The biggest jerk maneuver of all
The Sad Puppies adventure didn’t work out well for the Sad Puppies. John Scalzi tells the story.
As most of you know, at last Saturday’s Hugo Awards ceremony, the voters, of which there were a record number, chose not to offer awards in five categories rather than to give the award to nominees who got on the ballot because of the Sad/Rabid Puppy slating campaign. In the categories in which awards were given, in nearly all cases the Puppy nominees in the category finished below “No Award.”
Why is that, do you suppose? Scalzi explains that it’s because they acted like jerks, and performed a series of jerk maneuvers.
2. They gloated about the slates getting on the ballot, and the upset that this caused other people. That’s a jerk maneuver.
4. They spent months insulting the people they associated with their imaginary cabal. That’s a jerk maneuver.
5. They spent months crapping on the writers they dragooned into their imaginary cabal, and crapping on the work those writers created. That’s a jerk maneuver.
7. They spent months pissing on the people who love and care about the awards, and the convention that hosts both. That’s a jerk maneuver.
8. They expected the people who they’d been treating with contempt to give them the respect they would not afford them. That’s a jerk maneuver.
If it gloats like a jerk, if it craps on people like a jerk, if it pisses on people like a jerk – it’s probably a jerk.
Mind you, I don’t expect the core Puppies to recognize this; indeed I expect them to say they haven’t done a single thing that has been other than forthright and noble and correct. Well, and here’s the thing about that: acting like an jerk and then asserting that no, it’s everyone else that’s been acting like a jerk, is the biggest jerk maneuver of all.
Well, yes, but they of course would say they haven’t been acting like a jerk – oh this is where we came in, we can go home now.
It was a decisive victory in the sense that the Hugo voters roundly rejected the slated nominations, but also a loss: many worthy potential nominees were forced out by the slate.
The reach and the ability of the Pups to cause trouble was greatly enhanced by T––– B–––, Internet Supervillain, and the horde of harrassing trolls that love to take orders from him. It boosted the visibility of his little publishing concern to a number of terrible people who might not have otherwise heard of it (GomerGorpers, Breitbart readers, the neoreactionary wing of the rationalist “movement”) and who will no doubt be his customers, and since he was already persona non grata in the world of SF fandom, it hurts him none. His fellow travellers, Puppies who participated and wanted their pet authors to win, or authors that allowed themselves to be slated, will have their reputations tarnished for participating in this tomfoolery.
I have read reports that the UStream comment threads were replete with remarks by Puppy supporters which made it quite obvious that they knew very little, if anything about SFF and had been essentially led by the nose to vote for the Puppy slate. When people are asking who this “Silverberg” guy is, you just kinda know, y’know?