The War for the Hugo Awards : a brief history of scandal and controversy

[@samwisegamgee4659]

I'd heard (or, heard the whispers) about all these individual stories in isolation, but it was nice to see them all put together in context and as part of an evolving storyline of the genre. Thanks for the insight.

[@sonofraven76]

For anyone who doesn't have the context--and it wasn't quite explained in the video--the WorldCon and therefore the Hugo Awards don't belong to an individual, a company, a charity or even a group. No-one could sell WorldCon to Conde Nast. There's a volunteer group that oversees the balloting process, and this group was the one that noted the concerted effort by the CCP to obtain the hosting rights for 2023, but all decisions are democratic and action to not count the suspicious ballots was rejected by the WorldCon attendees in an open vote, with obvious questions being asked as to how that came about. Once the hosting rights are awarded, absolutely everything about that WorldCon--including the Hugos at that event--falls within the control of those hosts. The Hugos themselves are therefore different every year, and while the 2023 event was marred by this controversy, it has no necessary bearing on future awards. Unless, that is, someone gerrymanders the vote for a particular WorldCon again, as it appears they did for the 2023 event, and since it's been highlighted there's less chance of votes going their way. Finally, and with a due nod to the Tin Foil Hat brigade, the reason the CCP were willing to do this is that it's a small part in an on-going attempt to inculcate a sci-fi culture within their people. Some decades ago representatives of their government were liaising with NASA on a joint project, and they asked what the NASA engineers had in common while growing up that made them want to be tech and space leaders, which the Chinese weren't but wanted to be. They all said they read sci-fi. This was reported back, and the CCP immediately began a training programme for sci-fi writers, allowing them access to previously banned western sci-fi literature, and granting them living expenses and travel visas. That process has gathered enormous pace since, and explains why the WorldCon was the public-facing part of the huge commercial 'sci-fi based' deal-making enterprise that surrounded the con, and why the CCP wanted such an overt hand in the Hugos.

[@DamienWalter]

TLDR the WorldCon / Hugos are a completely unprotected brand that is in the process of being aggressively taken over.

[@solicitr666]

A "volunteer froup" that has no connection to or influence from Tor Books, nosireebob.

[@Leonard-y7r]

I'm so happy I found this summary of the Chinese take-over of WorldCon and the Hugos in 2023! I hope that does not continue this year, just as I'm tentatively becoming interested in S. F. again. If the Chinese get influential in this field, I will turn to some other kind of light reading.

[@SFDestiny]

Great episode! This is a good length and depth of content for me 😉

[@steveosteveareno2670]

I'm 63 now . Read most of those early works years ago. Made my own mind up about Heinlein years ago. Haven't cared about awards in general for some time.

[@ozymandiasultor9480]

If that is so, you wasted your time watching this video, you don't care for awards, remember?

[@cogs2937]

​​​@@ozymandiasultor9480 l don't care about awards either. At least I've never bought a book based on award. However it's interesting to hear about this because of the influence it has had and will continue to have on the industry. So while I have never paid any attention to whether or not a book has won some inside baseball award, they have, without my thinking about it, had a huge influence on what gets published and promoted.

[@exituscaeli959]

@@ozymandiasultor9480 Being interested in the current state of science fiction doesn’t exclude keeping up with the events relating to it. Some of us love the genre without loving the awards. I feel the same way regarding the awards, but still care about the public awareness and perception of the genre.

[@nicolassalamanca8051]

This video has opened my eyes in more ways than one Thank you for that

[@Miata822]

My last WorldCon was the San Jose Sad Puppy debacle. The overlapping controversies were just too much for me. I hear it has only gotten worse. Pity.

[@brycefelperin]

My mother was hit on by Issac Asimov at a Worldcon in Pittsburg. She wasn't a fan, but only escorting my uncle there who was underage at the time.

[@ozymandiasultor9480]

What? English is not my first language, but I guess Asimov did not hit your mother but was trying something else... That dirty old man!

[@paulsansonetti7410]

His son grew up to be a pedo

[@paulsansonetti7410]

7:00 imagine how evil you have to be to try and cater to your primary readership ? Shocking

[@vincentcuroso5944]

Just found Damien and it's great there is a "breadtube" type long form channel dedicated to intelligent analysis/criticism of SciFi and Fantasy media and culture. Nothing against the short form fandom based sites but this is a gold nugget.

[@EndingSimple]

You just got my subscription. You put all the different kinds of grief I've hearing about into a perspective that shows me where everything is going. SF is being IPized for conglomerates and governments to take over. There is going to be a lot more people we'll never hear from.

[@andysaul7039]

Not sure about your ultimate conclusion. It didn't sound that democratic under John W. Campbell

[@statickaeder29]

I'm glad that the early Hugo people couldn't deny Le Guin and De Laney... Especially Le Guin, though that isn't fair, since I have read so much more of her work, so I can't say that I have a good understanding of both authors... and Le Guin is so excellent that not including her would be a crime. Of course, other authors went the way of Tiptree Junior - changing their names so that they could get published. - I was born in 77 too.

[@KaoticVibes]

I love your videos and cant wait to dive into this one! Thanks

[@carolynethrasher4527]

Thank you for this explainer. It was well done.

[@leafyrox]

Thanks for this history. I never got involved with the community but have loved science fiction stories for many years. I don't read as much as I ought to any more, but the last books I read were by Octavia Spencer.

[@DamienWalter]

I'm going to assume you mean Octavia Butler and say...one of the greats!

[@leafyrox]

@DamienWalter ah you're right, I should have checked her last name. I enjoyed the books very much.

[@isaganipalanca8803]

Thank you for another superb segment!

[@forest_green]

Thank you so much for this in-depth reporting! I had no idea those writers were such creeps - watching Harlan Ellison violate and humiliate a woman, while the audience laughed, is sickening. If all your videos are this informative, I'll be your newest subscriber.

[@geraldmartin7703]

Before I knew who Ellison was, he did commentary on Watergate on NPR. Even back then (1974) I concluded he was a sanctimonious, smug POS, who wrote a couple of sh#tty episodes of Star Trek.

[@ashley-r-pollard]

It's more complex than that as Damien discusses. Harlan also had a history of mental illness, which in no way excuses his actions, but it does explain what he did, and his deteriorating cognitive abilities.

[@ashley-r-pollard]

@@geraldmartin7703 A short Jewish man with a chip on his shoulder has opinions that upsetting people. Oh noes, how can we forgive anyone today?

[@heartjakehotel9955]

Holy shit amazing video. Subscribed!

[@exituscaeli959]

The condemnation of the sleaze in its day is quite appropriate. The portrayal of the current state of the awards as shining progress is a bit biased. Where we are today is not a great state of equality but simply a shift of power from early power holders to a myriad host of those seeking to co-opt that influence for themselves. Many of those smirking and proclaiming ideological victory today do so exclusive of any actual success in furthering science fiction as a literary genre.. Science fiction can be used to examine nearly any issue in society. Using it exclusively as a social tool with an annual popularity poll to self-promote this use isn’t making the genre itself more attractive. We can explore all aspects of the human mind in science fiction as well as using it to ponder the universe, existence of alien life and our futures. Demanding we myopically and obsessively focus writing efforts on committee determined social issues of the moment isn’t expanding the relevance of the genre and opening it up to new writers, it just narrows the gate of entry to writers and tries restrict the freedom of those presenting their works. Not what science fiction, in its full potential, is all about. I’ve met and read several Hugo winners and nominees in recent years and lost any desire since more than two decades ago to keep up with them anymore, and this after a lifetime of reading science fiction (and fantasy) that started fifty-eight years ago.

[@JasonWickham-k2z]

The lesson to learn here, is this: Douchebaggery ruins everything. As, indeed, it should- in order to remind us that we ought not behave like douchebags. Great video.

[@espalier]

Sometimes it’s hard to know if you’re participating in douchebaggery. Sometimes people will tell you, sometimes people will tell stories about you.

[@JasonWickham-k2z]

Here's a good baseline to work from: If you're unclear on the question of whether or not you're acting like a douchebag, simply err on the side of caution, assume you're being a douchebag, then adjust your behavior accordingly. In any event, a bit of honest self-reflection should allow you to arrive at the correct answer.@@espalier

[@forest_green]

@@JasonWickham-k2z yeah, it's not that hard to NOT grope people

[@carlosvasquez9890]

Well...thats the Woke Mind Virus, in a nutshell.

[@OmnivorousReader]

Thanks for this; all the things I never knew about the Hugos...

[@justinecooper9575]

Wait, the Hugos are still a thing?

[@SneakyNinjaDog]

I have always considered Hugo and Nebula award blurps on books as not to say "best" but propably good. It seems it may even be less than that in some cases 😀

[@justinecooper9575]

12:50 - I got Ellison's autograph in two books at a mini-con and he and i chatted while he signed the books. He really was a jerk.

[@MettleHurlant]

I think there’s room for all flavors of science fiction, but industry awards will never reflect the tastes of every reader. It’s better to focus on book clubs, forums, and reader reviews to discuss, analyze, and get recommendations. Let the insiders duke it out all they want over a stupid trophy.

[@generaltso9402]

Rabid puppies efforts weren't towards winning any awards, they were sabotaging them and helped push them towards irrelevance.

[@jessemiller7540]

This is great. I've been an sf fan since the early 80's, and I confess I never understood all of this until your video. Long live leftist sci-fi!

[@susansprague7304]

Great video, thanks! I was kissed by Isaac Asimov in Boston at Noreascon Two (1980). He didn't grope me though

[@DamienWalter]

He got around.

[@aceroadholder2185]

I find it amusing that many here are disillusioned by discovering that their literary heroes were jerks. Being a jerk is so common amongst artists that it seems to be a prerequisite for success. It is a good idea to not look too closely at your heroes, no matter their field of work. Usually all you find is disappointment.

[@DamienWalter]

It's pretty common among people.

[@marcocatano554]

real good summary of events

[@randolphpinkle4482]

Wherever humans get together, you'll find this endless opera.

[@coastdownhills]

As an old white guy reading Sci Fi since the mid 1950's I never paid any attention to the Hugos. Of late I've read mostly The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for my Sci Fi, my taste now more in other genres. I recently emailed the editor of F&SF the quality of stories going down as diversity went up. Maybe there is just more competition for good stories. I whole heartily agree with diversity and hate that many authors encountered discrimination. But the quality of the story should come first.

[@stewart2449]

Great video, once again. But I love The Cold Equations and its gruesomely bleak logic! Or did 30 years; I read it in an anthology of dark tales called ‘Through Time & Space’, which included a few gems: Before Eden (Clarke), Kaleidoscope (Bradbury?), Counterfeit (?)… plus a ropier story called something like The Rhum. And that’s as far as my memory takes me. I wonder if anyone else remembers this.

[@ashley-r-pollard]

Gotta have a middle initial. I don't make the rules. It is just the way it is.

[@EricKay_Scifi]

"The only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talk about" - Oscar Wilde

[@asicdathens]

Artemis is not bad. It is a very well written book that I really enjoyed. It is not Dune but it is good.

[@GhostRanger5060]

I love the history of science fiction. Especially during the Golden Era in the 1970s when all that good money was out there, many novels became mainstream best-sellers, and there were still paying markets for new writers. Fiction has suffered due to the internet and e-publishing. It's too easy for bad writing to be self-published and there is a glut of mediocrity that is hyped by those who master the tools of social media (as opposed to the tools of good writing). Which is sad. Short fiction has almost disappeared as a literary style. As for the controversies, let's be honest. If the Hugo award was based solely on quality without regard to race, sex, orientation, profitability, or politics, I highly doubt that ANY of the winners in the last twenty years would have won. In our glorious post-modern 21st Century utopia, choices are based on either marketing and/or virtue-signaling. That's all.

[@ashley-r-pollard]

And you named the elephant in the room, there was money to be made. When the tax law was changed after the Thor Power Tool Co.case that changed, and we've been seeing the ramifications of it ever since.

[@StephenSkinner-y1c]

Prizes are exclusive. Prejudice and exclusivity are bedfellows. John Campbell was a product of his time and place, as were H P Lovecraft and Robert Heinlein. The past is a foreign country, people thought differently and had a different cultural understanding. Despite that, the outsiders Le Guin and De Laney won Hugos. We are just as limited by our own world view now. Campbell, Lovecraft and Heinlein would not win Hugos now because their writing is masculine, and they are white and male. The prejudices in our world presently are much stronger and even more resistant to seeing the merit of an outsider. Things will change. Our culture is changing already but will only lose prejudices as it gains new ones.

[@DamienWalter]

No, Campbell was far, far more racist than his time and place, and that's not a reason to continue perpetuating a person's influence.

[@StephenSkinner-y1c]

@@DamienWalter It is true Campbell was far more racist than the general population at the time. But he still was a product of that time and not ours. He was in a subculture of his time, as are LGBTQ+ today. You appear to conflate the recognition that a person had a huge influence in the past with perpetuating a person's influence. The fact that he improved the writing of science fiction in his time is as much of a fact as his racism. We can acknowledge he was an excellent editor at the same time we can condemn his racism. All humans have flaws. We learn as much about the human condition from their flaws as their accomplishments.

[@DamienWalter]

@@StephenSkinner-y1c He was an not excellent editor. He exploited an editorial position to build a little cult of personality, had an overwhelmingly negative effect on the field, and rigged the Hugos for a number of years. All the writers he "discovered" were happy to escape him, Heinlein included.

[@StephenSkinner-y1c]

@@DamienWalter I am well aware the writers he encouraged and initially guided were happy to escape his influence. As you know Campbell edited Astounding from 1937 and was a key personality in changing science fiction from pirates in space to the technology-based science fiction we still have today. It was later on, from the late 1950's that his effect on science fiction became more damaging than useful. There is a lot to condemn in Campbell, from his belief in pseudoscience, early alliance with the charlatan L. Ron Hubbard, his defense of the tobacco industry, his office bullying to his abject racism. A thoroughly unlikeable human being. But he was also instrumental in making science fiction what it is today. That is fact. Creative people are not always compassionate, understanding or moral.

[@DamienWalter]

@@StephenSkinner-y1c And in that brief window he asserted a reductive definition of science fiction that has been an albatross around its neck ever since. SF would have been better in almost every way if it hadn't fallen under the control of such a toxic individual. He did a minor service raising US science fiction above pulp level, but that was a US centric problem, the field had been going for at least 150 years as a serious art form.

[@salomekjones]

Outstanding.

[@WarDog793]

What about Andre Norton and Anne McCaffrey? Didn't they exert any influence on the field? I know that many white mail authors who have become big in recent decades admired her. Alack and alas, modern feminist SF writers have to push an agenda instead of just tell a story (even one in which the agenda is a subtle undercurrent.)

[@DamienWalter]

All stories push an agenda. You're just used to that agenda being one so natural to you that you don't see it. Trust me to people outside your cultural ech chamber your "just stories" read like bitter polemics.

[@WarDog793]

@@DamienWalter Then I'll choose the stories that don't push some BS, batsh-t agenda that is the current vogue. Sad about the venerable F&SF.

[@teucer915]

A friend of mine continues to this day to be targeted from time to time for harassment by Larry Correia fans.

[@DamienWalter]

Well Larry's career is dead, so attacking people on his FB page is about all he has left

[@ashley-r-pollard]

@@DamienWalter Well, for a writer whose career is dead he is sure selling a lot of books. Of course, if you mean dead to Worldcon fandom, then yes, but there's very little money to be made selling to Worldcon fans.

[@cane6074]

Just like the Oscars and the Academy awards, its just another ego fest for well connected industry insiders to make money for themselves and promote themselves through gatekeeping, they have no interests in the craft itself and are undermining it as well for their own benefit. Its a wider problem not just in publishing but wider society as well. Its one of the reason modern entrainment in general mediocre or bad these days.

[@mewtkeys]

It’s crazy to think these guys writing hard SF we’re like, yeah in the future where man has conquered the stars… where women are still here for our groping and black people, we’ll there aren’t any.” Not literally but I see the point l.

[@ronin47-ThorstenFrank]

Oh, interestng. I know exactly why I didn´t like the Three-Body-Problem. Didn´t know that little fact about Liu Cixin before. Yeah, this video did open my eyes (like those of previous commenter) too.

[@DamienWalter]

It's an expression of a remarkably nasty ideology.

[@ronin47-ThorstenFrank]

@@DamienWalter Thank you! I fully agree. Got into a lot of fights over this issue but now I don´t feel alone anymore.

[@paulsansonetti7410]

Plenty of people think Shelley didnt write Frankenstein

[@DamienWalter]

"plenty"

[@paulsansonetti7410]

@@DamienWalter Herrick commended Lauritsen for presenting a large amount of evidence, and found much of that evidence persuasive, including the difference in quality between Frankenstein and works such as Valperga and The Last Man, as well as that between the original and revised editions of Frankenstein itself, and Mary Shelley's lack of interest in the themes of Percy Bysshe Shelley's work. Herrick credited Lauritsen with carefully examining the "extra-textual evidence", and agreed with him that the fact that the original manuscript of Frankstein is in Mary Shelley's handwriting does not show that she composed the work. However, while he agreed with Lauritsen that Percy Bysshe Shelley had homoerotic feelings and deep friendships for men and that Frankenstein "contains potential homosexual relationships", he disagreed with Lauristen's view that Frankenstein was primarily written for gay men.

[@paulsansonetti7410]

@@DamienWalter The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein was praised by the critic Camille Paglia, who wrote in Salon that "Lauritsen assembles an overwhelming case that Mary Shelley, as a badly educated teenager, could not possibly have written the soaring prose of 'Frankenstein' ... and that the so-called manuscript in her hand is simply one example of the clerical work she did for many writers as a copyist." Paglia compared Lauritsen's work to that of the critic Leslie Fiedler, concluding that The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein was, "a funny, wonderful, revelatory book that I hope will inspire ambitious graduate students and young faculty to strike blows for truth in our mired profession, paralyzed by convention and fear.

[@paulsansonetti7410]

@@DamienWalter bare maximum she was the coauthor Since the initial publication of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus in 1818, there has existed uncertainty about the extent to which Mary Shelley's husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, contributed to the text. While the novel was conceived and mainly written by Mary, Percy is known to have provided input in editing and publishing the manuscript. Some critics have alleged that Percy had a greater role-even the majority role-in the creation of the novel, though mainstream scholars have generally dismissed these claims as exaggerated or unsubstantiated. Based on a transcription of the original manuscript, it is currently believed that Percy contributed between 4,000 and 5,000 words to the 72,000 word novel.

[@paulsansonetti7410]

@@DamienWalter Mary was just 18 when she had the idea for Frankenstein; 19 when she finished writing the book. How could a teenager come up with not one but two enduring archetypes: the scientist obsessed by blue-sky research and unable to see it has ethical and social consequences, and the near human he creates? It’s an astonishing achievement, and even more so when we remember that, being a girl, Mary wasn’t educated in the same way as many of her Romantic writing peers. Unlike Percy, she had no Eton nor Oxford, but had lessons in the home schoolroom and a grim six months at Miss Pettman’s Ladies’ School in Ramsgate, and learned from browsing the books in her father’s library.

[@rodoh22]

Long live the HUGOs

[@celiacresswell6909]

I get that politics will be part of all writing and especially SF, but I think framing SF as primarily a political battle is mistaken. Like the DEI movement, it seems weirdly counterproductive even on its own terms, still less towards the goal of promoting good SF. If gropers and racists write amazing books, bring em on.

[@DamienWalter]

This is the only video you'll find on diversity on this channel. If that is "framing SF as primarily a political battle" that's really about you.

[@celiacresswell6909]

@@DamienWalter punchy but okay! - Better not prove my point by doing another one!

[@GhostRanger5060]

Fiction is fiction. I like Stephen King but I disagree with his politics. Can that be a thing? And Heinlein is an interesting case. Calling him right wing is funny. The man was a committed nudist. Some people are too complicated to label politically.

[@celiacresswell6909]

@@GhostRanger5060 is nudism political? Dam humans are weird!

[@Leonard-y7r]

Absolutely right.

[@michaelmayo]

Great overview video although I might have done more on the current age and the interconnectivity with Locus, since that's an important gatekeeper in the Hugos discussion. As to our current troubles, my take is that political correctness has damaged the brand. "Diversity" is tribalistic racism, plain and simple. It means you don't judge a book on its story, but on immuttable characteristics. I never gave a shit whether the author was straight or gay, black or white, male or female or trans. The only thing that mattered was whether I got through a page and wanted to go to the next one. Heinlein did, Octavia Butler didn't, and I've slogged through a lot of her limp prose wondering if it would ever get better and didn't. At least she was moderately readable, unlike N.K. Jemisen, who is just unreadable. She's great as a speaker, but her stories are awful. Why are they celebrated? Because they're "Diverse." I'd say they're likely to be forgotten except what's coming is likely to be worse. And it was a huge mistake to hold the Worldcon in China, period. How could a fandom supposedly dedicated to freedom decide to stand with a murderous, tyranical government? I get that China is cranking out a lot of quality SF. That's fine. I enjoy it too. But that's not the same thing as having a convention in a country where I guarentee there were CCP agents carefully watching things and the locals know they're being watched. Why did we invite Big Brother Xi in?

[@LateBoomer-sl1dk]

Makes me chuckle to remember that I thought I became a libertarian all on my own, when I'd been devouring all that Golden Age sci fi (no regrets BTW) from all those libertarian writers. Funny too that my hero Isaac Asimov's liberalism kept me balanced - then turned out to be a dirty old man. Ah well take the good with the bad.

[@MinesAGuinness]

It makes me chuckle that you thought you were becoming a libertarian, only to end up supporting the victory of a supporter of genocide and the authoritarian Communist Party... just so long as you got to "own the libs" as I believe you call it in your country. Tom Paine would chunder at the parody of his ideas you have become.

[@JasenJohns]

Arthur C. Clarke and Marion Zimmer Bradley were my big disappointments, but I can engage their works on my own terms. Recalling who they were as people adds a critical layer, but does not diminish the quality of their fictions.

[@FriendofWigner]

@@JasenJohns What is the controversy with Clarke? I figured he was down-low gay, but I've never seen anything else to suggest anything wrong, either personally or politically. EDIT: Not saying anything wrong with being gay, just that it would have been controversial during much of his life, and even to some people now.

[@LateBoomer-sl1dk]

@@JasenJohns I agree. I recently read a letter exchange between Björk and a philosopher who referred to her songs as "entities." I think that's an interesting way to look at works of art. Once they leave the artist and become public they behave almost like individuals. I don't think the muses give a damn about our morals.

[@stewart2449]

@@FriendofWigner Clarke has been accused - without, I think, compelling proof, of borderline child sexual abuse in Sri Lanka. It’s a pretty grim shitting on his legacy when he’s not alive to argue his corner.

[@chong2389]

I used to use the Hugos to find new authors. Never again! Shame on them!!!

[@justinecooper9575]

What's funny, to me at least, is that Liu Cixin won the Hugo award for best novel, and almost universal praise, despite his portrayal of women in "Remembrance of Earth's Past" as the destroyers of human civilization, and mankind itself, by putting their personal beliefs, feelings and desires over the needs of humanity.

[@patpowers9210]

I dunno, I just feel sadness when I read about the tremendous failings of SF luminaries. Isaac Asimov hurt the most, I think, because I really loved the Foundation series and The Caves of Steel, and I hated it when I found out that some part of Asimov embraced that Donald Trump "when you're a star you can just grab 'em by the pussy!" thing. He of all people should have known better. But he didn't, or didn't want to. In either case, it was really disappointing, and that's how I feel about most of the "isms" that have screwed up the Hugo Awards. With capitalism the worst of all, and the hardest to overcome. I can't summon righteous indignation, just disappointment.

[@jeremytan739]

@@jaimeosbourn3616you think some part of this video is just malicious gossip?

[@patpowers9210]

@@jaimeosbourn3616 This isn't the first time I heard of Asimov's grabby hands. They tried to pass it off as a silly old man's affectation. I think there's smoke under all that fire.

[@steinsol2290]

I think Dr. A was very much aware of his behavior. Ca 1971 he wrote "The Sensuous Dirty Old Man", a parody of a couple of popular books at the time (The S. Man/Woman). Asimov is obviously delighted by this opportunity to divulge in detail how to be a dirty old man...

[@GhostRanger5060]

Why do opposing political ideas or human failings in the heart of great novelists bother you so much? It's fiction. I like Stephen King but disagree with his politics. Is that allowed? Everyone has a flawed perspective. But the most liberating thing a person can do is read what they like without feeling guilty just because the author has a collection of unpaid speeding tickets in his/her glove compartment.

[@forest_green]

@@jaimeosbourn3616 so basically you think sexual violation is acceptable and excusable?

[@courtneybrown6204]

In art history, its important to note that the gay sculptor Michelangelo Buonaroti admitted that Artemesia Gentileschi was a great painter when no other male painters would. Sad puppies have always existed but now we have a historical perspective that often puts them where they belong.

[@barrymoore4470]

Michelangelo never knew Artemisia, she having been born twenty-nine years after his death (his dates: 1475-1564; her dates: 1593-circa 1656). You're probably thinking of Sofonisba Anguissola (circa 1532-1625), whose work Michelangelo did praise.

[@chrisschultz8598]

The Hugo Awards were nothing more than an excuse for a bunch of good ol' boy writers to get together, pat each other on the back and hand out cheaply made trophies. It started to die when other writers who were not part of the good ol' boy network started taking the awards seriously.

[@MosheFeder]

I think you're confusing the Hugos with the Nebulas. It's the latter that writer members of SFWA give each other. The Hugos are voted on by members of the Worldcon, who are overwhelmingly fans. Neither trophy is cheap to make, but the Nebula is more expensive and each one is unique.

[@chrisschultz8598]

I think you're right. I had forgotten about the Nebulas. But I don't think there's any doubt that the Hugo gang was also tightly knit, and stories about the partying that went on during the awards is legendary. The term "cheaply made trophies" was intentional slander.

[@commentarytalk1446]

The Hugos today? I thought they were The Oscars? Or is that a parallel universe...

[@maksimsmelchak7433]

👍🏻😎

[@richardnunziata3221]

The fall of Hugo is sad indeed

[@mikkins85710]

All awards are a joke no matter their focus.

[@GhostRanger5060]

You are so correct. All the hand-wringing by the commenters here about "the integrity of the Hugo award" is naïve and pathetic. The people who invent the awards and present the awards always have an agenda. And that's okay.

[@stolman2197]

How about the best stories win? Crazy idea! Also if you are going to talk about bad behavior of old writers how about publicizing the disgusting childhood of Moira Greyland at the hands of her mother and stepfather?

[@DamienWalter]

I literally broke that story in The Guardian.

[@carlosvasquez9890]

This video is nothing but a sad attempt to disguise woke propaganda as something still culturaly relevant.

[@DamienWalter]

"Everything that scares me is Woke"

[@carlosvasquez9890]

@@DamienWalter Not at all, man. Look: I enjoy SciFI and prefer long format videos, so I truly and honestly wanted to like your channel. I watched your video TWICE (I hope you have means to check the veracity of that statement) hoping to find something interesting and insigthful. What do you find instead? "white supremacy...bla bla...discrimination against black and women...bla..bla..white guys…(now, aparently, wearing aviator sunglasses)…bla bla" WTF man...WTF... You might honestly believe otherwise, but whether you like it or not, these are POLITICAL statements...and NO ONE wants to find political views in your enterntaintment. Not anymore. One piece of advice: learn to leave you political views out of your profesional life...or, be honest with your audience and advertise yourself as an activist. All the best

[@DamienWalter]

@@carlosvasquez9890 oh no! I'm so sorry you had this encounter with the facts of history! How terribly upsetting for you. How will you survive knowing what actually happened instead of filling your head with whatever flavour of self serving bullshit you generally put in there.

[@carlosvasquez9890]

Hi mate....have you recovered from Trump victory already? Did you learn the difference between people laughing "with" you, and "at" you? Do not say I didn't try to warn you...😂

[@theodorejenkins6066]

Dude learn how to pronounce Hienlien LOL

[@susansprague7304]

Says the person who can't even spell Heinlein. LMAO.

[@theodorejenkins6066]

@susanspraguepoo ccreators job to pronounce the words in his script right and yet he couldn't even get one of the most famous authors of all times name right. Just sad