The 88th Oscars opened with Chris Rock’s monologue about the controversy surrounding the lack of diversity in Hollywood.

During the show, Rock touched on the pressure to quit his hosting job, how to increase black nominees by creating “black categories,” and what type of racism exists in Hollywood.

The nominees last night were predominantly white and I don’t think that’s fair. I believe that a place such as Hollywood should open its doors to more black actors. Right now, it’s only been open a crack that a few people have gone through.

Last year, the infamous hashtag #OscarsSoWhite went viral leading up to the show thanks to April Reign, a former attorney and managing editor of BroadwayBlack.com.

The hashtag was meant to be a resurgence through social media to show concerns about diversity in Hollywood.

Reign has been encouraging the boycotts for two years now and is again urged viewers to not watch the award show, the movement was believed to be linked to the decrease in viewership last year.

One way that people have been boycotting during the awards show was to wear black ribbons and arm bands to symbolize their support for a more diverse Hollywood.

Social media has also helped spread the word of the Black Lives Matter movement as well as #OscarsSoWhite, and it’s making a heavy impact on society.

Anybody can search a hashtag on their account, and it helps gain attention.

So for this hashtag to not only be noticed on Twitter, and it’s spreading like wildfire, I think it’s made an impact on people who weren’t too happy about the awards.

The boycotts and other protests are evidence of this movement’s effect. Many other social media movements have also resulted in similar campaigns.

Here on campus and even off of campus, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media websites have a huge impact on spreading the word and allowing people to see and know what is going on around them.

So if a hashtag were to spread around campus about prominent issues, I would think it would affect the students and faculty in a strong way just like #OscarsSoWhite.

However, even though people are posting things on social media and allowing millions of people to see what is going on with the world, that doesn’t mean they’ll take any action to encourage an end to say smoking cigarettes on campus as opposed to reforming the prestigious award show.

We need to band together and be united when it comes to diversity, to lives that matter most and pay equal attention to the worldly issues that people are so used to ignoring.