The YouTube Music Awards Delivered a Wonderful Mess of Livestreaming Weirdness

Depending what YouTube rabbit hole you fall down on any given bored Friday night, you may see a cat adorably cuddling up with a Labrador or you will see a man taking a frisbee right to the ol’ testicles. The YouTube Music Awards were kind of the same. Depending on what time you clicked on last night, you either saw Jason Schwartzman and Reggie Watts holding up crying babies or you saw M.I.A. swinging LED hula hoops through a crowd of screaming people. That was the spontaneous, avant-garde atmosphere director Spike Jonze captured for the inaugural award show. The live-streaming show broke the traditions of the traditional music award ceremonies, allowing Internet celebs and musical heavyweights to mix it up, while the audience often became part of the action. At times, the off-the-cuff nature of the show worked. Other times, it created some situations that were, uh…weird. Here are a few of more notable moments and highlights from the show.

Earl Sweatshirt and Tyler, the Creator crammed 50 people into a small closet made of Pepto Bismol and absolutely destroyed it.

Lady Gaga showed up dressed as that Nazi guy who has his face melted off from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

41-year-old Eminem, who beat out tween faves like One Direction and The Biebs to win Artist of the Year, delivered this black and white version of “Rap God.”

M.I.A. made up for Eminem’s lack of color with this bright-ass, walk-in kaleidoscope of a video for “Come Walk With Me”

Arcade Fire pulled off a half-music video, half-live performance of “Afterlife.”

Michael Shannon, aka the only good thing about that new Superman remake, made a cameo along with Vanessa Hudgens in Avicii’s video/scene from an episode of the Real Housewives of the YouTube Video Awards.

And despite even your Uncle Frank doing the Gangnam Style dance at your brother’s wedding, Psy was beaten out for the coveted Video of the Year award by Girls’ Generation. The people have spoken.