see what The Shape of Water does for sci-fi in the next year!