4 Reasons Why The BET Awards Should Remain In-Person

It’s been a week since the 2020 BET Awards aired, virtually, and folks are still buzzing about the virtual experience. BET celebrated its 40th anniversary with host Amanda Seales, and special performances by Alicia Keys, Chloe and Halle, DaBaby and Megan Thee Stallion. This was also the first year the awards were broadcasted nationally on CBS. The show was awesome, to say the least, as the virtual experience brought about new and creative performances. This year’s awards set the ‘virtual experience’ precedence for other future award shows and festivals that choose to produce virtually.

Since the 2020 BET Awards aired, there’s been a lot of talk about whether the awards should remain virtual or in-person. Well, in my opinion, I’d rather the awards remain in-person, once Covid-19 clears up of course! Here are my four reasons why the BET Awards should remain in-person.

1. Messiness of the Cameraman– One thing I miss about the in-person awards is the messiness of the cameraman. During past BET Awards, the cameraman directs the camera toward celebrities and the audience at the perfect times and their facial expressions are always hilariously shady and oddly appropriate. You will always know when someone messes up or if there’s tension between two parties, or if someone disagrees with an award winner. You can watch the awards on mute and still get a kick out of the various facial expressions. The best part is, social media takes no time turning celebrities’ facial expressions into memes. It doesn’t get any better than that!
2. Issa Family Reunion– For me, the BET Awards is sort of like an annual Black family reunion. It’s the coming together and the celebration of successful Black people. It’s like seeing cousins, aunts and uncles that you haven’t seen in a year and catching up on all the great things you and those family members are doing. On a larger scale, I would relate it to an HBCU homecoming, a reunion of Black people. Although the virtual experience was new and creative, it will never be able to replace the essence of physically being at the awards, or what I call, the family reunion. Virtual can’t replace the hugs, the in-person interaction, the energy, or the vibes. I just can’t get with the idea of a virtual family reunion.
3. Red-Carpet Looks & Interviews– I want to see all the red carpet LEWKS, not just the presenters’ and award winners’ outfits, which is what we were limited to during the virtual experience. I truly enjoy watching celebrities pull up to the awards and get out of the luxury cars and flaunt around the red carpet in their fancy dresses and outfits, that cost more than my apartment and car combined. I follow my favorite celebrities on social media and its always refreshing to hear them speak on what their wearing and their latest tea with the red-carpet journalists. Black people prancing around at a bougie event with bougie cars and bougie outfits is my type of party!
4. Host and Crowd Interaction- This year’s host was Amanda Seales and I thought she did okay, not amazing, but okay. However, I gave her a pass because I can only imagine how awkward it is to host a major awards show with no audience. Can you imagine making a joke and no one being there to laugh? It’s sounds like an awkward and uncomfortable. Event hosts thrive on crowd interaction. Hosting is all about energy, vibes and engagement. I believe standing in front of cameras making jokes and trying to be an engaging host with no crowd to engage with, has to be nerve wrecking to say the least.

I say all of this to say, the virtual BET Awards was great and all, but bring back the in-person show, once Covid-19 clears up of course. BET has not made any statements about how they plan to move forward with the awards show in the future.