Hulu ruins the Oscars for many viewers after the livestream went down right before the end of the ceremony. The 97th annual Academy Awards were held last night on Sunday, March 2. The award show maintained last year’s procedure of starting at 7pm EST / 4pm CST (after typically beginning at 8pm EST), but changed some things up. One of the most notable changes was, for the first time in the history of the ceremony, making the Oscar telecast available to livestream on Hulu.

Not going as smoothly as one would have hoped, the Hulu livestream ended up shutting down during the ceremony, and viewers are giving an enraged response. Audiences quickly took to the internet to express their distaste for Hulu’s frustrating mishap. Check out some of their reactions below:

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Thematically appropriate, given the simultaneous airing of The White Lotus season 3, episode 3, @applesbianz posted a gif of a key scene from season 2 of the series, noting that they had to find out Best Actress and Best Picture through social media.

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@tweetsofWIZARD included a picture of the dreaded screen that mentioned “the live content has now ended,” and wrote “HULU JUST SHUT OFF THE OSCARS.”

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Adding to the gif reaction mania was @st4rry4pples, who included a confused Jimmy Neutron gif and wrote “uhm…why did hulu cut off the Oscars at best director.”

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Referencing one of the night’s speeches, @joyIuv joked “hulu cutting the oscars because we were told to go back to theaters instead of streaming services.”

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@Nikstrick also made a perturbed comment about the speeches, noting that The Brutalist actor Adrien Brody’s speech was “so long that it made the Oscar broadcast go past its viewing time on Hulu.”

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@hedonisticcals was similarly stunned, wondering why Hulu would turn it off before two important awards.

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Some demanded reparations from Hulu, like @TranceRevolved, who wanted a refund after all the Oscar advertising the streamer did.

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In a clever reference to one of host Conan O’Brien’s opening monologue jokes, @jordan_hcg included a picture of a disappointed-looking John Lithgow, saying it was “Hulu telling me the Oscars are over when they haven’t announced best picture.”

What This Means For The Oscars Telecast

Viewers Missed Out On One Of The Night’s Surprises

As the social media posts referenced, this flub occurred right after the Academy awarded the prize for Best Director, which went to Sean Baker (winning a third Oscar of the night, after Editing and Original Screenplay). As the stream headed into what should have been a commercial break, viewers were faced with a screen that thanked them for watching and said the event had ended. Despite the outrage, given two of the biggest awards of the night had not yet been announced, Hulu was not able to get the Oscars back up and running before Best Picture was announced.

While Anora‘s PGA win made its Best Picture chances a lot better going into last night, the Hulu flub was particularly frustrating to those anxiously awaiting Best Actress. Though she was far from a lock, clearly, Demi Moore was widely considered the favorite for her role playing Elisabeth Sparkle in The Substance. She had won a Golden Globe for the part along with other major awards. Instead, this went to Anora‘s Mikey Madison, making for a surprise Oscars moment that Hulu viewers particularly did not want to miss.

Our Take On The Hulu Mishap

I Was Mad Too

As one of the many Hulu viewers last night myself, I was similarly outraged by the streamer’s poor programming. This year’s Oscars could have been a huge win for content access, as the awards were made available for the thousands without cable who did not want to splurge on live services for one night only. Instead, the future of the streamed Oscars may be in jeopardy, or at least at this streamer, as Hulu has had other problems with live content in the past.

Source: Twitter (Various, See Above)