Fandom: Oh, Hugo, Where Have HuGone

[escritoireazul]

If I had an active fannish Twitter or Tumblr, I would have added to my profile: 100% Absolutely Positively Not a Hugo Award Winner. But I don't, so I shan't.

The Fanlore write-up of the controversy.

This is really putting me off the Hugos and Worldcon. Feels like another cultural clash in SFF, and I am really fucking tired of them. They're necessary and good changes can come out of them, but so tired.

Comments

[kore]

If I had an active fannish Twitter or Tumblr, I would have added to my profile: 100% Absolutely Positively Not a Hugo Award Winner. But I don't, so I shan't.

Ditto!

rahaeli was doing the work of saints on Twitter talking about the "lawyer" who popped onto AO3 and was trying to scare everyone. What a fucking typical white male geeky wnaker.

[escritoireazul]

Oooh, I should look at what they posted about it. Some of the lawyer talk from all these white dudes has driven me to drink. Which then made me laugh, since I've been doing trademark legal work all week and then seeing their crap in my fun fannish time.

[kore]

She was great! I don't even know that much about it, but this is the best tweet

https://twitter.com/rahaeli/status/1174704966822445057

Attempting to chill constitutionally protected nominative speech about a registered service mark that is insufficiently famous for dilution protection is censorious legal thuggery. There is a nationwide network of first amendment lawyers who will explain this to you.

Isn't that kickass?

[escritoireazul]

It is brilliant, and I'm so glad I saw the full post Denise did about it later.

[beer_good_foamy]

Jesus christ. I'd completely missed this.

What happens when a squeeing force meets a mopey object...

[escritoireazul]

Right? I mean, I get it when it comes to things for sale. But all this stuff about people joking around about being a Hugo winner or having it in their profiles, etc., that's such a killjoy thing. Which people then doubled down on about diluting the Hugo award; not in a trademark way, even, but that the award isn't so special if so many people can claim it. Will we ever be done with fucking gatekeeping? I know the answer is no, but still. Come on.

[kore]

Then a white male mansplainer asshole showed up ON AO3 and was like "Let me explain it to you hysterical females," and when he started getting pressed closely by knowledgeable people was like "The answer is 'it depends' and 'I'm not answering that without money.'" It sounded like he wanted people to PAY HIM. And then he admitted he had nothing to do with the Board and it was not his area anyway and he had no fucking experience with this specific thing. Fucking idiot.

[cyprinella]

Yeah, I think that's the guy rahaeli is taking to task on Twitter. The knob.

I also think NeolithicSheep had a good point about it being very much a clash between collective/anarchist thinking vs. hierarchical/capitalist thinking

[kore]

people like JJ and Contrarianus and Hampus are focused on very individualistic capitalist terms - exclusive, special, devalue, debase

That is an excellent point!

And they also seem hyperfocused on the idea that someone will slap "Hugo Nominated" on their fanfic and sell it, which....is not what anyone associated with AO3 has done or would do. (The Puppies, on the other hand....)

[havocthecat]

I mean, that's just the language that the asshole version of attorneys use when they want to sound like fucking know-it-alls but they don't actually know shit and can't back it up without a couple-three hours of research and they don't want to do it for free.

I KNOW. I KNOW THIS ONE. Not only do I work with lawyers, I'm friends with some who ARE ASSHOLES. (I mean, they're larpers, most larpers are assholes, that's just a thing. I love larpers too, that's a paradoxical statement right there, I know.)

[wpadmirer]

People always got to get their shorts in a knot about something.

[escritoireazul]

Too too true.

[kalloway]

Yeah, I've basically given no fucks about AO3 winning a Hugo, but now I want to 'claim' my millionth of a Hugo just to apparently piss in these people's Cheerios.

I think the most baffling thing is that so many apparent old-guard SFF people are wandering over to a place where the biggest fandoms represented are... mostly SFF and declaring everyone Bad And Wrong.

(The gardeners working on the fanlore page are heroes. I couldn't even wade through all of the News post comments.)

[escritoireazul]

Yeah, the way the old-guard SFF people are treating this as if the AO3 isn't also filled with SFF people is just ... what? That one dude who said we're cultural appropriating SFF fandom is a take all right.

[havocthecat]

The sheer number of professional authors who, in the 90s, have utterly hidden their fanfic credentials, and the ones these days who no longer feel the need to do so, is stunning. We're in stealth mode, people.

GUYS. WE ARE SFF AND SFF IS US.

I'm just going to haunt your comments for a while, fair warning. I have opinions on this Hugo thing and I my fucks to give about being annoyed at people finally got warmed up. No fucks to give that they hate me, I'm just giving fucks that they've annoyed me.

[kalloway]

Pretty much. I'm still boggling, a good week later, that anyone from an organization would wander into a space of hundreds if not thousands of new potential new members for said organization and... piss them off.

(I'm one of them! I had friends who went to Worldcon and made it sound like a lot of fun and had seriously been considering membership and even trying to attend in the future, but... yeah...)

[rattfan]

I tried to read through the posts about A03 versus the Hugos but got lost :-) I remember musing that this is probably the closest I'll get to having a Hugo of my very own; people don't like my writing that much, BUT I have 100s of kudos for some of my fic :-) It's hilarious.

[escritoireazul]

There's so many different parts to this whole thing it was a lot to follow for sure. It's the closest I'll come to a Hugo myself, probably; the Hugos are in many ways a popularity contest and I do not build relationships that well. (Not disparaging them in this statement, though. A lot of publishing is about knowing the right people; that's a part of the business you work with or around or outside of, but it's there.)

[devon]

I've never been, never voted, and rarely read/participated in something that was nominated. It's still exhausting to me to hear about this crap!

But ... the Chuck Tingle- style fic sounds pretty damn amusing.
Sorry for your pain, but thanks for the Fanlore link.

[escritoireazul]

I am a voting member, but did not vote for AO3. I retroactively wish I had, though, because damn, this is some shit.

[rhoda_rants]

*cringe* *cringe* *cringe*

I do not want anyone associated with the Hugos to even know that Ao3 exists, nevermind having them wander in and ruin it for us. That archive is one of the last bastions of, "Let's all just get together and write about stuff we love," with relatively little wank or controversy (such as, say, Tumblr), and the nomination announcement made me feel like someone had painted a target on my back. I get why people are excited about transformative works being "legitimized" by a recognizable SFF organization, but I much preferred when only other fanficcers knew about us. (Not that I'm anywhere near prolific enough to notice, but still--*CRINGE*.)

Also: Bless Fanlore for putting all this in one place.

[ilyena_sylph]

+wry+

It'd be sorta hard for nobody associated with the Hugos to even know AO3 exists, given the Hugo winners who have fic on AO3 (or helped create it)...

...but at the same time Boy Howdy do I feel you on the target on back. More people being fen is great, but fannish spaces in the public eye unsettle me immensely.

[rhoda_rants]

LOL--true, I keep forgetting how many "legit" authors either started out writing fanfic or still do. And yet, the closer the general public comes to finding the channels where fanfic is housed, the more likely we come to my mother finding and reading mine, and well *CRINGE*.

[escritoireazul]

I definitely understand this feeling, but I think in a lot of ways, the horse is out of the stable on that one. So many of the people who use AO3, even people who created it, are a part of the pro SFF scene, too, and many are outspoken about and proud of their fic roots (or current fic writing). I think it's still possible to keep an individual distance between your work (generic you) and pro spaces, but as a whole, we exist in a public way that is becoming more public all the time.

That is a hard transition for a lot of people, and I hope everyone can find their way to getting what they want from their fandom experience.

Fanlore's doing the dirty work collecting stuff for sure.

[havocthecat]

Like. I don't need the old guard SFF WSFS validation, but it sure is fun to see them huff and puff about the AO3 ruining science fiction by getting its cooties all over everything.

[rhoda_rants]

Yeah, it's hard, especially if you came to the "scene" by exchanging fics chapter by chapter over emails like I did, just to a handful of people as opposed to the internet at large. There's no stopping it, and intellectually I get why having this type of transformative work recognized is a good thing, but I also feel very, very protective of my particular corner of it and don't want it publicized. I don't know how to join to those feelings together nicely.

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