So the Hugo awards happened. And last night was a pretty decisive defeat for the would-be awardwreckers behind the Sad and Rabid Puppies’ slates, and for Rabid Puppies ringmaster Theodore “Vox Day” Beale in particular: not only did his slate fail to crack the awards (aside from two nominees who didn’t need his help to win), but he also saw his longtime nemesis N.K. Jemisin take the top award for her novel The Fifth Season.
Teddy Baby is trying his best to spin the defeat as a victory (“we have the SF-SJWs exactly where we want them at this point in time”) but even the fake sci-fi boys on Reddit’s gamergate hangout KotakuInAction can see what happened. And they are indeed sad little puppies about it.
Here are some of their highly edifying reactions:
![YESmovementLaci Green raped me. 5 points 12 hours ago So was NK Jemisin the best author this year or are they doing exactly what they're shitting on the Puppies for doing? permalinkembedsavereportreply [–]BulbasaurusThe7th 9 points 10 hours ago No, she is the best black woman of the year. That is what matters. permalinkembedsaveparentreportreply [–]alexdrac 4 points 8 hours ago Black woman writes about "climate change". What more could they want ? I stopped caring what other people think of sci-fi writers when i gave Ursula le Guan (?) a try. The internet was all "omg, such great sci-fi. and from a woman, no less". Well, i couldn't be bothered to finish the book, because it was painfully obvious that it was a book written by a woman for women. The main character (a guy) was going through all kinds of shit, but it seemed his only concern was with the feelings of someone or another. 90% of his inner dialogue was what women think men should be thinking about more.](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/urs2.png?ssl=1)
(I had to cross out YESmovement’s Reddit flair because it was a rape joke.)
And then there was this ever-so-slightly ironic comment.
Hey, speak for yourself, dude. The only science fiction, er, books I’ve read in ages have been Chuck Tingle’s Pounded By The Pound: Turned Gay By The Socioeconomic Implications Of Britain Leaving The European Union and My Billionaire Triceratops Craves Gay Ass.
But I do like the irony inherent in lambasting unnamed authors for not being able to “write a coherent sentence” in a group of words that is not actually a sentence.
They have such a difficult time grasping the concept that not everything in the world has to be about men. Even if it were true that most white men are so shallow and unempathetic that they are unable to enjoy stories by or about people that aren’t white men (hint: they aren’t) and that only women, POC, and LGBTQ people were capable of enjoying these stories, that’s still most people. If the choice is between “writing to suit an ideology,” and “writing a story that many people will enjoy,” (which is how they choose to frame this artificial conflict) then it is still better to write stories to the sensibilities of women, POC, and LGBTQ people, because there are more of us. Excluding the majority of the population IS the ideologically biased choice, which is frankly obvious to anybody who isn’t a whiny self involved fake geek boy.
@Kat
I loved “He, She & It.” And I don’t know how I managed to leave Octavia Butler off my quick list of examples of SF dealing with real-world issues: her “Parables” dealt with environmental and societal destruction, and her “Kindred” is the single best work of fiction to deal with the legacy of slavery.
Amanda Marcotte explained it like this: no matter what his obsession is (drawing, video games, playing bass….), an insecure man will insist that it’s a “guy thing” that “women just don’t get.” He will insist that this isn’t a putdown of women, that women have their own “things.” But really, he knows we live in a society that privileges male over female, so calling something a “guy thing” is calling it superior (at least in his mind).
Lol. Cry moar.
My thoughts exactly. I had a lovely little chortle at that one.
I don’t really like science fiction but I wish more people wrote under sudonym or false names just because I like the idea of these bigots accidentally enjoying something written by a woman. Oh the horror! Also it’s really weird thay guy saying ‘I thought only men like sf’ since Mary Shelly was the one that basically invented the whole genre.
It’s the nature of the beast. They are men, they like sci-fi. Women aren’t like men. Therefore women don’t like sci-fi.
It’s part of the whole disease of the binary, I think.
“we have the SF-SJWs exactly where we want them at this point in time”
The winners’ circle?
The tears are quite satiating. Oh if I could mainline those tears like a salted Rum and Cola I’d be out for a week.
Yeah but a lot of guys are not aware of the genres history, and probably are more aware of Frankenstein for its horror elements if anything.
I kind of like how climate change in that one comment is in scare quotes. reality and its damn sjw bias.
As for “Captain Homo’s Gay Adventures on the Planet Diversity”… this dude clearly never watched the 1930’s Flash Gordon show.
Captain Homo’s Gay Adventures on the Planet Diversity needs to be a tingler
“…and despite it being SJW messagefic about murdering all men…”
given the main character’s culture’s inability to tell genders apart to save their lives, this could be a difficult mission to accomplish 😀 😀
Hmmm…I’m gonna have to look into that. The only thing that could be problematic is that I heard that there were fat jokes in one episode (because there was a fat villainess). I’ll still check it out though.
Same here. We have good taste here.
@Everyone else: Wanting to read Captain Homo’s Gay Adventures on Planet Diversity nthed!
Who is Dave Truesdale and should I give a fuck?
(I don’t read a lot of SF. It’s true that on my shelves are some of the authors the Puppies jizz themselves over, but I don’t hold that against them.)
Speaking of diversity in sci fi. Zendaya Coleman, pictured so,
http://zendaya.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/072216-lifestyle-zendaya-s-sexy-new-shoe-line-is-here-and-its-fiyah-daya-zendaya-300×300.jpg
is sorta, maybe, probably set to play Mary Jane Watson in the next Spiderman movie. I’ve never been more hype for anything Spiderman related in my life, but that’s not an opinion shared by the racist geek boys of the internet (and reasonable people, who just aren’t interested in another Spiderman movie, but let’s focus on the assholes)
Of course, there’s the usual ‘sjews ruining muh fiction’ stuff and plenty of ‘what if they made Miles Morales white’ false equivalence. The most stupid shit tho, is they’re trying couch it as ‘MJ is a redhead. See I’m not racist, it’s about ethics in hair color. Source material!!!’ Except, well:
http://www.taaz.com/images/D82B0034564B71E1347F458CB0130F82.jpg
Girl’s known for 2 things, her performance skills and her ever changing hair. Basically, reactionary nerds really wanna fuck MJ, but not if she’s mixed
@Violet
Had to look it up. Don’t remember that scene (I’m skinny as fuck, so I guess I don’t hafta). It wasn’t a villainess. It was just a woman quitting out on her treadmill routine in the 1st episode. She stops working out and grabs a burger. Jessica’s inner monologue makes fun of her (few seconds on a treadmill, few minutes on a burger) and it’s over really quick. I can see how that would be a deal breaker
If I may tho, I’ve never seen a more social justicey show outside of maybe Steven Universe. No show has 0 problematic elements, so it’s more of a ‘is it worth it’ deal. I say yes, but I’m not the person to ask. Both because of the aforementioned male skinniness, but also cos I’m a biased Marvel fanboy 😉
ETA: There’s a case to be made that the instance of fat shaming is an expression of Jessica’s own self hatred, but I’m probably giving more benefit of doubt than is warranted
Jemisin rocks. I haven’t been through the rest of the shortlist, but she’s definitely the stuff awards are made of.
Jessica Jones winning made my decade. I had to blog about that show when it came out. 13 hours of utter brilliance focused on consent – or rather, lack thereof. Made the point without any of the physical rape being on-screen – hammering home that it ALL was rape. YASSSSS.
(And David Tennant saying “Look out the window and watch until Jessica comes back – don’t even BLINK!” was just… icing.)
Jim Hines’s Truesdale thread on Facebook predictably devolved (not Jim, he’s amazeballs) with the defense of Trusedale extending to defense of any and all non “PC people” whether they create prepubescent pornography (it’s ART!!!) or are simply Puppies of whatever stripe.
One guy was losing his shit over our refusal to admit that he had no freedom to create (I admit I started poking the bear after a while just to see what shit he’d say next. Jim was magnanimous and allowed me to have a little fun…) Honestly, these guys don’t get that people not buying their book and buying other sf instead isn’t stifling their creativity. It’s instead, the free market at work – the very one they claim is being subverted…
I was disappointed that Tingle didn’t win, but Jemisin totally deserves it. The Fifth Season is fucking GREAT. All of her books that I’ve “read” (did em on audio book) have been really good, in fact, but The Fifth Season is, I think, the best, and I’m excited for the sequel.
And did that guy really boil The Fifth Season down to “it’s about ‘climate change'”? It’s so damn sci-fi-y, I hadn’t even stopped to consider that jacked up setting of the world might be a metaphor for climate change.
and how telling is it that their made up bullshit example of “terrible SJW sci-fi” sounds boring as all heck? i mean, it’s just the bland crap they apparently want (space dude flies around space and goes to space planets and shoots his space guns) with “Gay” “Homo” and “Diversity” crammed in there. Like, yeah, that probably WOULDN’T attract many new readers… but the actual, real, and highly INTERESTING stuff being written by “SJWs” probably DOES. Because it’s good. And not bland as plain oatmeal.
Planet Diversity, would that be Barsoom? The John Carter books have a race of Martians who look like white humans and are not only evil, but getting beaten at their own game by the ones who look like black humans. Then there’s the sympathetic Martian society that John marries into, which is the product of three different races intermarrying in ancient times. And the way his triumphs tend to come from getting members of the different races to work together.
Damn that SJW Edgar Rice Burroughs. Sci-fi wasn’t like this before 1912, I tell you.
One of the Rabid picks for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form was the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic story “The Cutie Map”, which came in dead last out of all the entrees. This makes sense for them at first glance: It concerns a cult that takes away individuality out of a twisted sense of equality. The conservative/MRA fans love anything that demonizes equality, thinking it’s some kind of attack on social justice activists, because that say lots of things about equality, right (and then there are some who think it’s about Marxism)? The story didn’t help in that at no point no one explains that equality isn’t actually about total conformity, but I’ll assume that the writers figured this wouldn’t even need saying.
But something struck me when I was thinking about “The Cutie Map”: the cult reminds me far more of Gamergate and the Sad/Rabid Puppies themselves than social justice activists, even the most badly behaved ones. The cult is dull and lifeless in their conformity with the same hairstyles and tasteless food. Even the color has been muted. They want everything to be the exact same for everyone, not too different from Vox Day and his ilk really. They want the same games, the same books, the same movies and TV, over and over, thinking what they like is universal and if you don’t like them then tough shit, something must be wrong with you instead and if you complain then you’re a feminazi Cultural Marxist. What social justice really offers are alternatives to that blandness, reaching out to so many more people, inclusive instead of exclusive. The Puppies and Gamergaters want to keep SF and fantasy their narrow little cult while the social justice activists want to bust it wide open into a vibrant village of different ideas and possibilities. So really, fuck all the Puppies who thought they could co-opt this for their purpose. They will lose and they will continue losing, and Vox can spin it all he likes about how he’s masterminding everything to his cult of sycophants because in the end he’s just the biggest loser imaginable.
@Axe: I probably will watch Jessica Jones anyway (since it’s only that one bit). I’m not SKINNY skinny, but not fat either. Kind of slim with curves–which is why people look at me funny and give me that “why do you care” spiel when I express displeasure at fat hate. RE: The self hatred…you’re probably right. I have internally fat shamed before and it WAS projection of my own insecurities.
Anyways, there are a lot of movies and shows I watch that are way more problematic (in the area of sizeism and others)–so I’m also gonna say yes. I’m a Marvel fan myself.
That must be why David calles them fake sifi nerds. Though personally I never found frankenstine to be like a horror. Sure after other people took the monster and his creator and put them in horror but generally I found the original book just to be tragic. Also the thing they say about it being the first sicfi is because Shelly was the first writer to go into technical details about how it might actually work. Yet another blow for men I guess. A woman innovative and also writing about technology! Maybe that’s the horror element they were experiencing..
@ Rabukurafuto
I remember that episode and I agree with you fully . its the gators and puppies who want to stamp out individuality. And yeah I don’t think the writers needed to explain the difference between equality and conformity since the shows pretty much about a diverse group of friends who are individuals yet still equal