Sad puppies continue to make me sad

[scarlettina]

The more I read about the Hugos and the Sad Puppies and the Rabid Puppies and all the rest, the more upset and depressed I get. It has disturbed my sleep and been the background noise in my head for days now. I don't think I ever realized in how much esteem I held the Hugo Awards until this whole Sad Puppies thing happened. And now all I can think is that the Hugo Award process has been tainted. I don't think the prestige of past awards has been affected, but I know for sure that, like in baseball, this year's winners will probably have asterisks next to them, reminding us all that 2015 was that year. Which will be hard for anyone who wins a 2015 Hugo who esteems the award in any fashion; their awards will always be considered with some skepticism. It's a certainty that we'll be dealing with this for at least another couple of years. That depresses me, too.

George R.R. Martin has been writing extensively about the whole affair in pretty thoughtful ways, providing history, context, and what I think is a pretty fair-minded approach. (See below for links to each of the posts.) I've read Larry Correia's response to GRRM's posts; he sounds angry and frustrated to me but mostly, he sounds like a disappointed romantic and, as a result, burning down the house he thought he would live happily ever after in. I honestly don't mean to sound condescending here. In some respects, I sympathize with his disappointment. I don't sympathize with his solution. At all. But when a response is so deeply couched in emotion, dramatic actions almost always result, dramatic action that has broader impact and makes a deeper rent in the Earth than the perpetrator expected--and so we have the Sad Puppies, their actions, and the fallout.

Vox Day's threat to nuke the site from orbit should even one No Award win the day is malicious hostage-taking. I'm going to vote the way I damn well want to, thank you very much. If that means deciding, after due consideration, that none of the nominees are Hugo-worthy, then that's what I'll do. My vote won't be goose-stepped to Theodore Beale's drumbeat. I recognize that his work with the Rabid Puppies is a separate campaign from the Sad Puppies, vicious and damaging and mean-spirited, but it's clear that both campaigns share supporters and, in some minds, are conflated. It can't be escaped at this point. That's unfortunate for Correia and Brad Torgerson, who assert that they don't wish to be associated with Beale (Correia in his blog, Torgerson in an exchange with Adam-Troy Castro on Facebook). But if wishes were horses, we'd have a herd the size of the Great Midwest.

As a pro and as a fan, like I said in the beginning, I find it all upsetting and depressing. I want WorldCon to be fun. I want the Hugos to represent what the fans think is best in SF. I believe we can make the former happen. I am fairly certain the latter is pretty much doomed for this year.

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It may just be me, but I think that today's XKCD quietly comments on the whole business without any explicit reference whatsoever.

George R.R. Martin's posts on the Sad Puppies Hugo situation:

• Puppygate


• Me and the Hugos


• Tone


• Blogging for Rockets


• Where's the beef?


• What now?

Comments

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Because I am BLISTERINGLY angry about, did you see my link to this:

http://monsterhunternation.com/2011/08/23/worldcon-report/

Because for a guy who had such a crappy time at the Worldcon, what with the drunks at parties, the people walking out of panels and the snide comments to him... strangely he ended his report with:

"Next year, WorldCon is in Chicago. No plans to go to that one yet, but I’ve heard that the year after that might be in San Antonio, and if that is the case, I am so totally there. San Antonio is one of my favorite places, and any excuse to visit Texas is a good excuse."

Definitely sounds like Mordor or Hell to him... He's now lying for effect to cover up the fact he didn't get a Hugo and he's upset and rather than taking it like the 'man' he claims to be, he decided to behave like a spoiled child.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

I didn't see this, no. That does put a different perspective on it. :: sigh :: There's no bottom to this hole, is there?

[daveon.livejournal.com]

No, and he and the others are going to keep digging and spinning and vandalizing things I like because they're upset about something that didn't happen.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I think my last post had a link and is marked as Spam, but to say again:

"...he sounds angry and frustrated to me but mostly, he sounds like a disappointed romantic..."

He may sound like that but it seems to be entirely a fiction of his own creation.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

I would agree, Dave. From his perspective, though, it's entirely a genuine experience. That doesn't mean I agree with him, merely that I acknowledge that his experience, from his perspective, was a bad one. As I also said, I completely disagree with how he's gone about dealing with it.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I'm not sure if it is a genuine experience, or if it is, it's one that's more like a recovered memory, because the description NOW of the events he wrote about then sound very very different, and the reality is, your memory doesn't actually get better over time.

I think he's created a fiction to spin to cover the fact his feelings were hurt by not getting a Hugo Nomination in Chicago when others he thinks are part of the sekrit cabal did.

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

I seem to remember Correia linking to Rabid Puppies saying something like "hey, if you really want to cheese off the SJWs, check this out."

[marthawells.livejournal.com]

I'm upset and depressed about it, too.

[janetl.livejournal.com]

Thank you for linking to Larry Correia's post, Janna. That's interesting.

I am so baffled by his "but it's just an award given by the relatively few people who attend one con and it's not really The Award of All Fandom and you were lying!" Oh, well. I get impatient with people who exclaim that "it's all politics -- just like high school" in any context. Yup. I've found that anytime you have 2 or more people in a room there is "politics". Deal.

I also think the anger about Right vs. Left politics affecting fandom is misplaced. Do I not read a book because the author is a Republican or Libertarian? No, I don't read a book if it doesn't look interesting. It's often the case that one's electoral politics go along with other tastes and preferences. My husband and I only own one car between us (a Prius, naturally), choose to live in an urban neighborhood, have no interest in NASCAR, and are (mostly) vegetarian. We're not religious. We're Democrats. We don't own guns and would love to see strong restrictions on gun ownership. Completely not to my surprise, as I get to know my neighbors, I mostly find them to have similar political views to my own. I hardly ever read a book that resembles MilSF -- not even when it's written by Uber-SJW Scalzi -- as it's simply not to my taste. I read all the works on the Hugo ballot last year*, and the ones about manly warriors and about whether or not non-humans have Christian souls didn't get a high vote from me because they're not the sort of things that interest me.

"Politics" are not some minor thing to put on the shelf over there and not worry about. I have friends and family who would be facing bankruptcy if Obamacare had not passed. John C. Wright would clearly like to restrict the civil rights of gay people. I shudder to think what Vox Day would like to do to many of us. I wouldn't want to attend a panel that had either of them speaking. Larry Correia clearly doesn't appear to share their views, but he's put himself disturbingly in their company. I'd recommend he try to mend that if he doesn't want to be further tarred with their brush.

I'm coming away from that post thinking that his feelings got hurt about the Hugo awards at Worldcon, so he's burned it down, and now he's not feeling good about that.




*I read everything on the ballot except "Wheel of Time". A bit of a time commitment there...

[soon_lee]

I too am saddened.

I'm not a massive congoer, only been to a handful and only one Worldcon. I had a good time but it wasn't Nerdvana. But then I never expected it to be.

Worldcon is different things to different people. I have friends who regard Worldcon as a travelling annual reunion; it's that one time a year they catch up with old friends so as a newbie I was never going to get as much out of it as they would; it takes time to build friendships & relationships. I figure if I were a regular Worldcon attendee that too will come, I am not owed a fabulous Worldcon experience by right (it's not an amusement park, more an interactive exerience and what you get out of it is dependent on what you bring of yourself).

What I'm seeing with SP/RP is symptomatic of a certain lack of (emotional) maturity.

(Friended you because of comments you made else-LJ about the current SP/RP incident)