Death Is Bad

Every time I see a Puppy bring up Rachel Swirsky’s “If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love” to use it as an example of “bad message fiction that we’re fighting against” I feel embarrassed for them. Like, I’m trying to cut you guys some slack, but you’re making it really hard on me. So let’s have a quick word about Dinosaur, the Mona Lisa, and Art.

The Mona Lisa is considered by the art world to be a masterpiece. I personally don’t see what the big deal is. To me it’s no better than anything else painted in the last four hundred years by anyone with a canvas and a few years of practice. But there’s a refrain among art teachers/critics/masters – “If you don’t like the Mona Lisa, that is a commentary on your taste in art, not on the quality of the Mona Lisa.” And I accept that. To demand that they respect my opinion would be akin to a five-year-old demanding that Pixie Stix be seriously considered in any gourmet culinary competition. The five-year-old has objectively bad taste, and their demands are laughable. Likewise, I have extremely unrefined taste in painted art. When just about everyone in the art world who spends tons of effort on art and knows their shit tells me I’m wrong, I simply accept that I’m wrong. The Mona Lisa is great, I’m not sure why and I don’t care for it, but whatever.

Dinosaur is likewise a masterpiece. I didn’t vote for it to win the Hugo last year because I’m not a fan of poetry, and because I don’t like being hurt in that way. I enjoyed Selkie Stories far more. However Dinosaur is undeniably a masterfully crafted work of art. I am in awe of the skill and talent it displays, and the effectiveness of its thrust. This is simply, objectively, a very good piece of work. To say otherwise is to admit that you haven’t developed the ability to appreciate it. It reflects on *your taste*, not on the work. And if you keep hollering over and over about how the art world should acknowledge that it is bad art, rather than saying “Oh, much like the Mona Lisa and Pixie Stix, I must simply not understand”, it makes you look like someone who is aggressively and intentionally uncultured.

I have no problem with people not caring about certain esoteric artistic things. I buy cheap wine. I don’t like the Mona Lisa. I dislike caviar. But I certainly don’t go around to the people who are into those things and keep demanding “How can you explain crap like the Mona Lisa being held in such high regard? Obviously you guys are just SJWs pushing an agenda who don’t know what the masses actually enjoy! I demand you represent our views instead! More Taylor Swift!”

So, seriously, stop embarrassing yourselves, and stop alienating those people who want to be on your side but actually understand what makes Dinosaur so great. Accept that just because you don’t understand it, doesn’t mean it isn’t amazing.

The weirdest part of this whole thing is seeing how the other side sees us… and realizing I’d see us that way too if the media was all I had to go on.

Larry just posted a very justifiably angry post about how the media are portraying the Sad Puppies. I’ve been following them off and on for a while, and it’s no secret I disagree with them politically. But all that means is that our politics are different – it doesn’t make them evil monsters. Some of these media representations are horrible, calling the Sad Puppies misogynists and racists whose only motivation is to cast votes against women and people of color specifically because they are women and people of color.

But don’t focus on the Sad Puppies right now. Focus instead on us. The media is portraying us as people who, if anyone disagrees with our Holy Writ Of What Is Politically Acceptable, will immediately descend upon such dissenters with flashing blades and bared teeth, attacking them as sub-human Nazi monsters. Now yes, there are some among us like that – my favorite blogger writes about such liberal Stasi on occasion. They’re awful. But when an article says, in effect, everyone whose politics are different from your own is a sub-human monster, and that article claims to represent all liberals, they make all liberals look like those Stasi attackers.

The problem is that there are an extreme minority on both sides who are like this. Vox Day exists, and man, he is the worst. And the liberal Stasi exist as well. But they are both almost non-existent, and they both have very little power. Talking to my fellow WorldCon-goers here: when you think of WorldCon, do you think of pogroms against wrong-think? Or do you think about a bunch of people getting together, discussing their favorite SF works, getting drunk at night, and having a damn good time? Cuz that’s all anyone I know is doing. We’re debating literary merit for fun, admiring what we love, and we come from a very wide swath. One of my friends, and a man I greatly admire for both his taste and intelligence, is a quite right-of-center Libertarian. He votes Republican a lot. He’s an awesome guy, and I’d be pissed as hell if anyone tried to exclude him for any reason. And he hasn’t been excluded – he’s been going to WorldCons since before I could read, and helped get me into the WorldCon scene in the first place.

But in today’s media-saturated world, that kinda thing doesn’t grab eyeballs. You want to get someone’s attention? You want them to read or watch long enough to get to the ad, so that your shitty news outlet can actually make some money? Then you have to PISS PEOPLE OFF. And nothing pisses someone off as much as being called vile and evil and being attacked by an oppressive force that is actually vile and evil itself. So the best, most-popular articles, as determined by market forces, are those that focus exclusively on the absolute worst that either side has to offer, and then portray the ENTIRE side as being as bad as those few people.

So you get our entire side thinking the Sad Puppies are all Vox Day, and their entire side thinking all of us are Liberal Stasi. They act to defend themselves from Unjust Oppression (which is in fact what the Stasi are doing) by attacking us. If the media portrayals were true, this would be the right thing to do. And now we find our party being called terrible names, equating us with these evil Stasi, and we’re like “Who the fuck is attacking us? What for?” We turn to the media and we discover “Oh! According to the media, it’s those vile, racist, misogynist neaderthals!” So we attack them in the same way Vox Day should be attacked. Which, if the media portrayls were true, would be the right thing to do. But they’re not. On either side.

It’s Lets You And Him Fight on a giant scale where the only one who wins is the Media Dragons sucking up the ad revenue. And I dunno any way to stop it, except maybe all getting together in real life and meeting each other and not being asshats for long enough to get to know each other a bit.

Except Vox Day of course. Seriously, screw that guy.

So spent a couple hours last night talking about Sad Puppies. These are just my opinions, and probably not of interest to anyone, but hey, it’s my blog. :) Other people’s objections are in bold.

I started with my statement equating the Sad Puppies with the Vandals, and when asked why I’d used that term I followed up with my Why “Vandals”?  explanation that’s now its own post. In brief, it explains that WorldCon is a party for WorldCon goers, in which the participants give an award to the fiction they really like at the end. It’s a party that takes a lot of effort to organize, and has been built over the course of decades. The Sad Puppies don’t like it, and won’t care to keep it going after they’re done destroying it (despite their “take back” rhetoric), and so they are little better than looters, taking fame and attention for a few years and then leaving ruins in their wake.

Yes, the Hugos have liberal tendencies. There were a few nominations in the past few years that were obviously bad and I strongly suspect were simply there because they were pushing the right message. But its different when it’s an internal matter with one or two cases per year, as opposed to someone else coming in and wiping the entire conversation away.

Just because a book is popular and is purchased by the ignorant masses like me doesn’t mean it isn’t worthy of a Hugo.

Writers of popular fiction already have their own award, called PILES OF MONEY. :) Michael Bay is incredibly rich, and good on him. But when a bunch of people manage to game The Oscars to get Transformers 4 all the awards, the people who run the Oscars and who traditionally enjoy them and participate in them are gonna be a bit annoyed. Michael Bay already has the PILES OF MONEY award. Why do his fans want him to have the Oscar too? Why are they so desperate for the validation of a group of artsy snobs that they say they don’t even like? I am boggled.

So I’m not a real fan?

I’ve never said anything about you not being a real fan. Did I say anything about you not being a real fan? Why would you even think I said that? I’m just saying your taste is different for the normal WorldCon-goer’s taste, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But why are you trying to take the WorldCon award and give it to someone that that group of people don’t care for? It doesn’t mean anything to either side! Give your own award from the people who have your taste in fiction to them. They’ll appreciate it more, and so will you!

If the people at the party are only giving out awards to other people at the party that they like, then great! But don’t say that and then spout off about this being the SFF Top Award in the same breath. It’s the top award for a closed group in which not everyone is allowed to play.

I’m pretty sure WorldCon never called itself “the most prestigious award” or whatever. That name was given by others, over time, since I guess being around for a long enough time gets you that sort of cred. Once Sad Puppy Con (or whatever) is around for a few decades it will also be known as one of The Most Prestigious Awards.
And come on, all groups always say the award is for “The Best XX of the Year.” Everyone knows it means “in the opinion of the group.” Do the Oscars really need to come with the disclaimer “Best Movie Of The Year (*assuming your are one of the elite few people in the industry that spends most of their lives on this, if you’re just an average Joe this may not be as appealing to you) Of 2014!”

Your kind killed the prestige by boosting message fiction over Good solid SciFi!

If that’s so then the con will die a slow death of becoming more and more irrelevant. Not sure why you feel the need to be validated by such a fading entity.

Who are you to say who can and cannot be a member of worldcon? Why do you get to decide who has the right to vote and whose opinion matters? Either the Hugo is supposed to represent the best of sf and is open to everyone, or its a self-congratulatory award for an insular group that means absolutely nothing, and soon that group will age out and die.

I only have one vote in the matter, so I’m not one to decree it. It used to be just Tradition (which I thought the other side was big on?) – those people who had the same kind of taste got together and decided who they liked best. And yes – WorldCon is pretty grey. 

It’s interesting to consider what the award actually means. I mean yeah, it is a self-congratulatory award for an insular group. The group prided themselves on being very widely read and having what they considered to be refined taste. And apparently that means a lot to some people. I mean, the yearly Awards for Wine (I don’t even know what they’re called) are the same thing – a few elite people decide what THEY think is the best, based on THEIR fancy refined palette, and the rest of us make fun of them for being such snobbish ass-hats. But a lot of people still pay attention. Winning the Wine Award is considered a big deal, and the wines can charge more afterwards, etc.

So, why does it matter, if it’s just a group of self-proclaimed elites? Fuck if I know. I just enjoy the bickering. If you don’t give a damn about the snobby elites, don’t pay attention to their stupid award, right? I know I always get the cheapest wine that still tastes good, cuz I don’t care. I don’t even know what the wine award is called! Why are people so determined to crash the Hugos? What’s with the hate-boner?

From my friend Aaron:
You say the wishes of a thousand artsy snobs were defeated by a couple hundred Sad Puppies and declare that a victory for democracy.
As I said at the outset, I don’t care if your politics are different from mine (they’re likely not), and I don’t care that your reading tastes are different from mine. I care that the group you’re defending gamed the system to defeat the preferences of most of the Hugo voters. I would have contempt for that effort, even if I thought all the nominated works were terrific.

For the first time in a long time, the preferences of most of the Hugo voters are FINALLY being recognized. The insular group of self congratulators has been exposed, and by doing so, the average SFF reader like me has seen the truth – that this award was not truly given to the best SFF of the Year.

The preferences of most of the Hugo voters are obviously not being represented, I think you meant to say that the preferences of the majority of *SF readers* are finally being represented. I suppose that could be true, as long as you trust Brad & Larry to know who is the most popular writer? But then why not just stick with the Best Seller List, and give awards to the Top 5 Selling SF Authors every year?

How are you defining “best”? Because the Hugo’s defined it as “The works that our con-goers were most impressed with.” Are you saying that it’s instead “what sells the most” or “What Brad and Larry like” or… what? I mean that’s what this all comes down to, isn’t it? If you don’t like the criteria of WorldCon voters, there are other awards, or Best Seller lists.

Shout outs to Prometheus Award and LibertyCon

See, there we go. Why the hate-boner for WorldCon specifically? Is it just because Larry got snubbed that one year? Dude has incredibly thin skin…

The “worldcon inner circle” aren’t the Lords of SF. They’re just a few thousand people. There are quite a few OTHER inner circles which do, in fact, honor people like Larry. And for that matter, Larry was nominated for a Hugo several times, he just didn’t win (and, having read his works, rightly so. They were good, but they weren’t as good as the competition he was up against those years)

You keep arguing that we should just let the Hugo awards go on being a meaningless circle jerk. That we shouldn’t be take someone else’s toy away from them. It’s not about that. It’s about making the hugo’s actually mean something again like it used to. We’re increasing membership and voter turnout, and boosting diversity of opinion. How is that a bad thing?

I think the Hugos still mean quite a bit. Just because the barrier to entry is high doesn’t mean its meaningless. Possibly the opposite?

Regardless, maybe this is a bit of an elitist attitude, but I don’t think that letting Brad & Larry give out the award will make it better.

Why should their be ANY barrier to entry AT ALL?? (sic)

Because then you get Transformers 4 winning all the awards

Most of us will agree that Michael Bay’s stuff is shite. But the SP slate was not full of Transformers. Even Van admitted that it was likely that some of the SP recommendations were good – and the point is that the criteria should be “Is it GOOD?” versus “Does the Inner Circle think it checks the box?”

Yes, and how do you determine what’s “good”? It used to be done by a couple thousand people coming together, talking a whole lot, and then voting. Now it’s done by Brad & Larry [edit:  and Vox Day] deciding what works they like best. That’s going the wrong way IMHO.

How is that different from Scalzi or Crouse deciding what’s best?

They never did.

*guffaw* Yeah, Scalzi NEVER campaigned or tried to manipulate ANYTHING! *guffaw*

Like, for serious. Sure, he let people know he was eligible, and obviously he’d like to win. But when people like Scalzi would get a lot of attention, its because they thought like most of the WorldCon attendees do. They were representative of the group. That’s why there was no outcry when the works they liked got nominated – for the most part people agreed that this is the kind of work we really enjoy.

That’s also why when someone else comes in and pushes through a full ballot they DO get the sort of blowback you see – because they are NOT representative of the population. Before the various people could argue “Is Scalzi right here? He seems off. I think this work is better.” and so on and so forth. Typical kvetching. When someone comes in and forces in a ballot that wouldn’t even be on the typical con-goer’s Top 20, that is when people get annoyed

What I’m against is the SP Slate, not any particular person or their opinion.

What you are missing is that the works you have been voting on in the past were vetted well before you came along to cast your ballot. You’ve been duped, hon. You may not vote that way on your own, but the decision on the choices you had to select from had been taken out of your hands LONG before it got to your vote. The Soviets used to hold elections too, and the people voted. But it doesn’t make it democratic. Wouldn’t you rather have legitimate choices?

I don’t think the voting in the past was vetted nearly as much as you think. When it was “vetted” at all it was due to waves of group-think that sometimes came or went. There isn’t actually any sort of High Council that makes these decisions, just a bunch of people talking to each other online and off. The vetting is FAR FAR more vetted this year, where 100% of non-Novel literature (and 3 of the 5 Novels) was picked by the Sad Puppies or the Rabid Puppies offshoot – in effect three people made almost the entire nominating decision this year.

Brad and Larry have ONE VOTE EACH. You are making the assumption that all of the SP RECOMMENDATIONS were blindly and stupidly voted for en bloc by some zombie horde. We are not sheep. We don’t blindly follow ideology. I am always willing to listen to recommendations by folks who may be more in the know than I am.

I didn’t say anyone was sheep. I think unity IS strength. The SPs united, and won. But they *obviously* voted as a block, as the nominations are item-for-item 100% the Sad Puppies or Rabid Puppies slate (with the exception of 2 novels).

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Then I went to bed, because it was late and we were starting to go in circles. Perhaps one of the most eyebrow-raising parts of this discussion was when someone came in shouting that If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love was revenge porn and hate speech. “the narrator has a good laugh over the carnage delivered to thinly veiled ideological enemies by her dinosaur lover”. I was at a loss for words. I guess “Life Is Beautiful” was revenge porn too, then.

While I would like to see Larry at WorldCon this year, I no longer think “taking back the Hugos” is  viable path. As mentioned in my previous post, it would mainly lead to wasteful culture-wars that accomplish nothing and leave everyone worse off. To recap the last bit of that post (because it was long and most people won’t care about everything leading up to the final paragraph) –

“I think the best option is for Larry Correia to create a new awards convention. He has proven that there is interest in one. He has a large contingent of fans who can’t wait to have their own party, where they can decide which work the best among those that appeal to their tastes. He’s mobilized them, and shown that they are willing to work in concert and spend a fair amount of money and effort to make this come together! Plus it would be a huge win for him. AND then he wouldn’t have the ignominy of becoming the Conservative SF Reader’s Pope, who chooses what books they will vote for in the Hugos every year. Instead he would be the founder of their own space, forever remembered as a Creator of Something Awesome.”

It wouldn’t be easy, of course. But Larry has HUGE name recognition. Tons of people would love to work with him on something like this, either for the love of the work itself, or for a chance to work with Larry and boost their own careers. He could reach out to any of hundreds of con organizers across the country who’ve been doing this for years and start something amazing. And the fan would come in droves! Why is this not already a thing? He could even include a “Sad Puppy” category, where they mock the worst piece of liberal drivel that somehow is popular for political-signaling reasons. :)

Prediction – Within one year, Larry will announce a new con, for the more conservative-minded reader, and it will be a huge success. I will be sad if he doesn’t, because this is something that really should happen. It has the potential to be the next ComicCon phenomenon.

Wow! I expected him to get on at least one work in each category, but I did not expect this! A majority everywhere that it matters, and a few sweeps!

Sad Puppy Slate vs Hugo Nominations

Three out of Five for Best Novel (there’s a possibility it could have been 4 out of 5, we won’t know until the full numbers are released after WorldCon, because Larry declined his own nomination)

All Three that they picked for Best Novella. Not terribly surprising, as those are the least read & have the least nominations cast, so they’re the easiest to take if you get a coherent block of voters working with you. But still impressive.

All Four that they picked for Best Novelette! Plus John C. Wright for the fifth pick! Daaaaamn!

Three out of Five for Best Short Story.

ALL FIVE for Best Related Work. I almost skipped this, because I don’t really care about “related work,” but I’m glad I checked because I wasn’t expecting that!

And they got in their one pick for Best Graphic Story.

I didn’t check the rest, because I don’t particularly care, but I imagine the Sad Puppies did similarly well.

Note that this year you cannot vote against the Sad Puppies Slate in at least one category. I find that fascinating.

It only took three years for the Sad Puppies to get to this level of influence. If this keeps up, Correia’s blessing will be as valuable as the Pope’s in the SF-writing circle. He probably doesn’t want that power thrust upon him. But from now on, every aspiring writer will have in the back of their minds “I wonder if this is something Larry & Brad will like?” And that will inevitably alter the field, at least a bit.

I still REALLY hope that Larry comes to this year’s WorldCon. It would make for one of the most memorable WorldCons ever. If his fans show up with him, it could be the start of the “retaking” of the Hugos that they’ve been talking about.

EDIT: It was pointed out to me that the remaining nominations in Short Story, Novellette, and Novella categories all went to the Rabid Puppies slate. It’s impossible not to vote for a Puppies nominee in any non-Novel fiction category. Won’t this be a fun year?