The We Hunted the Mammoth Pledge Drive is on! Please consider donating through the PayPal button below. Thanks!
So the Hugo Awards were last night, and, as many of you no doubt already know, the Puppies went down in defeat.
For those who haven’t been following the ongoing culture war in the world of science fiction, a group of cultural reactionaries decided to try to strike a blow against what they see as the Social Justice Warriorization of the SF world by essentially stuffing the ballot boxes for the Hugo Award nominations with two slates of their own candidates, dubbed the Sad and the Rabid Puppies. They succeeded in this ignoble task, with many of the categories in the final ballot filled entirely with writers put forward by one or the other of the Puppy slates.
But there’s one peculiar thing about the Hugo ballots: if you don’t like any of the nominees, you can vote for “no award” instead.
And last night, that’s what everyone fed up with the Puppies did. In the five categories where all the nominees were Puppy-nominated, voters picked “no award” over all of them. The only Puppy-endorsed winner? Guardians of the Galaxy, which was such a charmingly entertaining popcorn flick that it transcended Puppy politics altogether
Naturally, the Puppies and their supporters claimed … victory? Well some of them did, anyway.
Doesn't the super-villain always set off the self-destruct when his underground lair is overrun by heroes? Just a thought. #HugoAwards
— Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) August 23, 2015
Meanwhle, Vox Day — the famously reactionary, racist, woman-hating fantasy author who headed up the Rabid Puppies — tried to spin the giant loss as a sort of nihilistic victory for the forces of reactionary chaos.
In his first blog post about the results of the Hugo votes, Day managed to sort of admit that the Puppies had, yes, failed. Of those voting for “no award,” Day wrote,
They are practicing a scorched earth strategy, and we can certainly assist them in that since we do not value their territory. I still think it was worth trying to take Berlin and end the war in one fell swoop, but even though our attempt break them once and for all failed, that only means that the victory was less than complete.
But in later posts he banished the f-word and tried to convince the world, like Pee Wee Herman after his famous bicycle spill in Pee Wee’s Great Adventure, that he’d “meant to do that.”
In his second post on the Hugo results, Day declared
The five categories burned last night are only the first sparks of the cleansing conflagration that is coming.
In a later post, he wrote
It’s fascinating to see SJWs desperately trying to cling to their Narrative on Twitter and elsewhere. They’re insisting that we’re mad, that we’re crying, that we’re upset, when the fact is that I knew this would be the result this year prior to creating Rabid Puppies.
He knew it all along!
Pee Wee, take it away:
For more details on the Hugos, and more of Vox’s spinning, check out the accounts on Wired and the Wall Street Journal.
@takshak
That is a great interpretation.
BUT YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE MARY SHELLEY TOTALLY ALSO CREATED THE MODERN APOCALYPSE FICTION IT’S CALLED THE LAST MAN AND EVERYONE DIES OF THE PLAGUE SAVE THIS ONE GUY.
It was so bleak and such a downer that everyone hated it, so you should thank her for your Mad Maxes and your Book of Elis and whatever else apocalypse fiction you guys like.
@Alan
His name is Solas and he hates tea.
You probably wouldn’t like him.
SF isn’t that SJW (no non-white person has won Best Novel).
Ahem. Cixin Liu.
@Alan
I never read any of Alan Moore’s comics, so, no.
Wait. Someone seriously tried to argue that Asimov was the first sci-fi author?
http://gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Emma-Watson-Shock-Look.gif
What! How can anyone not like tea???
Apart from those yobbos in Boston.
If you ever get a chance to read HJ check it out. It’s the one thing that even my professing not to like comics girl friends love.
Wait, Vox Day is a fugitive from the States? I haven’t heard about this before, could some kind, radiant, fantastic people provide me with some information about this?
@wwth
I don’t think they were saying Isaac Asimov was the first, I think they were just showing how obtuse they are and how much they don’t care about shit outside of 1950s America, like most ignorant assholes on the internet.
@Alan
I don’t like tea. *bats lashes* That’s why Solas is my soul mate. He is seriously the only nerd in the (fictional) world that doesn’t like tea. He also does magic, tells great stories and is really super passionate about mage and elf rights. The only downside is that (spoilers) he leaves you to go off and fight injustices.(/spoilers)
So, I mean, he’s perfect, haha. Haha. HAHAHAHAHAAHAHACKSOBBLUBBERSCRIESSOLAS WHYYYYYYYYY.
Looks like some puppies need to get paper trained.
They hate sJEW!s so much that they formed an organized group to force their agenda on people and compare it to the second world war?
Do they listen to themselves?
Do they have any sense of self awareness?
Were they told that they hit rock bottom and decided to take that as a challenge?
As I’ve been saying for a while, the Sad/Rabid party line about this was always going to be that no matter *what* happened, they’d been proved right.
If they won in a category, it was proof that they were RIGHT! Damnit! and people did want to see more “traditional” (ie white heterosexual male protagonist, US-conservative leaning, space opera and mil-SF-style) science fiction.
If they lost in a category, it was proof that they were RIGHT! Damnit! about the Hugos being dominated by the SJWs.
If No Award won a category, it was proof that they were RIGHT! Damnit! and the SJWs decided to destroy the Hugos in order to save them.
If they didn’t win a single Hugo, it was proof that they were RIGHT! Damnit! and the SJW cabal had rigged the Hugos AGAIN!!!!
Being able to predict this kind of thing isn’t precisely a massive feat of clairvoyance. All it takes is living in a family where this sort of thinking predominates.
Ted Beale is a wrecker, pure and simple – he wants to wreak his revenge on SFF fandom for not bowing down before his genius, and idolising him as a god. I’m willing to accept Brad Torgerson’s argument that Vox Day is a piece of performance art, but quite frankly, Teddy has got too caught up in his performance, and doesn’t know where to stop. Man is not healthy in his mind, and he doesn’t so much carry a grudge as train it up, equip it with all the latest and greatest grudge accessories, and attempt to pit it against other grudges in some kind of grudge arena match.
Vox: Eat shit, shit golem.
Irene, You’re right, I forgot to say, prior to this year. My fault.
Catalpa: Beale is not exactly a fugitive. His father is in prison for tax related offenses. He left the country for reasons related to that. I am unaware of any actual reason he can’t come back to the US. He is a tax “protestor” and that’s one of the reasons he gives for living in Italy.
One of the things about Beale is he hates to be shown up. He took his act to Making Light about 10 years ago, and got his ass handed to him. He tried once more (maybe twice, but I don’t think so), and then quit the field.
Ever since he’s limited his attacks on them to his own blog. I’m pretty sure he’s not been to Whatever in at least as long. Nope, he sics his fans on people, and then (I am sure) reads what they say and gets off on them being hateful.
Remember, the two groups called “Puppies” who are pushing the same agenda by the same methods have NOTHING TO DO with each other.
Destroyed lair is bad analogy. More like a party that had to trash the food when they realized it was roach infested. Nobody really won in the situation, but hopefully next year they’ll prepare with enough borax.
Now for some adorable puppy fails:
http://i0.wp.com/lunalunamag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/gif10.gif
http://byt.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/giphy-116.gif
http://s3.amazonaws.com/barkpost-assets/50+GIFs/4.gif
http://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5vxcfnWYd1r5c792o1_250.gif
http://media.giphy.com/media/uzV5XQX2ir4li/giphy.gif
Heard about it all yesterday, Dave. Wow, just fuckin’ wow. The Puppies didn’t just get jack squat, they got *rekt*. I guess it just goes to show that the community wasn’t going to put up with whiney hypocritical politicking from these reactionary dirtbags and their duped enablers after all…..=)
As a bonus, if any of you guys kept an eye on the ceremony, there was a neat bonus: Laura J. Mixon, during her acceptance speech, even took the time to offer her condolences and solidarity with those who had been attacked by a troll by the time of Requires Hate some time ago…..thus also handily debunking the “Puppy opposition = ‘SJW’ circlejerk” talking point that so many of the Puppies liked to use.
(By the way, for those who don’t know the story, here’s the link: http://laurajmixon.com/2014/11/a-report-on-damage-done-by-one-individual-under-several-names/
Sadly, this Requires Hate person did a lot of damage before she was routed…..but at least most folks realized what she was doing fairly quickly once the word got out.)
And the fact that she ended her speech with “Black Lives Matter”, IMHO, was the cherry on top of that sundae of awesomeness.
In short, yesterday was a damn good day for SF fandom in all…..=D
I can accept Mary Shelley as originator of modern science fiction, but in general, sorry, Cyrano de Bergerac. The real guy, not the one in the play. Of course, all these MRA-types will dismiss him because in the play he was a total beta (but only because he was ugly, he was the alpha-est of alphas otherwise) and in real life he was gay. But still, everyone always forgets him.
On the other hand, who knows the gender of the person who wrote the Alexander epic, in which Alexander the Great goes to visit the sky by attaching large eagles to a chariot and invents a bathyscaphe so he can see what’s in the ocean? The latter part has always struck me as nothing but pure SF.
@Rabid Rabbit: Indeed, Mary Shelley is one of THE literary greats. No doubt! =)
When looking for a way to refer to them which was less likely to pull them in by way of google I decided to look for a decent latin version.
I went with Canes depubes, because it means Dogs which have not attained puberty: as to infelix/rabiosidi it was only relevant in limited contexts.
@Mari Are the Hugos really so Social Justice Warriorish in the first place?
Not in the slightest. The vast majority of the awards have gone to het white men, over the years. If anything, the awards could do with more SJness.
pecunium SF isn’t that SJW (no non-white person has won Best Novel).
Until now! Congratulations to Cixin Liu for wining Best Novel!
(He’s Chinese)
I’m reading the Wired article right now and pretty much despise it (what is it with Brad Torgensen being treated like a voice or reason when – again – he conflates losing the award to “elitism”? Because he’s a soldier and we’re just suppose to believe what they say? What?) – until it gets to Beale and the author’s stupefied reaction to his bizarre claims.
Exactly, it’s pretty daft of someone to think they’re totally different ’cause…Torgersen had a nicer tone or something…
It’s like when Libertarians and Objectivists try to act as if they’re completely different entities – even as they’re espousing similar beliefs. Maybe it’s just me, but if the “big difference” between them is based purely on minutiae then they’re really not that different at all.
To go inside politics for a bit: there is some controversy about Laura’s piece. It’s a really complicated series of events (and paralleled some ugly controversies going on here, at the same general time frame; all backgrounded by a friend of mine dying [she was one of the people named in the memorial last night. I’m getting too fucking old, and my friends are older, but two of those who were my age were mentioned last night. Jay Lake, and Velma, but I digress]).
The defenders of the person in Laura’s report have a somewhat different take on the matter: and tie in to other things which happened about ten years ago. That some of the people who were active in putting the various info about RH are still controversial in regards to the previous issue, doesn’t help.
My take on it… I think RH was wrong, and destructive and not acting in good faith. That said the SFF community is still not good at dealing with the issues she was, ostensibly, addressing (her actual motives are unclear, and the levels, layers, and years of duplicity mean they never will be).
So on that level their was actually a chance for Fan Writer to be No Award (and it got about 400 more No Award votes than any other non-puppy category did).
So the “SJWs are all in lockstep” is so debunked by Laura’s win,
Togersen’s tone is somewhat less horrid, but his actions aren’t.
https://twitter.com/pecunium/status/635665694714130432
I was so hoping that it would turn out this way. I mean of course Vox will declare victory the man has only two settings, smugly vile and off. But this does show that however slowly the rest of the world is leaving the values of both puppie groups behind and hopefully moving in a much brighter direction.