The Bizarre Reason Bill Clinton Was 'Nominated' At The Game Awards
"Wait, what did they just say?"
That was the question on everyone's minds as this year's Game Awards ceremony came to a close. The audience both in the studio and at home were thrilled as the team behind "Elden Ring" accepted their award for Game of the Year, but no one could have predicted what arrived shortly after director Hidetaka Miyazaki's emotional speech.
As the band began to play the FromSoftware team off, an unknown young man stepped up to the microphone and uttered (as far as we can tell), "I want to thank everybody and say that I think I want to nominate this award to my reformed Orthodox rabbi, Bill Clinton. Thank you, everybody."
Unorthodox rebel bill clinton???
I'm sorry what?#TheGameAwards pic.twitter.com/K1SjwubhSq— Devin roopnarain (@TurbosnipeOne) December 9, 2022
As the music kicked back on and the audience applauded confusedly, security stepped up to escort the mysterious interrupter off the stage and a clearly annoyed Geoff Keighley signed off for the night. And although the show might have been over, the confusion and fascination with this brief moment at the tail end of the ceremony was far from done. Almost immediately, people took to social media to try to figure out what they'd just heard. Clips of the moment were swiftly shared to the internet as "Bill Clinton" began trending on Twitter.
This quickly unseated Christopher Judge's lengthy "God of War" acceptance speech as the most talked-about soundbite of the night. There are still a lot of questions about what this person hoped to accomplish, but fans online have already had a field day trying to figure it out.
Twitter reacts to the Game Awards interruption
The one bit of the "speech" that folks on social media seemed to immediately agree upon was that this person definitely thanked former United States President Bill Clinton as part of their speech. Some viewers, like Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, weren't so sure they hadn't just dreamed the whole thing. This being the internet, others immediately began making memes of the event.
Bill Clinton #TheGameAwards pic.twitter.com/g0927bXDwy
— Otro Camilo (@AnotherCamilo) December 9, 2022
Other people focused on the idea the interrupter's choice of words. He didn't say he wanted to "dedicate" the award to Bill Clinton; he said he wanted to "nominate" him for a Game Award. This led to fans joking that Bill Clinton managed to get more awards than some of the biggest titles of the year, like "Sonic Frontiers."
Of course, not everybody found this weird moment to be as humorous as others. As strange and meme-able as the awards interruption was, it also meant that Miyazaki and his crew had the spotlight stolen from them during a momentous occasion. Not only that, but some fans on Twitter also pointed out that this could have gone much worse if the speech crasher had been dangerous, instead of someone making a strange attempt at a joke. Thankfully for FromSoftware, Geoff Keighley, and GOTY award presenter Josef Fares, that was not the case, and the unexpected speaker left the stage quietly when approached by security.
The debate continues to rage regarding the intentions behind this odd scene.
So many questions after Bill Clinton's Game of the Year nom
Even beyond the "nomination" for Bill Clinton, viewers were just puzzled by the whole exchange. Why did the members of the "Elden Ring" dev team just let him step forward and have his moment? What in the world must Bill Clinton be thinking as he logs into Twitter the morning after the ceremony to discover that he's trending for some reason? And how did the kid get on stage so easily? As YouTuber Skooch put it, "It's genuinely shocking that a person was able to go on stage and stand behind the DIRECTOR of the GAME OF THE YEAR for minutes while also saying some random stuff about Bill Clinton right after on a mic to millions of people. How the f*** did nobody catch that?"
All that's known for sure, as of this writing, is that Game Awards host Geoff Keighley and staff were not amused by the incident. Shortly after the end of the ceremony, Keighley announced via Twitter that the mysterious Bill Clinton-nominating audience member had been arrested following the end of the show.
This story continues to develop, but many fans refused to let the bizarre moment dampen their spirits. Instead, a number of viewers took to Twitter to focus on the positives of the night, cracking jokes about Al Pacino's surprise appearance during the ceremony, celebrating the aforementioned GOTY win for "Elden Ring," and applauding the intense dedication of the Game Awards Orchestra.
do NOT let flute player guy be overshadowed by the bill clinton kid! #thegameawards pic.twitter.com/TwT8rZYo7D
— Spencer Campbell 🇰🇷🇺🇸 (@Scambl) December 9, 2022