Each year, The Webby Awards honors a group of individuals for their outstanding work on the Internet with Special Achievement Awards. This year’s recipients, from Webby Artist of the Year Megan Thee Stallion to Lifetime Achievement recipients Anil Dash and Kevin McCoy and Special Achievement Winner Takashi Murakami, are using their platforms and innovations to further the arts, push for equity, ownership and positive social change. Achievement The Webby Awards will once again honor a group of individuals for their outstanding work on the Internet this year with Special Achievement Awards.
Get to know the 2022 Webby Special Achievement Winners, and their work below!
Megan Thee Stallion, Webby Artist of the Year
There are many reasons Megan Thee Stallion inspires her global fandom, affectionately known as the “Hotties.” For starters, the 2022 Webby Artist of the Year routinely uses her massive platform to advocate for Black women to be confident, respected and protected.
As one of the music industry’s most influential artists at only 27 years-old, Megan Thee Stallion doesn’t subscribe to limitations. She uses the Internet to demonstrate this fact, from releasing her Internet-breaking single “WAP” and its accompanying music video, to inspiring multiple TikTok challenges with each single she drops like “Body”, to her Snap Original Series “Off Thee Leash,” to “Enter Thee Hottieverse,“ her upcoming virtual reality concert tour.
Remains unafraid to speak up. Even more, as an entertainer, philanthropist and entrepreneur, Megan Thee Stallion uses the Internet and social media as her megaphone to empower and speak up for Black women. From penning her New York Times Essay “Why I Speak Up for Black Women,” to shedding light on Internet culture’s tendency to discredit and ridicule Black women who speak out on abuse they have suffered, while propping up abusers. With community care serving as her guiding light, Megan actively brings these issues to light, so other women don’t feel like they need to suffer in silence.
Laverne Cox, Webby Advocate of the Year
Laverne Cox will be recognized with the second annual Webby Special Achievement Award selected by a committee chaired by the NAACP and the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences, for her tireless efforts championing for awareness and equal rights.
As an actress, film producer and equal rights advocate, Laverne Cox’s career is a form of advocacy in itself, full of firsts. As the first black transgender person to create and star in her own television show, TRANSform Me. She has starred in the critically acclaimed, award-winning Netflix series Orange is the New Black, portraying a multidimensional black trans character on-screen, and executive produced the documentary Disclosure: Trans Lives Onscreen. Cox understands the true power of empathy and showing by example and a clear, consistent and powerful voice advocating in defense of Black trans lives. The Webby Advocate of the Year Award aims to honor a recipient who uses their online platform to amplify their commitment to social justice advocacy.
Anil Dash & Kevin McCoy, Webby Lifetime Achievement
Innovators and digital pioneers Anil Dash and Kevin Mccoy are accepting the 2022 Webby Lifetime Achievement Award for developing a block-chain powered way for artists to own and monetize digital work, which laid the groundwork for what would be known as Non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Since creating their pivotal monetized graphics project in 2014, and forming the first prototype of a system that uses blockchain technology to authenticate and sell unique digital artworks, Dash and McCoy’s efforts have revolutionized a new era for the Internet, ownership and collaboration. From offering people a way to store digital artworks in a blockchain, to using NFTs to fund DAOs focused on community development, the system Dash and McCoy created are one of the most important technological inventions of the decade that is fostering a new era of digital collaboration.
Takashi Murakami, Webby Special Achievment
World-renowned contemporary artist Takashi Murakami is being honored with a Webby Special Achievement Award for his lifelong career of creating experimental art, and for bringing his talents to the new frontier of NFt art, notably through his CloneX NFT drop with RTFKT Studios and his upcoming MURAKAMI.FLOWERS.
Murakami has constantly demonstrated that he role of an artist is to change existing ideas held by the status quo and create something new. As a visionary, genius, and one of the world’s most influential contemporary artists, Takashi Murakami has demonstrated this throughout his 31-year career. From blurring the lines between contemporary art, fashion and consumerism, to directing and animating music videos for some of the music industry’s most acclaimed song, including Billie Eilish’s “you should see me in a crown” and Kanye West’s “Good Morning”, Murakami is no stranger to creating art that inspires the masses, across any medium.
Drew Barrymore, Webby Special Achievement
Beloved actress, producer, entrepreneur and talk show host Drew Barrymore will accept a Webby Special Achievement Award this year. For years, she has succeeded at entertaining online audiences everywhere through The Drew Barrymore Show and its social media content, and connecting consumers with high-quality products through her Beautiful Kitchenware and Flower Beauty brands.
Where others have struggled to make the talk show format stand out amidst legacy shows, The Drew Barrymore Show makes excellent use of social media to keep fans deeply engaged; notably through behind-the-scenes content Drew posts on her personal Instagram, clips posted on the show’s YouTube channel and seamlessly weaving in pop culture moments cementing her show, while syndicated, as a part of digital culture that can’t be missed.
Adam Scott, Webby Best Actor
A great actor, Adam Scott has been named the 2022 Webby Best Actor for shaking up screens at home with his performance in Severance on Apple TV+. In his portrayal of Mark Scout, the Lumon Industries employee who chooses to “sever” his work and personal lives, Adam Scott brings his quiet strength and humor to this dystopian story. Audiences are fascinated by workplace dramas and Adam Scott gives life to this story of extreme workplace productivity culture the way no one else can.
#SayGay Movement, Webby Social Movement
In a special moment, we are honoring Jack Petcoz, Will Larkin, Abbie Garretson and fellow organizers for continuing a movement for the protection of transgender youth against discriminatory bills and legislation through #SayGay, and for using the Internet to draw attention to the urgent need to address policies that endanger the lives of young trans and LGBTQ people everywhere.
