Timothée Chalamet’s Very Viral Oscars Season

Going viral during awards season is not necessarily a good thing. Look no further than the unearthed social media posts of “Emilia Pérez” star Karla Sofía Gascón for the most extreme example of how an actor’s online behavior can sink a film’s chances.

But in other cases social media can be a tool for a contender. Timothée Chalamet, a best actor nominee for his portrayal of Bob Dylan in the biopic “A Complete Unknown,” knows this. Leading up to the Christmas release of his film and through the ensuing months on the awards trail, Chalamet has waged a highly amusing, sometimes odd, campaign eschewing the old, staid ways of Hollywood promotion. In addition to some somber interviews about how much Dylan means to him, Chalamet has posted videos of himself dancing, worn kitschy outfits and turned social media feeds into his own personal art project.

While Chalamet has appeared on traditional media, he has utilized it in surprising ways where virality seems to be the end goal rather than reaching typical viewers of those programs.

What we’re witnessing is perhaps the first Gen Z Oscar campaign. Technically, Chalamet, who was born in 1995, is a millennial, but he’s a child of the internet who understands its weird contours and knows that sometimes a post doesn’t have to make sense to be appealing. This won’t necessarily translate to Oscar gold, but it has certainly been fun to watch it unfold. Here are Chalamet’s greatest hits from this very unusual Oscar run.

The first sign that Chalamet was doing something different with his promotional campaign for “A Complete Unknown” came when he appeared on ESPN’s “College GameDay” in early December. It’s typical for celebrities to show up on the broadcast and join the analysts in predicting which teams are going to win the day’s matchups, but Chalamet, who broke out in art-house indie films, seemed like an odd choice for the gig.