Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Rebecca Black Up for Inaugural OMAs—So WTF Are the OMAs?!

MTV unveils the nominees up for its first ever O Music Awards, celebrating all things digital music

By Gina Serpe Apr 05, 2011 2:53 PMTags
Lady GagaDonald Kravitz/Getty Images

Ever heard of the OMAs? Us either. But that changes today!

That's because MTV has decided to start putting the music back into music television, and this morning announced nominations for the O Music Awards, its inaugural monosyllabic kudosfest. 'Cause what the world needs now is another awards show.

This time around, the self-congratulations will be purely online-centric (so there's where that "O" comes from) and celebrate all things digital music. And we mean all things.

Let's just say some of these categories are a bit, um...interesting.

If you ever wondered what the Best Music Hashtag Meme was (and who among us can say that they haven't?), then you're in luck, because that is one of the awards that will be handed out during the hourlong live webcast April 28.

How about the Best Animal Performance? Yep, that parrot from Willow Smith's "Whip My Hair" music video has been sorely overlooked up until now.

So has Fan Army FTW, honoring the artist with the most rabid and loyal fan base on the 'Net—up for that award, obviously, are Lady Gaga's Little Monsters, Katy Perry's Bandaids, Justin Bieber's Beliebers, as well fans of 30 Seconds to Mars, My Chemical Romance, Rihanna, Rain, Nicki Minaj, Tokio Hotel and Wiz Khalifa.

Best Fan Forum, Best Music Hack, Best Independent Music Blog, Most Viral Dance (Willow's hair-whipping FTW!), Must Follow Artist on Twitter, NSFW Music Video, Favorite F--k Yeah Tumblr, Funniest Music Short, and even—ready for this one?—Favorite Animated GIF are among the other categories up for grabs.

We can only hope some LOL Cats will be on hand to present the awards.

Possibly the most prestigious award of the night (or at least the one most resembling a traditional prize) is Most Innovative Artist. Among those nominees are Mother Monster herself, Lady Gaga, Kanye West, Radiohead, Lil B, iamwhoiam and Odd Future's Tyler the Creator.

Incidentally, and not at all unexpectedly, Lady Gaga and Tyler lead the pack of nominated artists with three nods apiece. Kanye, the Flaming Lips and Nicki Minaj are next with two apiece.

Other notable nominees include OK Go, Robyn, Arcade Fire, Andy Samberg and his Lonely Planet crew, Funny or Die, 50 Cent, Rebecca Black (as if she wouldn't make the cut!) and bed intruder fender-offer extraordinaire Antoine Dodson.

Voting starts today, and the top vote-getters will be shown in real time. Performers and presenters will be announced in the upcoming weeks, and the complete list of nominees can be seen here.