On the Hugo Awards thing

[extrapenguin]

1. I am not a Hugo Award winner. Hell, I don't even consider myself to have contributed to the Hugo Award winning project, since I haven't coded or volunteered etc at AO3.

2. While Kevin Standlee et al are being idiots, violating other people's trademarks to profit off of the Hugo Awards (by e.g. selling stuff that says Hugo Award Winner) is a dick move, and I am in general of the opinion that if given an opportunity to be a dick, one should not take it.

(I have a bunch more complicated feelings about it, mostly due to the fact that I am in transformative fandom because I am in SF fandom, and I often feel much more out of step with transformative fandom than with SF fandom because I am in this fiction thing for the worldbuilding, not for the contemporary romance, but suffice it to say that I am very >:/ currently.)

Could everyone STFU already? I just want the news cycle to move on to things that don't enrage me.

Comments

[schneefink]

The whole thing is very unfortunate and stupid -.-

While I have never coded or volunteered for the AO3 specifically, the Hugo would not have been awarded for an empty database, so I do think of myself of a contributor (of an infinitesimal part, but hey ^^ )

[extrapenguin]

the Hugo would not have been awarded for an empty database
Mm, true, but I still can't in good conscience consider myself a winner or contributor. Cheerleader, maybe.

[fiachairecht]

+ A million. I've been tired since AO3 made the ballot, honestly.

[extrapenguin]

I didn't see this stuff until after the Hugo win, but yeah, I wish people would stop being so annoying about it. I'm tired already.

[rosefox]

I really don't get what all the fuss is about! Any number of authors call themselves Hugo-winning authors even though their work is what won the Hugo, and WSFS doesn't get butthurt about it. Why shouldn't the people who create AO3 do the same? Is it because there's two million of us? Is it because they thought they were giving the award to "a project" that stands alone, and didn't realize that many people who make that project feel like they are personally a part of it in a concrete and collective way? (See also George Martin's slap at putting copyeditors etc. on the list of magazine creators because Back In The Old Days Charles Brown could take credit for the entirety of Locus and why don't we do things that way anymore, how dare we actually explicitly recognize everyone whose work goes into making something award-worthy, etc.)

I can't get over how many people in SF fandom are astonished to find that it has been full of fanfic writers all along. The number of us-and-them comments is just extraordinary. And suuuuuuuper gendered but that is a separate rant.

The merch seems to be a pretty clearcut case of "you can't profit off someone else's trademark" and I don't think I've seen anyone defend it. But part of the problem is that it's being conflated with Twitter bio jokes and turned into "all of fanfic fandom is setting the Hugos on fire!!!!!".

Anyway, I hope you can bury yourself in kitten pictures or something.

[extrapenguin]

Is it because they thought they were giving the award to "a project" that stands alone, and didn't realize that many people who make that project feel like they are personally a part of it in a concrete and collective way?
Well, the Best Related Work is very specifically awarded based on the non-fictional pieces of the work/thingy. So no Hugo Award winning authors out of giving it to the AO3, unless programmers count? Or maybe the people who write news posts. (I do find the twitter bio jokes unfunny, but the appropriate reaction should be to roll one's eyes and move on.)

The merch seems to be a pretty clearcut case of "you can't profit off someone else's trademark" and I don't think I've seen anyone defend it.
I've seen people plural defend it as "Well, the WSFS people are being idiots, so obviously we should profit off this/let someone else profit off this out of spite". Or just not care that a trademark is being violated.

[rosefox]

Eh, trolls gonna troll.

I think "roll one's eyes and move on" seems to be a pretty reasonable response to all of this.