On the Hugos: The Good, the Bad, and the Awful Trolls from Hell
Posted April 22, 2014
on:Hugo nominations are out, and there’s some good stuff, some awesome stuff, and some excruciatingly awful crap.
But before we get there, the good: holy shit there are some amazing folks being nominated. The Book Smugglers got nominated for Best Fanzine, as did A Dribble of Ink. Skiffy and Fanty was nominated for Best Fancast. The list for Best Fan Writer has Liz Bourke, Kameron Hurley, and Foz Meadows on it. ANCILLARY JUSTICE is up for Best Novel. And Benjanun Sriduangkaew got nominated for the Campbell!
YAY.
The awesome: QUEERS DIG TIME LORDS got nominated for Best Related Work. Something I’m actually in! This is very exciting.
Ahem.
And then there’s the bad stuff.
sigh
Okay, look. Everyone complains about the Hugos. It’s a fan rite-of-passage, it’s something that happens every year because certain things get on and other things don’t. Everyone has opinions. In those cases the right thing to do is usually to shrug, admit the Hugos are flawed, celebrate the winners, and work to see that things get better next year.
This isn’t that.
This is about what I and a lot of other people felt when we saw a novelette by Vox Day and a novel by Larry Correia make it on to the ballot, after a campaign to get voters to do just that. This is the about the sense that we are being maliciously provoked by a bloc of ultraconservative fans who hate that the genre isn’t all about them anymore.
This is about the horrible realization that they are using the Hugos to troll us, and enjoying themselves immensely while doing it.
And it’s also about the fact that I didn’t want to say anything about it at first.
Okay. I was bullied a lot as a kid. I know what it looks like, and what it feels like. I know what’s it’s like when someone writes something hurtful on a poster you spent all weekend making, or takes a picture of you just so they can laugh at it later. I know how it feels when someone takes something you love and uses it against you. And that is sort of how this feels.
I didn’t want any part of it. Not at first. My instinct is always to hide, hope they don’t see me, hope they go away.
But then I read what Natalie Luhrs had to say about standing up.
I used to be afraid to speak. Instead, I read. That is how I participated in the community. I still read.
But I am no longer afraid to speak.
She said that despite having tons of miserable trolls come into her space and try to shut her up.
And it’s funny, because I do speak, on lots of issues, every week in my political column. But even there I can feel myself trying to stay on this side of it, trying to stay “safe.” I’ve discovered, though, that even when I do that there will be trolls who want to shut me up.
If I stay safe or stay silent then the other voices get to keep the entire field. And that’s not right.
So. What’s going on here is malicious. Nobody should use the Hugos to make not just a political point, but to actually try to upset other parts of fandom. And there is nothing that’s going to make me believe that’s not what this is.
I don’t particularly care to read their works and judge them on the merits. I also don’t care to engage with these trolls.
But I do care to speak. I may not be much of a deal in the SFF world, but I have my tiny little voice and I shall use it.
20 Responses to "On the Hugos: The Good, the Bad, and the Awful Trolls from Hell"

“This is the about the sense that we are being maliciously provoked by a bloc of ultraconservative fans who hate that the genre isn’t all about them anymore.”
I’ll go further and say that it’s a bloc who hate the fact that the genre has never really been about them, and might now be just realising that they not only have lost the fight, but at no point ever really had a shot of winning it (whatever shape that would have taken: banning women from the awards?). And they really don’t like that. And if they think they’re going to get very far by trying to fight that fight in the UK of all places, where they’d consider even our most conservative SF authors to be liberal hippies, they’re really not paying attention.


[…] a racist rape apologist and the fact he’s on the ballot makes me sad (here are some posts if you’re not familiar with the background). There’s also some controversy over Wheel […]


[…] Susan Jane Bigelow points out that Vox Day, Larry Correia and their ilk are actively trying to malic… the glittering hoo-has, special snowflake, pink SF crowd, social justice warriors or whatever cutesy name they have come up with this week and that nobody has to engage with them or read their work. […]


“I don’t particularly care to read their works and judge them on the merits.”
Well, therin lies the problem doesn’t it? If you refuse to judge a work or an artist on their merits (or lack of same), what are you judging them on?
That a question, not a condemnation incidentally.
I went over to Correia’s place and read his whole, long, agonizingly complete tale of what he did and why he did it. In my estimation he’s not telling people to shut up. He’s predicting his mere inclusion on the ballot will cause paroxysms of hate among the Left, who will scream for his head and demand he be silenced. Every prediction he made has come to pass, wouldn’t you say?
Now interestingly, even though I am now a huge old silver-back, once upon a time I was a small boy with more than a touch of Aspergers and like you I was bullied mercilessly.
Viewed through that lens, Correia is doing what I used to do back in the day. He’s standing up and daring them to have a go.
Because that’s what I learned as a small boy. You don’t hide from bullies. You stand up to them.
My question is, why do you need these guys to shut up and go away so bad? If they’re evil and wrong, they’ll flame out quick enough from their own evil wrongness don’t you think?


Don’t waste your time, Zak.
Leftists have a moral defect which prevents them from admitting their hypocrisy. The more obvious the hypocrisy, the louder and more angry they become. Example: the hysteria over the Hugos.
I wonder if the library where Ms.Bigelow works has books by Delany, Bradley and Breen in it?
For that matter, I wonder if the patrons of that library know about the kinds of authors that Ms. Bigelow is foisting on them?


…please tell me what you think of the books of Marion Zimmer Bradley, Samuel Delany, and Walter Breen. I’m very curious.
As am I. Please tell us, Susan.

April 22, 2014 at 12:40 pm
[…] On the Hugos: The Good, the Bad, and the Awful Trolls from Hell (Susan Jane Bigelow) […]