The research looked at the 391,114 out of 1,101,721 tweets on the night that showed an emotional reaction to the ceremony and recorded data starting from three hours before the initial broadcast to three hours after it ended. Over 8% of all emotional tweets during the evening mentioned either “Breaking Bad,” its lead actor in a drama winner Bryan Cranston or its supporting actor in a drama winner Aaron Paul. In the final 10 minutes of the broadcast, when the AMC drama received the top drama trophy, there were 27,278 total tweets with emotional reactions — the highest 10-minute segment of the night.
Cranston was involved with another social media highlight earlier in the night when he intercepted Louis-Dreyfus with a dramatic kiss on her way to the stage to accept the Emmy for lead actress in a comedy. The five-minute span elicited 4,000 tweets about the actress, with 2,000 giving an emotional reaction. On the night, more than 15,000 tweets included an emotional reaction to Louis-Dreyfus, with 51.6% expressing love and 21.9% congratulating her on the award.
Host Seth Meyers drew mixed reactions, with 4% of all tweets containing an emotion mentioning him. 32.7% of those tweets said something about his performance being the “best,” while 16.3% opted for “WTF” and 12.8% went with “hate.” “Weird Al’s” musical segment and Sofia Vergara’s moment rotating on a dais also drew split opinions, with over half of the reactions to the musician wondering “WTF” and 17.7% of reactions to the “Modern Family” actress expressing “hate.”
The segment of the evening devoted to Robin Williams caused a spike in reactions with the word “beautiful,” with the five-minute time period of the tribute drawing 3,294 tweets with that term out of a total 12,709 tweeted reactions.