Seven People Not to Invite to Your Oscar Party

Invite Oscar party
Invite Oscar party

Everyone loves a good Oscar party — until you end up stuck in a room for five hours (three for the ceremony, two for the pre-show red carpet coverage, duh) with some of the most obnoxious people alive.

Hosts, for the Love of Television, please consider not inviting the following types of people.

The Hermione

Okay, we get it. You watched all the movies nominated—including the documentary shorts. You know the name and credits of every sound designer and makeup artist. You know the difference between Sound Editing and Sound Mixing, and you’ll be sure to loudly explain this difference to everyone in the room at the merest hint of conflation. Congratulations: You’re the smartest person in the room. Here’s a goat cheese crudité to stuff in your know-it-all maw.

The Degenerate Gambler

A simple Oscar pool is not enough for you. You need elaborate parlays (no one at the party knows what a parlay is), dozens of smaller prop bets throughout the broadcast (“Five bucks says the host makes a boob joke within five minutes. Who’s got the over?”), and you always complain about the fact that the pool doesn’t take odds into account. God only knows what you’re like at sporting events.

That Guy in Your MFA

You don’t even own a movie theater; you project your own stories onto the backs of your eyelids. Truthfully, you were only invited because the host’s best friend has a (frankly bewildering) crush on you; otherwise, you’d have long since been driven from the room with fondue forks and crème brûlée torches for all your sighing and sputtering about what a waste of time and money this whole ordeal is for everyone involved.

IFC Films

The Contrarian

Your strenuous assertion that Boyhood is “so overrated” strikes everyone as at least slightly disingenuous. It’s not until you scoff at the inclusion of The LEGO Movie‘s “Everything Is Awesome” in the Best Song category, though, that the entire room rises up and exiles you to the kitchen.

Courtesy Everett Collection

The Populist

The Oscars probably would be a little more exciting if a few more popular films were nominees! But you recounting the plot of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug in agonizing detail is not going to win you any friends. Wait, do you actually know anyone here?

The Entertainment Reporter

Sorry. You’re going to be on your laptop all night anyway, or bugging someone about a charger for your phone, because your boss has commanded you to produce at least one Hot Take for every award. After each category, you’ll ask if it’s cool if you rewind a speech, or shush people during bits of patter because you need to hear it, if only so you can make fun of it on Twitter. Related: No one wants to be the guinea pig for your potential tweets. Please stop reading them out loud before sending them.

Film Still with Crying Women

The Wreck

Pull yourself together. We’re all excited about Meryl winning, and her speech was indeed gracious and kind and deeply moving, but it ended four categories ago and you are still crying. We have, as an audience, moved on, and you’re starting to make everyone nervous that you’re having an actual breakdown. Plus, now all the napkins are gone, and Greg just knocked an entire glass of malbec onto Abbi.

Is there anyone we missed? Tell us in the comments below. The 87th Annual Academy Awards air Sunday, Feb. 22 at 7/6c on ABC.