I’ve been keeping these out of the main fantasy news cause 1. It needs a lot of attention and 2. If you want the news to stay positive and don’t want to hear about this you can avoid it. I hope it’s a good middle ground.

@thatcher174

4 ай бұрын

Absolutely, thank you

@Shadefinder1

4 ай бұрын

Did you know that Hollywood censors on behalf of china without out being told to? Thus is absolutely not nee and not surprising. I don't know why your worked up about it. These are the lengths that people will go to stay on china's good side.

@arabellawillow9248

4 ай бұрын

Perfect middle ground!

@Jackolantirn

4 ай бұрын

My gut reaction is to say "if I didn't want to hear negative news, I'd have to stick my head under ground and leave it there," but a news story like this where details and explanations are slow to come, this is totally adequate. It's the lack of explanation that I find most frustrating about this story, as we only have enough details to make conjectures. that's what i think, anyways.

@Shadefinder1

4 ай бұрын

This isn't the first time a group has censored for china. Hollywood does this to get movies into china. They do this to stay in the china market. I'm not saying it's good. It just happens.

"Hugo discriminated against Western Authors to appease the CCP!!" Hugo: Actually... we discriminated against *everyone* thank you very much

@kohakuaiko

4 ай бұрын

😂

@mischarowe

4 ай бұрын

🤣🤣

@mathhews95

4 ай бұрын

"We hate everyone equally"

@catinthehat906

4 ай бұрын

I stopped taking any notice of the Hugo awards years ago- they are more woke than Disney- and that's saying something.

@BittyVids

4 ай бұрын

@@catinthehat906oh for fck sake. Are people still using “woke” in a serious way? What is woke?

If you say "Hugo Awards" three times a new scandal is summoned.

@GentleReader01

4 ай бұрын

Perfect comment for the subject right now.

@damp2269

4 ай бұрын

well i said it about 9 times so Daniel will have content for a month...

@evdv2011

4 ай бұрын

What happens if I say Liu Ci Xin?

@Stormy77

4 ай бұрын

Do we need to stand in front of a mirror shrouded in fog, or will any recently Hugo nominated novel do? Asking for a friend.

@GentleReader01

4 ай бұрын

@@Stormy77 I think it has to be a novel that someone says is on a slate. Either that or a novel someone says is obviously unworthy because the author isn’t male enough, white enough, straight enough, etc.

New idea: career built purely around reporting Hugo's drama

@DanielGreeneReviews

4 ай бұрын

I try and keep that out of the main news so if you don’t want hear about it, you don’t gotta. I hope that’s an okay middle ground.

@alexm-e4910

4 ай бұрын

😂 honestly, this would probably work given the Goblin’s general skill at being internet funny guy

@EruditeGayming

4 ай бұрын

​@@DanielGreeneReviews oh I meant it in a purely "they could actually sustain a channel just about this" way, i really dont mind this showing up, tho i see how someone might take issue with FN featuring this repeatedly

@Fred-lk8oh

4 ай бұрын

Good idea we just need a strategy to somehow capture the audience of Game of Thrones as well

@damp2269

4 ай бұрын

@@Fred-lk8oh so a very dark room to get the TV fans and 5000 pages of descriptions of every button and buckle in the room before getting to the scandal for the book fans. 8 seasons and a movie preapproved!

Next "It got worse" video is just going to be Daniel screaming into a void

@ladyethyme

4 ай бұрын

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

The entire Hugo scandal: And then it got WORSE

@adoniscreed4031

4 ай бұрын

Why? Why does it keep getting worse??? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

@Aviv704

4 ай бұрын

This is not a scandal, this time the committee did the right thing. It seems that just like China bought the location of the convention they were buying the all the nominations but this time the committee stopped them. All the other votes amounted to 1,600 ballots thus "Hundreds, perhaps even thousands ... ballots" is more than enough to win all the nominations with coordinated voting. (keep in mind that in less mainstream categories there about much less ballots that the 1,600 in that were cast in best novel and such)

@onelowerlight

4 ай бұрын

@@Aviv704 That's as asinine as saying "to save our democracy, we have to prevent [insert group here] from winning the election!"

Literally, I’m in school for library science and we were talking about this in class. We were all like “well, surely it can’t get worse than this”

@christianschwietzke8959

4 ай бұрын

Never, I mean NEVER, say "it can´t get worse", because the universe cannot encounter that statement without going "Challenge accepted!".

@splintershield

4 ай бұрын

LOL "Challenge accepted."

@MariPantilla

4 ай бұрын

This recent video seems to be too confusing to follow for me now. I understood the scandal through the last video. This one is over my head and I cannot imagine ordinary readers understanding that is happening anymore with this.

@jasongrundy1717

4 ай бұрын

Look at what Disney and the NBA among, well, every other major brand and company has done to please China. The only shocking thing is anyone is surprised. And lets be real, this is the same people that got called out by the sad puppies for exactly the same thing. They're corrupt. Always have been. They don't base off merit and it's the problem.

@93siguy

4 ай бұрын

If you didn’t know, China owns you

I'll give the Hugo Awards this. Not many can say they activly looked for boots to lick without even being asked -.-

In protest, Chuck Tingle should write a "Got Pounded in the Butt by My Hugo Award Loss" PART 2.

@aj_oli

4 ай бұрын

Best idea I’ve ever read

@CarlosPerez-hm7gf

3 ай бұрын

Shouldn't it be "Got Pounded in the Butt By the CCP and the Chengdu WorldCon"?

I'm 63 and recently lost one of my first nerdy friends to cancer. I'm torn between missing talking over this with him and relieved he didn't live to see this. Gods, can you imagine Harlan Ellison's reaction? Somedays being old just sucks.

@ksh2596

2 ай бұрын

I'm sorry for your loss

Also the next WorldCon has had to turn down carry-over funds from Chengdu because it’s now being investigated by the US government for including funding from a Chinese company with US government sanctions on it.

@suburbanbanshee

4 ай бұрын

Underrated comment.

@Arrynek01

4 ай бұрын

Well... that`s unfortunate :D

4 days ago, Daniel put "The End of the Hugo Controversy" in the title of his news video.... and the gods laughed.

I've gone from benign apathy about the Hugo Awards to active mistrust

…did they cut all of those Chinese nominations because they were afraid that a bunch of Chinese-language nominees and winners (that western audiences wouldn’t recognize) would make people care less about the Hugo Awards? It’s the only thing I can think of that would cause them to make this decision. Unless it’s just something they do all the time.

@robbybevard8034

4 ай бұрын

They cut books because they were afraid of them hitting up against chinese moral code (so nothing queer, or outspoken against China.) They ALSO cut books because they didn't want a bunch of Chinese winners making it look like the host country influenced the winners? So basically they just cut a whole bunch of candidates for no reason, and unlike what we originally thought, NO ONE asked them to do this. THe Hugos just decided to do it themselves for... some reason.

@ashley-r-pollard

4 ай бұрын

I think this nails it. The Hugo award for 2023 is XYZQ Chinese book that no one has read outside of China for all the categories would have also thrown a huge spanner into the works. Basically bad, but what actually happened is worse still.

@StraylightWintermute

4 ай бұрын

One theory I saw in blog comments is that they wanted to draw the prestige that comes with international attendees. The sponsoring companies paid for all the Hugo nominees to travel to China and attend Worldcon (pretty sure nominees normally have to pay their own way). Seems like they wanted to show off to the rest of the Chinese business community or the government rather than actually caring about showing off interesting Chinese language SF to their attendees.

@ellenh5468

4 ай бұрын

I think it's the same racism that made removing slate votes for Sad Puppies "impossible". It benefited the wrong people. This also assumes they actually were slate nominations

@WukongTheMonkeyKing

3 ай бұрын

The Chinese nominations MAY have been cut because a slate list was published in a Chinese language magazine. But this is a maybe, because the Hugo team's examination really only looked at western authors. So it's still (afaik) an unsolved element of this mess.

Welp. Maybe I DON'T need to aspire to win a Hugo award anymore.

@FelipeKana1

4 ай бұрын

Never should! We should write for ourselves, ultimately. It's actually the only way

@pattheplanter

4 ай бұрын

@@FelipeKana1 Yes, you should write what you want to read. The ultimate award has to be a fan getting in touch to thank you for touching their heart. I am sure GNU Terry Pratchett was more moved when bereaved readers told him that his creation of Death in the Discworld had brought them some solace than for any award he was given.

@user-go4vz2ir6r

4 ай бұрын

It is easy, do a favor for certain people, and votes can be "fixed" in your favor.

@TheZenBullet

4 ай бұрын

Aspire to be banned by them instead!

cant wait for the new playlist titled "HUGO SCANDAL"

@gregsanders61

4 ай бұрын

HUGO'S 2023 SCANDAL*

When a top notch Science Fiction writer like Adrian Tchaikovsky tells the Hugo Awards thanks, but no thanks, the Hugo's will not long survive as a science fiction award.

@Johnny5477

3 ай бұрын

Sad, too, since “Best Series” is definitely the kind of award that you should give to Tchaikovsky. The man’s brilliant.

You know, I’ve always looked at Hugo nominee lists to find good books for my TBR. It’s such a shame that it’s been so compromised. I have such sympathy for all those affected, including winners who now don’t even know if they deserve their award. This system just feels broken. Thanks, Daniel, for helping explain the issue.

@robertblume2951

4 ай бұрын

It's always been compromised. This time they are just using another countries politics to excuse their actions.

@user-go4vz2ir6r

4 ай бұрын

I remember reading about the old scandal, and writing the Hugo of as tainted. Many years later I hear about the Hugos, and they are still tainted.

@weedofcrime2299

4 ай бұрын

The Hugo Awards have been compromised since 2015, when there was a concerted effort to keep the "wrong" people from winning.

@markvargus6519

3 ай бұрын

I stopped considering the Hugo awards a good indicator of what might be decent/good in Sci-fi/Fantasy well over a decade ago. The scandal of the Sad/Angry Puppies era made it clear that the voting was heavily influenced by ideologues and had stopped being about what was truly the best writing in the genre. The few Hugo award winning novels I've tried to read in the last decade were all poor to unreadable in my opinion. I do pay some attention to the awards coming out of DragonCon as those are in theory not influenced by the culture wars, but even those are a bit suspect due to how blatantly the Hugo Awards considered political issues when the votes were cast.

Some of us are not shocked. Some of us have seen this BS for a loooong time, but alas..

@wingracer1614

4 ай бұрын

Yep. Hugos should have been done 10 years ago. This just shows they never fixed the problems with the system when they had the chance.

@37thgungrunts

4 ай бұрын

​@@wingracer1614wild isn't it how the sad puppies nailed every aspect of it?

@karinaburana562

4 ай бұрын

@@37thgungrunts Every aspect, he says. When the claims were that the Hugo's have an agenda to disenfranchise conservative authors. Yep, this case of people being censored for being LGBTQ or perceived as outspoken against the Chinese government totally proves the Hugo bias against poor conservative authors.

@gatling216

4 ай бұрын

I’d say less “nailed every aspect” and more “right for the wrong reasons.” The whole mess was a lot more complicated than “poor conservatives” and the puppies faction itself couldn’t seem to agree what they were fighting for at times. Trying to understand what was actually going on felt like dropping acid to study the 30 Year War. Would not recommend. But yes, they were right that the results could be manipulated, and that the Worldcon staff weren’t the paragons of integrity that they portrayed themselves as. The rest of it has no bearing on this particular debacle.

@vincentmartin9667

4 ай бұрын

@@karinaburana562 "Totally proves" is probably too strong of language, but it is excellent evidence of that being the case. Those who do not from the past are doomed to repeat it.

Harlan Ellison is spinning in his grave.... from laughing his ass off.

@pavelowjohn9167

4 ай бұрын

You know who laughing even harder than Harlan though? Larry Correia. As he stated on Twitter fairly recently "Sorry, dummies, I tried to warn you."

My observation is that most, if not all large organizations, are extremely bad at holding their own management accountable for even severe harassment, abuse, and malfeasance. This extends to just about every corporation or non profit I have ever worked with. The Hugos pressed the eject button on Dave only to save their own skin. But it sounds like him and his upper team were a problem in the past, and that was swept under the rug.

@philipwong9557

4 ай бұрын

genuinely don't know. Is the award organization large? Few dozen people? A hundred? In my mind, I am imagining maybe 10 people - at least at the central organization level and not the folks organizing the convention itself (who presumably change every time anyway)

@DannyInCanada

4 ай бұрын

@@philipwong9557 There's literally no award organization. None. It changes every year. Some people are experienced enough that they volunteer (and are accepted) frequently. There's a committee that manages the trademark "Hugo Awards", but that's it.

It is still insane to me that entities like the Hugo awards do not have audits of their internal controls.

@nanotyrannus5435

4 ай бұрын

It's a miracle this is the first time in the over 70 year history that this level of fuck up was reached.

@rhuanv

4 ай бұрын

​@nanotyrannus5435 just because they made it too obvious. Probably there were other times where people got excluded unfairly, but it was not so comically obvious and politically motivated as this. They really thought themselves too big to fail.

@pattheplanter

4 ай бұрын

From 1953 up untill 2014 the fans who voted just wanted to vote for their beloved authors and celebrate SF&F generally. There was drama, but not Internet-enabled toxic drama.

@sarahschreffler5407

4 ай бұрын

It’s likely not the first time. There were allegations 10ish years ago this was happening

@quixotiq

4 ай бұрын

Yeah all judging should be COMPLETELY TRANSPARENT, and audited. I mean, it's career making for some people. It's not just a thing.

As a life-long (I'm 66) consumer of science fiction/fantasy it's disturbing that one of the geekisphere's greatest institutions is being, for now, being made irrelevant. Even some of this year's winners are questioning the validity of their own wins. Until now I didn't know how they even chose the winners so I can't claim any type of expertise but it seems to me there should be some type of audit when it comes to processing vote counting. Much like the Oscars by using an outside accounting firm.

@AenesidemusOZ

4 ай бұрын

Agreed. The Hugo Awards institution is now damaged. Serious changes will need to be made to regain the trust of authors and the reading public going forward.

This is rapidly devolving from "Scandal" to "Get the popcorn, the next episode of Hugos is up!"

@epicwalrus7183

4 ай бұрын

I've gone through at least 3 buckets so far 🍿

So here is what I understand (very simplified version, from a non-english user): Not only the people in charge of 2023 Hugo Awards did some cowardly things like disqualifying several authors for fear of offending the Chinese government, but also they hastily wiped out a lot of Chinese works which had got many votes (They thought or found out that those works were on the 'slates'?) If my comprehension is correct, what a mixture of spineless censorship and racial discrimination. (You know, hastily categorizing certain groups or activities as 'inappropriate' or 'unfair' is a popular case of discrimination) At first, I mean when we only had that email leaks, I considered this situation to be about censoring SNS and how freedom of expression can be demolished by financial interest. But now it reveals that the total system is seriously flawed.

@asaipuol

4 ай бұрын

From another non-english viewer: I think you got it right. Slates are lists that organisms publish, basically saying "Those 20 books are according to us among the best, we encourage you to vote for those in the nominations" . According to some other comments, this is a thing that many people do, including most SFF US magazines. However, here everything on Chinese slates was disqualified because " slates are bad, remember when far right made their slates to try to overtake the Hugos? " (Writing this all out also to help me process it, because this is *wild*)

@regrettably44

4 ай бұрын

@@asaipuol I understood this situation in the same way. Thanks for sharing your comprehension! Actually I don't think the panels did such things with a kind of discriminatory intent but simply wiping out the names on a certain list from their board was quite... hasty. It's an obviously unprofessional measure, even though the panels are all 'volunteers'(if I understand correctly). They should be much more careful when addressing such cases. And that's the reason why I think this situation was caused due to a fundamental problem of the system... or they just have no valid system for fair judgment :(

@Warraci

4 ай бұрын

The ironic thing is that McCarty is the first to screech racism, oppression, and other progressive talking points at folk who dare disagree with him.

@SinistralEpoch

4 ай бұрын

They were afraid of offending the Chinese government then simultaneously were afraid of alienating the English speaking audience and so, in-fact, did both of the things they tried not to do.

@masonguthrie1257

4 ай бұрын

@@regrettably44I totally agree with your thought process. Very well put.

This is why large events are hiring Accountant firms - to make sure the voting is accurate

As a member of fandom, this is horrible. Fandom is supposed to be welcoming. We were the outcasts and now we're the bullies. This is not the fandom I joined and it's not the fandom I want to be. I'm glad I'm not alone in this and other people are stepping up to correct these mistakes.

@user-go4vz2ir6r

4 ай бұрын

"If you wish to test a man's (person's) character, give him (them) power."

@weedofcrime2299

4 ай бұрын

Fandom used to welcoming to everyone. I attended 26 Worldcons between 1986 and 2016 and I watched the rapid decay over the last 3 or 4 years I attended. In 1992, a reporter for the Orlando Sentinel described fans as "almost pathologically friendly", and reported that she never got lost or confused or stuck wondering why something was popular because there was always a fan nearby who would be happy to explain. By 2018, a reporter was describing the Worldcon as a safe space for the frightened disenfranchised huddling together for warmth and security.

This is so sad. Sci-fi wasnt KZread/tiktok cool when i was a teenager in the 90s, and the hugo awards meant a lot to me. I had no IRL community and social media didnt exist. The hugo awards where one of a few ways available to feel in touch with my people. Lets not let them go out like this !

I lived in China for a few years. I now live in Taiwan. I try to see all issues involving China with caution. My observation is that many issues that are just Chinese people pursuing unfair business practices are labelled as "authoritarian CCP laws" by folks outside China, and conversely that many issues which actually are a result of CCP interference (which are far rarer than most people assume) are often unrecognised or thrown at the feet of the Chinese people. Suffice it to say that I was skeptical of CCP involvement in the Hugo scandal from the start. That said, I'm shocked at the real drama going on here. It's straight up racism, and it has no place in any award.

@josephmatthews7698

3 ай бұрын

I consult for a friend who was NSA helping with industrial internet security for stuff like infrastructure, train yards and factories. Easily half of all non domestic attacks come from China. Most we'll probably never be able to trace and a few of the confirmed might even be false flags but that doesn't change the fact that overwhelming majority of cyber attacks against American targets come from China. Is it government sanctioned? Lone wolf anti American citizens? Hong Kong, Tibet or Taiwanese attempting to provoke a conflict? All I can say is the attacks from eastern Europe and Africa are laughably amateurish. The middle east (iran especially) are always very competent and obviously educated but even they pale in comparison to the professionalism and quality of Chinese attacks. If it's not the government training them then it's gotta be a radicalized billionaire willing to pour immense resources into destabilizing our security. This is coming from someone who spent his life enthralled with Chinese culture. Studying it's history was my drug. Even as a child falling in love with Chinese heroes like Liu Bang, Zhuge Liang and Wu Zetian. I've read the great works dozens of times, visited Cheng Du and became transfixed with the beauty of that country and it's people. I love China and especially it's people who I have the utmost faith and respect for. Chinese cyber attacks are not only common but professional, intelligent, organized and well funded. Draw your own conclusions. To me the Chinese government is scared to death. Surrounded by enemies with an economy doomed to plummet in decades and a massive populace waking up to the countless corrupt officials and merchants becoming billionaires while they toil. Not to mention the oppressed minorites the government has ruthlessly used as scapegoats since the Han fell. When fake strongmen are scared they immediately lash out and use others as scapegoats. The wealthy know the riches won't flow forever.

@YasuTaniina

2 ай бұрын

@@josephmatthews7698 that's basically my whole family's stance on the situation too. We're inclined to blame the Chinese government, because the writing is on the wall, but we love the people. Although I'm personally horrified by some of their cultural practices. I can understand them not wanting larger families even since the change, but then with the few kids the have they push academics in such an unhealthy manner as to encourage suicide. You'd think these Asian countries would see countries like Finland and Australia, and realize academics don't have to be forced so much for future success and achievement. Also I think these stories from my brothers grad program and from things my dad saw in his job are very telling. It's not uncommon for Chinese scientists to do things like start a study in May and publish it in August with "results" from an 18 month study.... And my dad was confused when they were studying an area together to find out about the geology. They kept asking "What's the answer?" And he kept saying "We don't know the answer, that's why we're analyzing the area." And they couldn't seem to wrap their heads around the fact that the answer was as of yet unknown.

I used to care who won the Hugo. I read all the Hugo winners for about 30 years. I haven't even looked up the winners for the last few years.

This is the mixture of fear, and now cowardice, in the literary world. Librarians self censor to not have to face the rage of small minded groups like mom’s for liberty. Then groups do the same thing to avoid dealing with the Chinese. Now they do it to avoid the rage of fans. Ideas are dangerous, but hiding from them is worse.

Hugo's have been controversial for a very long time. There's a reason we now have the Dragon Awards. Fan-driven nominations and voting.

...you have outlined for me why I abandoned the Hugos and WSF events over 20 years ago. I take suggestions for books from friends. I go fish for a variety of different authors from different backgrounds and just leapfrog over any Hugo association. I feel sorry for authors that have to dance, in the hopes of getting a Hugo, to survive and exist. The Hugos have long since sickened me and it continues to be abhorant. I legitimately don't know why KZread sent me this video but I suppose it decided to remind me that when I turned my back on WorldCon it was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

I was involved in WorldCons in the late '80's and early '90's as a member of the Committee. I wasn't involved in the Hugo Awards but we were so proud of the results of our efforts as a fan-run event with a prestigious award like the Hugo's. The self-serving nature of altering the practices to achieve particular outcomes feels like a betrayal of my memories. People were so rule-bound back then that I can't imagine people diverging so violently from the letter of the law here.

I stopped paying attention to the Hugos during Sad Puppies. Thought I'd drop by and see what's happening. Still a dumpster fire. I'll check in in another 7 years.

At the end of it all Daniel needs to make a long video essay on the HugoAwards

@kingleech16

4 ай бұрын

I think at the end of it all he’ll need a drink.

They hit rock bottom only to take out a shovel somehow dig themselves even deeper

@kingleech16

4 ай бұрын

I think they blew themselves up with dynamite trying to get past the bedrock.

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating. The Hugo awards need to take a page from the Oscars. We need a third-party company who will handle this entire process objectively and without prejudice or preference. It probably should be a company outside of the science, fiction and fantasy publishing community. I’m thinking a law firm or an accounting firm. This is too important to let amateurs handle it now. There is a lot of money on the line as Hugo finalists and winners are read for generations to come.

Advertising your future books as "Proudly Snubbed by The Hugo Awards Committee" might be a more positive influence advertisement than actually getting nominated. Or God forbid, Winning. What will readers think of future winners? "Wow, that author must've bought a bunch of Lambos to get that gold mark. They clearly don't need the money."

@marocat4749

4 ай бұрын

I think unher zhao and big authers, ther should be the authors snubbed due censorship awards ha. Unironically, its the best to salvage the damage done to get highlight to authors there. to make its its kinda counter award. Like zhao didnt need it but many authors that were snubbed could need that pr. Yeah some of that made up label, is good. and several big authors anouncing them might make it credible to be worth something..

The hugos are done. Might as well cancel them. And don’t think the Nebulas are any better, it’s run by an ever more toxic community.

The Hugos aren't going anywhere, largely because of the history. They held the Olympics in Nazi run Germany and while that year's Olympic medals and competitions are rightfully questioned and led by a giant asterisk, I don't think you'll see future Worldcons in places like China, which will spare future years from this sort of issue. The 2023 Hugos will certainly go down as a debacle from inception to finale (to clarify, they should never have been in China in the first place and there were warning signs from the moment Worldcon was announced), I don't think we'll see future Hugos with these issues. The fact that McCarty is *finally* gone and his cronies are gone with him is a step in the correct direction.

so when are we getting the Daniel Greene book awards, akin to Geoff Keighley saying "fine, I'll do it myself" with video game awards?~

@robbybevard8034

4 ай бұрын

He's had an awards show for years now! Just look for "fantasy awards" in his videos and you'll find videos going back to 2019.

Once trust is damaged, it takes a long time to regain it. No matter what, the Hugo Awards will remain tainted for a long time. Froman award that was relied upon to one that isn't trusted; that's a crying shame.

Maybe the awards need a standard set of guidelines for what is admissible and what isn’t and a team that isn’t politicized based on the country they are holding the awards in. A nutty concept, I know

@LiquidDIO

4 ай бұрын

Almost as if an award is meant to be done in a fair, impartial and objective manner. Super bonkers!

I used to love seeing Hugo Award Winner on a book jacket. Now I’ll be thinking twice about it

I was aware of the existence of the Hugo Awards before the controversy, but only to the extent of recognizing the name from book jackets. I am curious about the ignored Chinese series though. I've read a lot of fan-translated Chinese series over the years and some of them are truly exceptional.

When I first heard about the Sad Puppies, the part that seemed so crazy was that this was the Hugos. That's not an award where half a dozen elites, looking down on the peasants, get together to tell the commoners what the great books are. This was an award where anyone who wanted to vote could sign up, pay a fee, and do it and majority carried the day. How could you accuse the Hugos of being taken over by some secret cabal deciding who should win and who shouldn't? It was ridiculous! How would you even do it? Guess somebody took that as a challenge and found a way.

@zirconiumdiamond1416

4 ай бұрын

There were relatively few supporting memberships sold and used for Hugo voting back in those days. Attending is obviously an expensive endeavor, which can certainly result in cliques forming and a non-representative voting pool. It was the Sad Puppies who really stumbled upon the strategy of telling the "commoners" to buy supporting memberships. Something that others picked up and kept going even after the puppies went dormant. It is unfortunate that the whole thing became so radioactive. I noticed that Sad Puppy picks tended to do a better job of representing action and internal consistency than the recent Hugo nominees. It would have been nice if reconciliation had been found and the action oriented SF and their fans were mixed in with the more contemplative works. Oh well. Kerfuffles are a tradition as old as fandom itself.

@weedofcrime2299

4 ай бұрын

I was in attendance at the 2015 Hugo Awards in Spokane, when the total number of "No Award"s that had been handed out in 75-year history of the awards DOUBLED in three hours. In each instance, the vote total for the No Award hovered around 2500. I'm no mathematician, but to have that happen six times in one night is pretty close to a statistical impossibility.

@zirconiumdiamond1416

4 ай бұрын

@@weedofcrime2299 only if it was by random chance. There was a concerted campaign to rank nominees that had been recommended by the Sad Puppies below "No Award" regardless of merit (Toni Weisskopf, in particular, felt like an unjust snub as Baen books tend to be extremely tightly edited and Weisskopf has been extraordinarily helpful and influential in the southern fandom). An analysis of the voting results would strongly suggest that people who voted straight ticket no award were numerically larger than folks who universally ranked sad puppies at the top (obviously can't absolutely prove it based on the data available).

@Ivytheherbert

4 ай бұрын

@@zirconiumdiamond1416 The Puppy campaigns were literally an attempt to rig the awards by an openly political outside organisation. It's not surprising that voters turned against works that were only there for political reasons en masse, as it made a mockery of the awards being chosen by fans of the actual works.

Nominations and possible awards were withheld from valid entrants. And those that did get nominations or awards have a cloud hanging over theirs. The entire 2023 awards should be scrapped.

TBH this happens a lot of times with corporations and competition. You get the corporations not being pressured but doing the self censoring and preemptive actions to dodge controversies

I'm an avid reader and have been my entire 32 years of life (at least from the time I could read), and my main feeling about the Hugo awards before this was that it was a book award of some sort that resulted in annoying circles ruining the covers of books. These videos are the most information I've ever received about them and makes me feel much worse about them, in large part because I've also learned from them just how much author's benefit from them

The Hugo's and Worldcon have always been rotten. Look up Breendoggle.

I am a reader and wannabe writer and I'd never heard of the Hugo awards before. Now I have and it's engraved on my memory 😂

It's interesting to contemplate how the awards would've been received, especially in the west, if there had been no committee shenanigans and that there were Chinese winners emerging from all-Chinese shortlists in each fiction category.

@Ivytheherbert

4 ай бұрын

Chinese speculative fiction has been gaining in popularity a lot recently, it would have just been part of that trend.

Thanks for the recap. I had not engaged with the scandal and this video brought me up to speed. What a train-wreck! Seems like they might need to chuck it in. It's depressing to think about the shadow this casts on previous Hugo awards. The Hugo awards might not be a common topic for many readers, but I'd think that many Sci-Fi/Fantasy readers have heard of them. How much worse, as you say, if your first encounter with the Hugos is this mess. Side commentary (feel free to skip): the concerns with 'toeing the line' vis-a-vis China always seem to have economics as their sole motivation. As such, I have no respect for these concerns. If you want to get in bed with authoritarian a$$holes, that's your right. I'll just shake my head and lose all respect for you. Courtesy to hardline ideologies never pays. People will eventually (or sooner) see you for the patsy you are, and loath you for it. That's a high price to pay just for money.

I think it's all on the Glasgow team now. They need to run a TIGHT ship to restore fan and industry faith in the Hugos. If they make any mistakes, this could be the downfall of the Hugo Awards.

Every time you say it's over it just gets worse.

I appreciate this video doing a full recap of the scandal because I just got sent here randomly from the Recommended page and had no awareness of this before now 😅

The Sad Puppy Group and its spinoffs showed that politics and knowing the right people were what gave you a Hugo.

@Ivytheherbert

4 ай бұрын

I just looked up what happened with those groups, and that debacle actually showed the exact opposite. Politically motivated nominees failed spectacularly, not only losing to other non-political nominees where they existed, but actively being rejected by voters as undeserving of awards. Puppy nominated works may well have performed worse than otherwise once people noticed what was going on as well, because there were more people actively disgusted by the attempt than puppies involved.

@loydjenkins2241

3 ай бұрын

@@Ivytheherbert is that why the winners were all friends of World Con leaders and Tor?

It ends when several authors refuse the award and speak out.

@DannyInCanada

4 ай бұрын

before the ballot is announced, nominees are contacted to confirm that they're willing to be on the ballot. If they're not, they say 'no' and the person with the next-most nominations replaces them.

@nunyabidness3075

4 ай бұрын

@@DannyInCanada So they are avoiding the best tactic to call them out. Smart.

You know, I remember when, back in the previous century, being a SF and/or fantasy nerd ensured that you could escape from all the RL BS and just enjoy a good book knowing nothing about the author beyond his or her name.

I used to have a ton of respect for the Hugos & had hoped I could be lucky enough to manage to be nominated for one for my writing some day (yeah, publish something first, ya goof) but this scandal is ruining the stellar reputation they had... WTF? Also, is that Nerdforge's massive Wheel of Time rebinding of the books behind you on the shelf? Thought for sure she'd keep it after putting so much work into it.

I think what needs to happen is a full 2023 reelection alongside the 2024 ballot with the full all-included nomination ballot

It costs like $50 to vote for the Hugo’s and all that money got thrown out.

The International Lord Of Hate tried to warn everyone about this.

“Wanting to have, I guess, a scandal free Hugo?? Mission accomplished!” i died

As I said before, if the Hugo Awards refuse to clean up and make amends for their failures then they can have as much as respect in the field of fantasy and science-fiction as the Romance Writers of America have in the field of romance who failed to deal with internal racism inside the organization, fired the people who tried to rid the organization of racism, and now are seen as unserious by the wider romance reader community.

Thank goodness you are here to keep me in the loop

OMG thank you for recapping because i missed EVERYTHING!

When I started reading sci fi as a kid, seeing "Hugo award winner" on a second hand book was a badge of quality, and helped expand my reading and imagination. This is the first I've heard of the scandal, but it saddens me deeply.

Unfortunately, who knows how many of us have been shadow banned by YT completely untransparent filters?

Appreciate the full breakdown, I was completely unaware of any of this.

Thanks for citing your source and being light to this. If you Daniel had not done this video , I would not have known.

Thanks for adding the recap. While i was familiar with the previous parts of the drama, i hadnt seen your coverage of it. Normally I'd go back and watch those segments, but i was kinda eager to get to the part that makese go "Oh god, what now?"

Thank you for your continued coverage of this story.

Isn't this just basically what the Oscars, and other artistic awards, have been doing for years?

I didn't know what the hugo awards were until I recently started watching your channel...

Thanks for your coverage, I hadnt heard about it until now!

Thanks for covering this!

When quality is not the only or even the primary requirement....

Had no idea about this, but having heard what you said, my first thought is that the Hugo awards are done. Good job on the video and recap

You are my source for informed booktalk, and I like 75% of your book likes. 😸

This is exhausting and disappointing. Glad we have people, who are doing their best to parse the data and keep us informed. This can't be easy on Daniel, so thanks for covering it and if it gets to be too much please take the space you need.

About to watch this and read the write up at least two more times because my tiny brain cannot comprehend the absolute madness that has happened

Thx for the update

Firefly's Alliance is forming. Shiny.

Just when you think you’re done they pull you back in.

They have certainly put a stake through the idea that the Hugo winners are selected by the fans

Thank you for the recap

Thanks for properly crediting and citing the source.

Thank you for that summary of the gargantuan self-inflected injury that some I-know-best fans have inflicted on the Hugo awards. I have been peripherally involved with world science fiction conventions and I have observed that the persons managing the Hugo award process are the least responsive and adaptive to oversight and feedback. I thought I was arrogant but these folk left me in their dust.

Also, god, Sad Puppy was really a DECADE ago? Really? Damn.

@DrachenGothik666

4 ай бұрын

Tempus Fugit, after all.

If they face problems with some countries authorities, they should just separate the awards in POLITICAL and APOLITICAL awards. SO everyone can freely ignore the list with censorship

"But wait, there's more!"

Soooooooo Nothing new then? Business as usual? Anyone who pays the least attention to literature awards just hasn't been paying attention to the how and why books GET those awards for decades now It has gotten so bad that publishers don't even Promote and sometimes even refuse to PUBLISH people with the wrong "attributes" It has been a corrupt cesspool of playing favorites since I was a child I distinctly remember forming the opinion that a book having a big shiny award stamped on the front of the cover was no indication of quality when I was 10 And by the time I was 30 it was actually a negative

Given the last Hugo award winners I looked at were tedious literary fiction style non stories which were more interested in how the characters felt about other characters feelings than plot, I can see no reason to care

If my work were ever to be nominated for a Hugo Award, I would have my name withdrawn from consideration. I will never accept accolades from that pack of cowards and bootlickers.

Looking forward to the day a book based on this scandal wins a Hugo award.

We need a replacement award set up ASAP. .... How about calling it the Weaving Awards?

@user-go4vz2ir6r

4 ай бұрын

Maybe the Silverberg? (He was a major writer in olden times)

@ronbutler3431

4 ай бұрын

Part of the reason the Dragons exist.

@jmcg00

4 ай бұрын

There's the Locus Awards, they seemed more reflective of the speculative fiction community, at least to me.

@user-go4vz2ir6r

4 ай бұрын

@@jmcg00I have heard some troubling rumors. But they are just rumors as far as I know. I think a very easy test is have they ever awarded to someone whose politics, or lifestyle is one they don't like? If yes they are honest, if no I call BS.

To the point you're making about this scandal introducing people to the Hugo awards... I didn't know about them until this video hit my recommendations. Great vid very well presented

This reminds me of a book by Timothy Snyder. In Chapter 1 of On Tyranny, he says that most of the power of authoritarian regimes is freely given. It's often even anticipated by those on the ground, and offered up on a silver platter. Hence the title of that chapter: Do Not Obey In Advance. What I've seen spelled out in this scandal on part of the World Con volunteers compiling dossiers is basically them anticipating the things that the PRC might find offensive and acting on those assumptions to avoid retribution. It doesn't help when the person(s) in charge are perpetrating some truly heinous behavior that probably conditioned the volunteers to act this way. It wouldn't surprise me if it came out that leadership ran things in a similarly authoritarian way.