Last night, I was busy listening to KingofPol talk about the Holocaust, among other topics, on the LIVE show. We had a pretty fun time, and I encourage you to check it out. But, there was something way more important going on that we didn’t get to talk about enough on the program, and that was the Hugo Awards. In case you forgot, here’s why the Hugos were so important this year. Comicbook.com also does a pretty good job of recapping things:

This year’s award nominations were dominated by orchestrated slates of nominees, suggested in response to accusations that the awards were becoming increasingly insular and political. A number of fans swarmed the online nomination forms to vote on behalf of the “Sad Puppies” and “Rabid Puppies” slates, who claimed in part that white males and conservatives were being excluded from the awards. Some “Puppies” supporters expanded that more broadly to claiming it’s a popularity contest altogether and that the awards are dominated by a small group of friends voting for each other.

Opponents of the Puppies and their actions claimed that the slates were meant to rebuild the awards in their image. Both sides accused the other of caring more about politics than merit, and of trying to exclude deserving nominees.

(full article)

In response to the Sad Puppies (and Rabid Puppies) slate, SJWs in the Worldcon community were faced with two choices. Have a clean vote and select a winner from among the nominees. Or, they could vote “No Award” and sink the whole enterprise. Which one do you think they chose, dear readers?

They burned it all down, of course. This was always a possible outcome. People like Vox Day talked about this happening the entire time. In fact, many predicted this would be the result. That hasn’t stopped the SJWs from celebrating like they won something last night. Rad fems are disingenuous until the very end, aren’t they?

Here’s the results, followed by some reactions from across Twitter:

11

https://twitter.com/Daddy_Warpig/status/635362327865352192

https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/635320268190126080

https://twitter.com/Sargon_of_Akkad/status/635459242560983040?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

https://twitter.com/Nero/status/635316125136519168

https://twitter.com/BenKuchera/status/635313058009743360

https://twitter.com/InvisibleJimBSH/status/635422217959043072

https://twitter.com/MrSonicAdvance/status/635400943719350272

https://twitter.com/DrEvilGamer/status/635329891639017472

https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/635466952291414016

https://twitter.com/voxday/status/635408180319793157

Speaking of Vox Day, here’s what he had to say about the Hugos on his blog:

I understand that Toni Weisskopf of Baen Books walked out of the ceremony after hearing all the jokes about this being the year of the asterisk. It is just as well, because the no-awarding of her, John C. Wright, and Jim Butcher is conclusive proof that the Hugo Awards are no longer fit for purpose and need to be burned down in their entirety. That was my original position, but this year we Rabids followed the Sad Puppies lead and pursued the “fair play” approach.

Now we know the result of that. This is a cultural war, not a literary sport. 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. What the Puppies accomplished was incredible when you look at the numbers involved and clearly indicates that the Rabid strategy, not the Sad one, is the only viable strategy. There will be no reconciliation.

I too think this was a good outcome. You can’t reason with authoritarians and radical ideologues. The only thing they respect, is a swift kick in the teeth (that’s rhetorically speaking, before someone accuses me of promoting violence). Fight them hard and use hardball tactics. I don’t think it comes as a shock to most of you that I would think this way. Look at the fucking site. As Mark Kern said, this is a cultural war taking place on many, many fronts. Television, books, movies, games, politics…if it’s part of the culture, then SJWs are scoping it out and planning a takeover. Fight back, speak your mind, and we will prevail over the censors. There is no other option.

 

UPDATE: Master Milo has chimed in with his take on The Hugos…

At the seventy-third annual Worldcon science fiction convention on Saturday night, social justice warriors did their best impression of the nightmare firemen of Ray Bradbury’s classic Fahrenheit 451, choosing to burn down the Hugo Awards and damage science fiction instead of seeing works of heretical authors outside of their exclusive clique winning awards.

Earlier this year, Breitbart reported on the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies voting slates, which swept many major categories for the Hugo Awards, science fiction’s coveted fan-voted awards. This year’s Hugos were hotly anticipated: fans and industry insiders alike were curious to see if social justice could come together to act with the uniformity of thought of the Borg to overcome the Puppy’s nominations…

Like the Deathstar’s visit to Alderaan, the results of Hugo Awards voting were ugly and unprecedented. 5 major categories including best novella and best short story went with “no award”. To put that in perspective, in the previous 60 years of Hugo Awards, a total of 5 “no awards” have been given previously.

Puppies supporters say that slew of “no award” wins this year can at least partially be attributed to the fact that SJW votes were concentrated on that choice, while Puppies votes were distributed between as many as four deserving authors. The “no award” results in the novella and short story categories are a particular slap in the face to ordinary fans, who remember the genre’s roots in short-form pulp magazine writing.