If the Hugo Awards are so Irrelevant...

[kevin_standlee]

...then why do so many people who profess to disdain them spend so much time criticizing them?

Most of the arguments I happened to hear today come down to "My personal taste is so much better than what won that the system is stupid/corrupt/broken."

Why is is so difficult for people to accept that other people like other things? It's as though they're so insecure that they demand that others stop liking other things in order to validate their preferences in some way.

Saying, "I don't like the things you like" isn't being exclusionary, but somehow, some people seem to think it is. I don't like cherry ice cream, but that doesn't make you a bad person or part of a Grand Conspiracy Against Humanity because you eat it.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I generally don't agree with the Hugo best novel choice and also on some other categories, but if enough people like it enough to vote for it then it deserves to win. It is really that simple. I rarely buy a novel because it won a Hugo but it sometimes influences me. I buy and read novels because I know the author and am familiar with the work, the summary on the back sounds interesting or I try something on a whim. Not earth shaking decisions what I read and I care not what other people read.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

If the Hugos go often enough to winners I think unworthy, I cease to care about the Hugos. That's what enabled me to function as a Hugo Administrator: I had no personal investment in who the winners would be. Instead, I just watched bemused as the votes added up, or failed to.

[garyomaha.livejournal.com]

This tangentially touches on my Number One Pet Peeve: the expression "Get a Life." Just what is a life ? Does that mean I have to enjoy what someone else enjoys? Or that what I like to do is irrelevant, in someone else's eyes?

Just like the cherry ice cream you mentioned, we're each entitled to our likes and dislikes. So what if I prefer to watch a Star Trek rerun while the Super Bowl is on? (For the record, I wasn't watching either at the time.)

Ittsa Krugthulu Paradox!

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Completely powerless, but every pronouncement immediately pounced on by 1,000 wingnuts. OK, maybe 10...

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I think they're not used to the idea that different people like different things, and sometimes people will enjoy things they don't, and sometimes *so many* people will enjoy things they don't that the things they don't enjoy will win.

I guess they're used to running with a more homogenous crowd.

[j. c. salomon (from livejournal.com)]

There are different complaints I’ve heard:

• “The stuff I like never wins.”
So your tastes are in the minority; deal with it.

• “The stuff I like never gets nominated.”
Hmm. Your tastes are either really far from the mainstream, or folks with your tastes are under-represented in the jury. Pay $40 and join WorldCon, and get your fellow-fans to do the same.

• “The stuff I like (e.g. WoT) gets booed when it gets a nomination.”
This does look like a problem. It’s tempting to say people are trying to write you out of fandom, but give them a chance to explain otherwise.

I’m seeing a lot of the first response to the second and third complaints.

"The stuff I Like - "

[retro-rider55.livejournal.com]

Ee-Yep; I doubt my musical tastes will ever be represented at most Con dances, either. Doesn't stop me from being satisfied with being me.

[delosharriman]

I'm not part of a conspiracy against humanity? Imagine my disappointment!

Mind, I rarely read newly-published SF. The most recent novel I read was The Pirates of Ersatz by Murray Leinster, which was serialized in February-March-April 1959 (I recently laid my hands on a large group of old magazines). I've certainly scratched my head at Hugo winners — never did figure out how that Michael Chabon novel which won at Denvention was even SF — but I'm not having apoplectic fits over how the Wrong People are voting for the Wrong Things.