Who created the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite in January 2015?

April Reign created the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite in January 2015.

Reign, a media strategist and diversity-and-inclusion advocate, coined the hashtag on Twitter on 15 January 2015. She was responding to the nominations for the 87th Academy Awards, which highlighted the lack of racial diversity among the acting nominees and renewed debate about representation in Hollywood.

The phrase was not simply a campaign for one overlooked performer. Reign explained that it was meant to question the wider system: who gets cast, which stories are funded, who works behind the camera, and how award-season decisions are made. That broader framing helped the hashtag become a discussion about institutional patterns rather than a single nomination dispute.

#OscarsSoWhite returned with greater force in January 2016, when no actors of color were nominated for the second consecutive year at the 88th Academy Awards. The backlash pressured the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to address its membership and voting demographics. Issa Rae, Shonda Rhimes, and Ava DuVernay have all been prominent Hollywood figures associated with diversity conversations, but none created this hashtag.