After Claiming His Shorty Award, SoCal Comedian Discovers It Was Actually a Tie*

FishbowlLA hates to be the bearer of bad news. Then again, the information we passed on earlier today to local stand-up Matt Walker fits perfectly with his blogged sentiments about traveling to New York to accept on Monday the Shorty Award for Best Comedian: In the same category as me were Jim Norton, one of the best comedians working today, and Smosh, the Sacramento based couple that make funny videos that have many orders of magnitude greater views than anything I've ever done online... If the award was for the best comedian that uses Twitter of this crop of finalists, then there is a clear winner, and that's Norton. But if the award is for the comedian that uses Twitter the best of these finalists (and that's how I believe the award is intended to be viewed), then yeah, I guess I did deserve to win. Turns out Norton was also a winner, just not at the big NYC ceremony co-hosted by The Daily Show’s Samantha Bee and Jason Jones. When we got in touch with Walker to ask why he was listed on the Shorty Awards website as a co-winner with Norton, it was the first he'd heard about it. We later confirmed with event organizers that this is not a mistake. Norton was always a co-winner, but the award committee decided not to make this public until later in the week, online. Mainly because Norton couldn't make the big March 26 show.* If you watch the archived live stream, about four prizes in, there's Walker, happily basking in what turned out to be an all-too-brief moment of solitary @funnymatt glory. He told us he's totally cool with Norton also winning. It's just kind of funny that Walker was essentially shorted by the Shorty's. *Update - 03/31/12: Greg Galant, co-founder of the Shorty Awards, has provided FishbowlLA with some clarification regarding the paragraph above that references the original explanation we were given by a member of his staff: We did receive an acceptance video from Jim [Norton] and it was our mistake not playing it and announcing him as a co-winner at the live show. We did include him in the the press release that went out a few hours after the ceremony at 12 a.m. on March 27. I also sent Jim a note apologizing. We will send him his trophy. Separately, Norton shared this thought last night on Twitter (along with a link to our article): [Photo of Walker's award courtesy funnymatt.com]

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After Claiming His Shorty Award, SoCal Comedian Discovers It Was Actually a Tie*

Richard Horgan

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Richard Horgan