2018 Teen Choice Awards: The snubs, the wins, the WTF moments
This Sunday (August 12) marked the annual Teen Choice Awards – where young people go to celebrate all that is pop culture while surfboards are handed out to the best in comedy, fashion, film, music, sports, television, and, of course, the internet. So many surfboards, so many questionable award categories, so many D-listers vying for attention. The 2018 edition was hosted by Nick Cannon and Lele Pons, taking place at the Forum in Los Angeles. In addition to honoring the darlings of traditional media, a number of fan-voted categories saw celebs bagging boards for Choice Liplock, Choice Hissy Fit, and Choice Scene Stealer (Riverdale’s Vanessa Morgan, in case you were wondering). Speaking of Riverdale, the young adult show absolutely washed away the competition at this year’s TCA. Not only did it bag Choice Drama TV Show, but it won in nine other categories: Choice Drama TV Actor (Cole Sprouse); Choice Drama TV Actress (Lili Reinhart); Choice TV Villain (Mark Consuelos); Choice Breakout TV Star (Morgan); Choice TVShip (Sprouse & Reinhart); Choice Liplock Cole Sprouse (Sprouse & Reinhart); Choice Hissy Fit (Madelaine Petsch); Choice Scene Stealer (Morgan); and Choice Male Hottie (Sprouse).
The Forum crowd and the Twitter timeline treated the night like a high school pep rally for the entire pop culture yearbook. Riverdale swept the drama side, and the show’s cast walked away with the kind of hardware that usually signals a long run of water-cooler dominance. The surfboard trophies became instant photo props for the cast’s social feeds, and the hashtags kept trending past midnight.
The End of an Era: Teen Choice Awards After 2018
The 2018 ceremony turned out to be one of the last full-scale editions. The final Teen Choice Awards took place on August 11, 2019, in Hermosa Beach, California. After twenty seasons on Fox, the show was placed on indefinite hiatus, leaving the surfboards in storage and the red carpet empty. Viewers who grew up with the annual August ritual suddenly had one less summer tradition to track.
Riverdale's Legacy Beyond the Awards
Riverdale’s 2018 haul proved more than a one-night headline. The series ran from 2017 to 2023, and the Teen Choice wins for Cole Sprouse, Lili Reinhart, and Vanessa Morgan helped cement the show’s place in the late-2010s teen drama canon. The awards sat on cast mantels while storylines twisted through six more seasons, turning the surfboards into quiet reminders of an earlier, lighter chapter.
Fan-Voted Awards and Social Media Impact
Every category at the Teen Choice Awards came from votes cast by U.S. viewers aged 13 and older through social media platforms. That process turned Choice Liplock and Choice Hissy Fit into national conversations rather than insider decisions. Fans treated the ballots like weekly polls, refreshing timelines and coordinating group votes until the final tallies landed on stage.
Notable 2018 Winners Outside Television
The night stretched beyond the drama slate. Louis Tomlinson took home Choice Male Artist, and Camila Cabello claimed Choice Female Artist. Film categories recognized titles such as The Greatest Showman and Black Panther, rounding out an evening that tried to cover the full spectrum of what teens were streaming, buying, and arguing about online.
Looking back, the 2018 Teen Choice Awards captured a specific moment when fan power, network television, and social media still moved in lockstep. The surfboards may have stopped circulating, but the night remains a snapshot of how a generation voted for its own canon before the format itself became history.
