Last night a bunch of people thought The Brit Awards had been hacked, after a series of odd messages began displaying on their TV screens during The 1975’s performance. Many speculated that a particularly harsh critic of the band had decided to somehow hack the entire show to complain about them, like a very British version of Mr. Robot or a particularly mundane episode of Black Mirror.
The flashing images, which featured messages such as “derivative”, “wannabes” and “trying too hard”, led to hundreds of tweets being posted from viewers confused as to what was going on:
https://twitter.com/harryjamesnorm/status/834499775059914754
https://twitter.com/jack_pattyy/status/834499898372403202
Is the @BRITs being hacked!? #BRITs2017 pic.twitter.com/ApXzlSZ9ws
— Tom Fogg (@tomfogg) February 22, 2017
However, more reasonably minded viewers came to the conclusion that it was simply The 1975 taking a few jabs at their own expense, using the captioned graphics to display a series of harsh criticisms they’ve received from music critics over the years.
In fact, The 1975 even included the messages in the music video for the song they performed at the show, which just goes to show how much attention people pay to music videos these days:
It wasn’t long before the furor surrounding the “Brit Awards hack” became the butt of a Twitter joke, with users ridiculing those who believe that the show — the UK’s biggest music awards event of the year — could have possibly been infiltrated by someone for the sole purpose of sticking the boot into The 1975 with a series of snarky messages.
Ye da thinks The Brits has been hacked
— Kieran Whaley (@kieran_whaley) February 22, 2017
Even though people seem to believe The 1975 are loathed that much that someone would risk imprisonment for the sake of calling them “wannabes”, the band picked up Best British Group ahead of nominees Bastille, Biffy Clyro, Radiohead and Little Mix, which makes up the weirdest collection of contenders for a music award we’ve ever seen. After picking up the award, frontman Matt Healy told the audience: “And I just want to say… people in pop music and in the broader public consciousness are told to stay in your lane… [but] if you have a platform, don’t [stay in your lane].”
