For years, the Logie Awards were little more than a tedious tribute to cultural cringe. Sure, you’d tune in for a while to snigger at the annual trainwreck of coked-up, D-list celebrities in hideous outfits patting each other on the back for another year of mediocre television, but there’s only so much awkward onstage banter, lip-synced musical numbers and monotonous slurring by drunken 15-year-old Home and Away stars one can handle before switching over to the Sunday movie or giving up and retiring to bed.

But as Crikey‘s TV blogger Dan Barrett pointed out on Friday, the show suddenly got a whole lot more watchable last year. No, the jokes didn’t get any less lame, the frocks any less ill-fitting or the presenters any more talented.

Twitter happened.

Comedians and culture reporters started sending out snarky 140-character reports from inside the show itself, while the rest of the Aussie Twittersphere watched and played along at home. Wil Anderson twitpic’d the cheese platter, everyone else ripped into host Gretel Killeen and we all had a rollicking good time.

This year, the Crikey team endured four painful hours of awful jokes, worse hair, Richard Wilkins, and an Adam and the Ants cover so bad we got nostalgic for frilly fop shirts and satin pants, all in the name of liveblogging the entire event for our readers’ amusement. But honestly, we barely watched the televised coverage: our eyes were glued firmly to the #Logies feed, eagerly awaiting all the inside dirt and drama.

The snark started well before the limos pulled up, with comedian Adam Hills announcing:

By the way, I won’t be tweeting during the #logies. I want to enjoy the night the old fashioned way.

“You mean ‘drunk’?” zinged back Rove McManus.

MasterChef’s Matt Preston tweeted about his cravat, live from the red carpet (and comedian Meshel Laurie dutifully snapped a photo).

As the night kicked off, Wil Anderson revealed that the audience had been warned not to tweet, though none of them held back on the opening musical number from Gabriella Cilmi. “I feel like I’m watching the mike walsh show” said Fox FM’s Adam Richard. “Gabriella cilmi opener sure made cirque de soliel seem slutty…” Anderson reported from under the table.

K.D. Lang’s reprise of her Vancouver Olympics cover of Hallelujah gave Anthony Callea “goosebumps” and got V’s Ruby Rose excited:

K.d lang * sneaking phone under table haha

No, we don’t think she meant it that way, though The Age‘s Catherine Deveny fired off this controversial missive:

Kdlang gets a standing ovation but will she get fingerbanged in the carpark

Charming.

John Mayer was the obligatory “big overseas celebrity who looks equally confused and mortified by the whole event”. “We were just served a vanilla pop tart at #Logies. But enough about John Mayer” sniped Chaser Craig Reucassel.

Defamer Australia‘s Jess McGuire reported that the media room was dry, but that Ten’s Charlie Pickering had been dispatched to smuggle in some booze. Success:

CHARLIE DID IT! BUT WE’RE BEING INTERRUPTED BY AN INTERNATIONAL GUEST! GIVE US THE CHAMPAGNE YOU BASTARDS!

Spicks and Specks‘ Myf Warhurst had an allergic reaction to all the wine available outside, and crowdsourced some antihistamines.

Well before the TV coverage reached its climax, news leaked out that Home and Away’s Ray Meagher had taken out the coveted Gold Logie, with none other than Dannii Minogue breaking the embargo:

Congratulations to ‎​Ray Meagher for winning the Gold Logie. I’m so happy for you!

Afterwards, the stars stumbled off to various parties and pubs, though Talkin’ ’bout Your Generation‘s Josh Thomas took his Logies swag out for takeaway.

But the evening’s most entertaining tweets came from The Hungry Beast’s Dan Illic, who apparently had his phone stolen. No, we won’t quote them, but go have a read. We guarantee it’ll be more entertaining than a night of menstruation jokes.