Teen Choice Awards

History

The Teen Choice Awards, an annual Fox television event from 1999 to 2019, was created by executive producers Bob Bain and Michael Burg to target a teen audience older than Nickelodeon's Kids' Choice Awards but similar to MTV's. Initially, fans mailed in ballots torn from teen magazines or voted online at fox.com. In 2008, the official site Teenchoiceawards.com launched, and by 2009, over 83 million votes were cast.

Later, voting moved to Twitter, FOX.com, and the FOX NOW app, with more than 37 million votes in 2016. Winners received custom surfboards, symbolizing teen summer freedom. Hugh Jackman joked in 2009 that winning one meant he was no longer the only Australian without a surfboard.

Ceremonies

The show was held at the Barker Hangar at Santa Monica Airport for its first two shows in 1999 and 2000. From 2001 to 2013, it was held at the Universal Amphitheatre (later known as Gibson Amphitheatre) in Universal City, California. With the demolition of the amphitheater in 2013, the show moved to a new location.

Then after the remodeled Pauley Pavilion at UCLA in Westwood, Los Angeles, was flooded by a broken 30 in water pipe on July 29, 2014, the show was moved to the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. The 2015 and 2017 ceremonies were held at The Galen Center (USC), and the 2016 and 2018 ceremonies were held at the refurbished Forum in Inglewood. The 2019 ceremony was held at an outdoor set in Hermosa Beach, California.

Do Something

In 2008, Dosomething.org sponsored the Do Something Award—which recognized young people. Nine nominees—who saw a problem in the world and then tackled it—each won $10,000 for their cause. The winner received $100,000.

The Do Something Award (formerly the BR!CK Awards) is a program of Do Something, a New York-based non-profit that reaches about 11.5 million young people annually. The award was not presented in 2009. It was replaced with 'Choice Celebrity Activist', which was won by Hayden Panettiere.

Controversy

On August 11, 2014, after losing his category, Vine star Cameron Dallas tweeted that the awards ceremony was 'rigged', saying that he had been informed six days prior to the actual event that he had won the award, and the runners-up were told to still try to solicit votes from their followers, even though the results had already been decided. He also tweeted 'So I found out that the Teen Choice Awards were rigged and used powerful internet people for marketing. I'm sad now. Television is stupid' before deleting the tweets, saying he 'should have taken the high road', but he 'didn't like the fact that [his fans] were being lied to'. Soon after Dallas' initial tweets, Vine star Carter Reynolds stated that the Teen Choice Awards had 'used everyone for promotion', using the hashtag '#TeensDontHaveAChoiceAwards', which soon began trending by fans who noticed the disclaimer at the end of the show saying that the producers reserved the right to choose the winners.

In earlier years of the show, the voting rules page stated 'Teenasaurus Rox reserves the right to choose the winner from the top four vote generators'. In 2016, controversy started on Twitter when fans became upset when they found out that late pop singer Christina Grimmie won the award for Choice Web Star: Music but was not mentioned during the show. Many fans felt that the award show should have been dedicated to her memory or at least for a moment of recognition.

Did You Know?

• The Teen Choice Awards gave out genuine custom-made surfboards as awards, chosen to represent the freedom of summer vacation for teens.
• One Direction holds the record for most wins overall with 28, while Taylor Swift holds the record for most wins by an individual with 26.