Without an Obelix...

[sleigh]

One item that bothered me about the Hugo Award ceremony was the use of the "asterisk" plaques. While I'm not at all sympathetic to the tactics of the Puppies (of either variety), the asterisks symbolize a slap in the face of every person who was nominated for a Hugo this year, puppy-nominated or not. I read the pre-Hugo comments by various bloggers about how if anyone won a Hugo this year, it should be considered as "with an asterisk" -- as in, not deserved because the competition this year was changed and diluted by the packing of the nominations by the puppies.

To some degree, and in some categories, works and people who might have otherwise been on the ballot were indeed missing, but there were also deserving works and people nominated. I defy anyone to argue that Sheila Gilbert (who has been on the final Hugo ballot for three years running now in the Long Form Editor Category) doesn't have the credentials to deserve her place there. She's just one example... and not the only one.

For the convention to commission the asterisk plaques, and then to announce during the ceremony that they were going to be distributed to all the nominees this year is a blatant insult to every single nominee, with the sub-text being "Hey, if you were nominated, you didn't deserve your nomination, and if you managed to win, well, your Hugo doesn't mean anything."

In my opinion, the creation and use of the asterisk plaques were entirely abusive and absolutely not in the spirit of the fandom that I love and consider myself part of. Shame on whomever decided that was a good idea, and those who supported it.

Comments

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

Completely agree. FYI, there were very serious attempts throughout, and up to the last minute, to convince them not to do this. However, the people who were behind the idea were somehow of the opinion that the asterisk was a perfectly innocent way to celebrate the record-breaking attendance and voting at the convention (which they also bizarrely insisted were a *positive* thing about the Worldcon rather than the result of the unfortunate Hugo situation). They refused to be deterred by the argument that the majority of people would interpret the asterisk in its more common use to indicate that a record is somehow tainted by circumstances.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

"... the people who were behind the idea were somehow of the opinion that the asterisk was a perfectly innocent way to celebrate..." *sigh* And telling a woman that "Hey, you've got a great set of boobs" is a perfectly innocent way to give her a compliment.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

All I got was a rocket pin, no other nominee award. So they gave something MORE extravagant to this year's nominees? WTF?

K.

[richardthe23rd.livejournal.com]

In my opinion? An astonishingly dick move. Angry fans want to talk about asterisks, fine. You want to give the impression that attitude is officially endorsed by Worldcon? And then present them to nominees with a big cheery smile like they're some wonderful present, like a smallpox-infected blanket? Dick.

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

It wasn't actually all that extravagant - Jim Wright of Alaska machined large wooden asterisks with some text on them (I think the con name, year, and "Hugo Nominee" but I don't know for sure.)

[smofbabe.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Sometimes the attitude of Unnamed Parties that the world should be kumbaya is dangerous.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

I'd have to hear from those who made the decision to know if it was, as you say, a deliberately dick move, or it was just people being utterly clueless about the implications of what they were doing. But, either way, it was an incredibly rude gesture.