Riz Ahmed, Jay Shetty, Manjusha Kulkarni Among 2021 Webby Award Winners
- This year’s show was dedicated to honoring outstanding individuals, organizations and projects that found creative and innovative ways to use the internet to help the world stay connected during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Actor Riz Ahmed, storyteller, podcaster and former monk Jay Shetty and Manjusha Kulkarni of Stop AAPI hate are among winners of the 25th Webby Awards, honoring excellence on the internet. This year’s awards were dedicated to honoring outstanding individuals, organizations and projects that found creative and innovative ways to use the Internet to help the world stay connected during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ahmed won the best actor award for his powerful work in the role of Ruben in the Amazon Prime film “Sound of Metal.” As Ruben, a heavy-metal drummer who starts losing his hearing, Ahmed brings complexity and heart to his character as he stays with a deaf community and copes with how to accept his new reality. Ahmed previously broke barriers at the Emmys in 2017, when he won Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series for “The Night Of,” becoming the first Asian and first Muslim to win in the category, and the first Muslim and first South Asian to win a lead acting Emmy. He had received two nominations – “The Night Of” and his guest spot in “Girls.”
Shetty’s company MediaMonks won the Webby for Production Company of the Year. The company won the award for their “stellar work” on “Reporters Without Borders: The Uncensored Library,” and “Netflix: The Queen and the Crown” and “DARK: Interactive Netflix Guide.”
Kulkarni was named along with Cynthia Choi and Russell M. Jeung of Stop AAPI Hate for the Social Movement of the Year award for using the Internet to effectively track and respond to incidents of hate and discrimination against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Stop AAPI Hate is a nonprofit organization that runs the Stop AAPI Hate Reporting Center, which tracks incidents of hate and discrimination against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States.
Additional winners also include Oprah Winfrey, Jemele Hill, Katy Perry, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Gordon Ramsay, Dua Lipa. Dr. Anthony Fauci, Lisa DuVernay, Andra Day and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. The awards ceremony was hosted by actress Jamila Jamil.