Stina Leicht has a Worldcon post up, from which I learned a lot about the origin and meaning of the song, “Yellow Rose of Texas”. That came as part of a discussion of a “women writers” panel, much like the WFC one that Kameron Hurley was complaining about. However, despite the fact that the panel premise is annoying, Stina says that the panelists made something good out of it, and most of the audience went along with that rather than trying to shout them down, mansplain or walk out. That’s good to know, and hopefully Stina is less likely to accused of having imagined it, or been got at by Evil SMOFs, than the reporter from the Austin Chronicle.
I woke up around 4:45 this morning, presumably because Kevin was just tweeting that he’d got to his overnight stop so I could stop worrying about his being on the road after a long, tiring convention. Because I did so, I saw a tweet from John Scalzi linking to a Facebook post by John Ringo. Mr. Ringo is upset about Redshirts winning Best Novel, and he explains that this outrage is because Scalzi is, “beloved by all the hasbeen liberal neurotics who control the Hugo voting and balloting.”
Well, yes, I guess that would be Kevin and myself. As everyone knows, we secretly control the results of the Hugos, which is how I have managed to cheat my way to four of the things. This year John offered me a substantial sum of money (I gather the profits he has made from his successful blog and modeling career) to get him Best Novel, and on the proceeds of that I shall be retiring to a secret base on a Pacific Island from which I shall continue to control all of fandom at my leisure.
I note in passing that Mr. Ringo is actually accusing Hugo Administrators of deliberate ballot fraud over a number of years. He makes that very clear in follow-up comments.
I shall leave the last word to Saladin Ahmed.
https://twitter.com/saladinahmed/status/375060005231140864
WONDERFUL! This one’s gonna run and run.
What’s funny about the accusations of vote fraud in the Hugos is that I wrote a joke article about this back in 2001 (“it was easy to hack the computer: the 286 wasn’t locked up or anything”), and got pooh-poohed for daring to joke about it. Now, I’ve seen some dodgy twists on parliamentary voting for categories, but outright fraud? What the hell would be the return for Hugo vote fraud, except to the Cat Piss Men who think that a Hugo nomination might sell their latest self-published novel?
Now, it just occurred to me that everyone could run with this, all for the forces of good. Make up a Fake Hugo Award, much like how Sam Raimi refers to stunt doubles in his movies as “Fake Shemps”. Make up a ridiculously ostentatious and cheap award cup, with “FAKE HUGO” all over the damn thing, including the bottom. Insist that everyone can vote early and often on the nominees, but votes will cost $10 apiece. (After all, if you’re going to buy votes, at least make some token sum that’s worthwhile.) Collect the total for all of the various Fake Hugo categories, including a whole load made up purely for fun, and open voting for the finalists at $20 per vote. Whether it’s for a serious effort to get a Fake Hugo or just to piss off people like John Ringo, everyone gets to vote early and often here as well. At the end, when the awards are given (I recommend a live video feed from someplace appropriately equally fake, such as a McDonald’s or a breast augmentation clinic), instead of listing how many votes were received, simply note how much money was paid for each nomination. At the end, all of the money goes to a preapproved and preselected charity. Heck, why not let the winners all choose the charity to where the money can go: can you imagine the bleeding from the ears over the Fake Hugo Best Novel money going to the North American Sarracenia Conservancy?
Oh, and this is vital: all nominees are authorized to use their Fake Hugo wins or nominations in whatever promotional material they see fit. Can you imagine the squealing from the “The Hugos are rigged” crowd when they see the item in question heavily promoted with “Winner of the Fake Hugo”? At the same time, can you imagine the fun had by those with a sense of humor when they stand up during the video feed and lovingly thank their parents and schoolteachers for an award where they admit “I had to beat up four nuns for the money to win this”?
I have a sneaking suspicion that someone may have already done that in previous years. After all, accusations of vote rigging are hardly new.
I remember the vague noises about the Hogus, the alleged anti-Hugos for the worst in the genre, but I haven’t met anyone who’s actually attended one of those gatherings, much less ever seen a listing of the “winners”. By comparison, the Golden Raspberries get a lot of publicity, including when certain smartasses *cough* note that the nominees for the Razzies and the nominees for the Saturn Awards are usually the same list. I just haven’t heard of anyone really running with the idea, which is why I figured that a good mocking charity run might be the way to go.