No, it’s not just an urban internet rumor: winners of Webby Awards really are restricted to five word speeches. Last night at the Webby Film and Video Awards––the slightly lower-key web video-centric run-up to tonight’s big real super Webbys proper––host Judah Friedlander threatened to kill any winner who went over the limit. I guess the finest minds in the world of web video live in fear of comedians with gimmicky hats, because by my count, only one winner went over, and Friedlander decided to let her slide on the grounds that she was “pretty hot.”

So: it now falls to us to hand out our own awards, in our own totally made-up categories, for the best and worst use of the alloted five words of the night. The nomination and selection process was extremely arbitrary; all voting was done by me whilst sitting in the back row of the show, and the results were undoubtedly influenced by the 2.5 glasses of complementary chardonnay that I enjoyed at the pre-show reception. The full list of winners and losers after the jump; the winning video from one of our Best Speech winners is embedded above.

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