This year many viewers were left wondering “Who is Jo Koy?” after the opening monologue at the Golden Globes. Koy, an American comedian and actor, was tasked with hosting the 81st Golden Globes only a few days before the show, a point he made clear several times throughout his monologue. To no one’s surprise, his untimely jokes and crass demeanor were met with scattered laughter.

Koy started out tame — teasing Meryl Streep for her countless nominations and wins. Yet, not even three minutes in he began to lose the crowd. When comparing two of the year’s top movies, “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie,” he made an ignorant comment about Margot Robbie’s body, somehow missing the whole point of the film.

“‘Oppenheimer’ is based on the 721-page Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Manhattan Project and ‘Barbie’ is on a plastic doll with big boobies,” Koy joked. He quickly followed up by asking the crowd if he was a creep for “being attracted to a plastic doll.” Ryan Gosling, who played Ken, could be seen stone-faced and confused at the remark, while Robbie, who played Barbie, laughed uncomfortably.

“The key moment in ‘Barbie’ is when she goes from perfect beauty to bad breath, cellulite and flat feet. Or what casting directors call a ‘character actor,’” Koy went on to comment. After his final remark about the film, laughter could be heard, yet every single person the camera panned to looked confused or annoyed, like Selena Gomez, who visibly put her face in her hands. Despite having a few minutes left to speak, it was clear Koy had lost the crowd. He tried to recover several times, diverting blame to his writers and  the time frame, but no one was laughing harder than Koy himself.

Later in the show, he also made a perceived pass at singer Taylor Swift, claiming the difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL was there were fewer shots of Swift. Her reaction was not overtly negative; however, her stone-cold face led her distinctly loyal fanbase to come to her defense.

After the show, Koy received significant backlash online, especially on popular social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. In the comment section of a TikTok Koy posted to his personal account showing his preparation for the Globes, there are almost as many likes as comments. The top comments read “The silence after all your jokes is golden” and “Barbie was made because of you.”

Despite that,, the general public’s reactions didn’t match those of some of Hollywood’s top nominees. Greta Gerwig, who directed “Barbie,” didn’t seem bothered by Koy’s remarks.

“Well, he’s not wrong. She’s the first doll that was mass-produced with breasts, so he was right on,” Gerwig said in an interview with BBC Radio 4.

Other comedians also came to Koy’s defense, confirming the job is inherently difficult, like Seth Meyers, who has hosted award shows like the Emmys. He did a good job, considering “the deck was stacked against him … when you do a show like these, it helps to have a staff of people you know and you trust well,” Meyers told Variety.

Meyers raises an interesting point about the way the content for award shows is generated. Typically, there is a well-sized team of trusted writers behind the monologue and hosts are given further notice. Comedian Laurie Kilmartin shared Meyers’ sentiments.

“10 days is genuinely not enough time to write about 500 jokes, which is how many you need to find 15 suitable jokes,” she said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

It is clear that Koy was up against a tough room, but rather than rise to the occasion, his inherently misogynistic remarks and other ill-delivered jokes coupled with his consistent dissing of his writers — although likely a panicked attempt at recovery — left many walking away with a bad taste in their mouths.