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WorldCon/Hugos 2020 Link Roundup
Parts of my Twitter feed has been pretty much nonstop WorldCon/Hugo discussion for the last week, and it's very difficult to keep up with everything, so I have tried to sort out things I've read into something vaguely organized and easier to look through.
Everything is, roughly, grouped by topic and listed in chronological order (times listed in EDT). Some of the topics are more arbitrary than others, and not everything fit perfectly into one section, but hopefully it should at least be easier to see the surrounding context for particular posts.
While I have tried to include a variety of voices, this is absolutely not comprehensive, and I'm sure I've missed some interesting discussions. There are also a few topics not included because I was having trouble finding enough material to make a good list. I will update as I come across more things, and please feel free to let me know if I've missed something you think would be valuable to include.
Topic quick links:
- Bids for WorldCon 2022
- Retro Hugo Awards
- Hugo Awards Ceremony overall
- Mispronouncing names
- Timing with Eid and Shabbat
- Video in Best Fancast
- CoNZealand's apology
- George R.R. Martin's apology
- New Zealand representation and the Sir Julius Vogel Awards
- Glorifying only white cishet SFF history
- WorldCon atmosphere
- Moving forward and lessons for future WorldCons
Bids for WorldCon 2022
July 22, 10:35 AM by Hugo_Book_Club
Site selection going on this week for #Worldcon 2022 is occurring during a period in which human rights are under threat.
What are the minimum human rights requirements that a host country needs to have before you'll support their bid?
July 22, 4:53 PM [discussion] by CoNZealand
2022 Worldcon Site Selection! Voting closes 12:00 noon, Wednesday 29 July (NZT) (5pm, 28 July (Tuesday) PDT. The two bids for the 80th World Science Fiction Convention are for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and Chicago, Illinois, USA.
July 22, 4:58 PM [discussion] by premeesaurus
i CLEARLY have not been keeping up on this, but um, doesn't an.... in-person worldcon in saudi arabia literally... exclude LGBT+ attendees?
(is this fixed? am i out of the loop?)
July 22, 11:45 PM [discussion] by EPBeaumont
the fact that "minimum human rights standards" are not a thing in WorldCon bids is ... Very Much a Thing, in my book. Also there's the whole question of #AccessibleCons as in they aren't, not economically or physically, for a great number of us.
July 23, 6:46 AM by dtmooreeditor
Choosing between "excluding people of colour because maybe they'll be disappeared at the border" and "excluding queer people because maybe they'll be arrested in the street," is it?
July 23, 6:51 AM [discussion] by AlasdairStuart
Welcome to Worldcon 2022. As long as you’re white and straight.
July 23, 10:27 AM [discussion] by PrinceJvstin
Not great choices for 2022.
July 23, 1:09 PM [thread] by KevinStandlee
I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. If you don't like the bids that are out there, FORM YOUR OWN BID that will do things the way you want and convince the members of WSFS to vote for you.
July 23, 1:16 PM [discussion] by Hugo_Book_Club
Based only on human rights, inclusivity, safety, accessibility, which country would you most like to see bidding to host a Worldcon?
July 23, 2:13 PM [discussion] by D_Libris
Of course the marginalised people who are literally unsafe going to Jeddah or Chengdu are also the marginalised people less likely to have the financial resources to bid. But ok.
July 23, 2:19 PM by tanngrisnir
What is being done to address the issue? Rules regarding members' safety could be set in place, ruling out unsafe venues. Active encouragement of bids from safer locales. Doing nothing and dismissing concerns with "nowhere is perfect" won't help.
July 23, Rocket McRocketface by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
kevin_standlee
As often seems to happen around Worldcon time, when people who don't pay attention except right about now start complaining about how terrible it is that you have to be a member of WSFS to exercise any WSFS rights (which costs at least the minimum membership dues, which are around US$50 these days), and that it's not "democracy" unless "every single person in the entire world can vote."
July 24, 5:47 AM [thread] by mygoditsraining
Not going to dive into the substance of Standlee's assertion that because no country can meet an impossible, ideal standard therefore it is impossible to apply any standards (mind. blown.) but scanning through yesterday's drama it really strikes home how much easier life is...
July 24, 6:14 AM [discussion] by LeeAHarris
"You can't expect the WSFS to screen out country/state bids before they're presented to the membership!"
Well, yes, you can.
And should.
July 24, 6:16 AM [thread] by AlasdairStuart
The big take home I have from all of this is that there's a lot of entrenched perception. It seems like an ever decreasing circle. The same people assemble bids and wonder why no one else is and don't see the walled garden they've made.
July 25, 8:57 AM [discussion] by cstross
Thinking about the Saudi worldcon bid … would it be terrible to run a spoof worldcon bid for Tehran in 2025? Or maybe Moscow? To highlight the total lack of any mechanism to ensure worldcons are held in places that aren’t actively dangerous to a large proportion of attendees?
July 25, 11:32 AM [thread] by KevinStandlee
If you think that none of the candidates to host the 2022 Worldcon are acceptable, you still have a choice: Vote "None of the Above."
July 25, 4:37 PM [thread] by Spindilly
So I'm in favour of Worldcon going to countries outside of the US and Europe for loads of smart reasons that I can't express right now because I'm having a meltdown over one of the options being Saudi Arabia.
Being trans or in a queer relationship is actively illegal there!
July 25, 10:47 PM [discussion] by Hugo_Book_Club
The government of China.
July 27, 4:48 PM [thread] by Spindilly
So I was talking to knowledgeable friends about this, and @annateethe brought up an idea that I love.
"What if Worldcon had an affirmatively furthering safety for people at risk in this country plan for every con?"
July 27, 6:45 PM [thread] by iamkj
We need to talk about this. Both about bringing up it as an official procedural change to the WSFS site selection process, and also just making it a normal part of planning any con, not just Worldcon.
July 28, Writers Circulate Letter of Concern About Saudi Worldcon Bid [discussion] by Mike Glyer @ File770
Anna Smith Spark, a grimdark author from London, has organized an open “letter of concern” with several dozen co-signers, including Charles Stross, about the bid to bring the Worldcon to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in 2022, which will be voted on this week. The competition is a bid for Chicago in 2022.
July 29, 7:59 AM [thread] by NussbaumAbigail
This open letter is causing a bit of a fuss, which is frustrating on several levels. First, because there was never any chance of the Jeddah bid winning this year's site selection vote, and everyone involved (including the Jeddah people, probably) knew it.
July 30, 11:04 AM by TJaneBerry
A key takeaway from the worldcon bid discussion is that every single concom, no matter where it’s located, should be answering this question:
How are we actively working to ensure that marginalized people safe and welcome at our event?
July 30, Chicago Wins 2022 Site Selection Vote [discussion] by Mike Glyer @ File770
Chicago has won the vote to host the 80th Worldcon, to be held September 1-5, 2022 (Labor Day Weekend in the U.S.).
August 01, 8:23 AM [thread] by nameshiv
A lot of the debate around worldcon venue bids is pretty uncomfortable to watch, from every angle tbh.
Rant Time.
For one: No place where attendees are at risk for their gender, dress or sexual orientation should ever be on the ballot. Saudi Arabia is a nonstarter.
BUT
August 01, 11:15 AM by katsudonburi
What kind of ridiculous, racist shit attendees will have to go through to get to a con needs to be part of the bid discussion.
And Americans need to acknowledge that America has been incredibly unwelcoming to visitors who aren’t white for years. Long before Tr*mp.
Retro Hugo Awards
July 29, 7:50 PM [thread] by _alexrowland
how wonderful, i'm sure a Retro Hugo was just what a dead racist needed to complete his mantlepiece.
I'm disappointed in everyone who voted for this.
July 29, Retro Hugo Winners [discussion] by Mike Glyer @ File770
CoNZealand presented the 1945 Retro-Hugos today. The results included the first tie in the award’s history, for the Best Dramatic Presentation – Short Form Retro-Hugo. (The full voting stats are online, and Deputy Hugo Awards Administrator Nicholas Whyte has done a quick analysis here.)
July 30, Some Thoughts on the 1945 Retro Hugo Winners by Cora Buhlert
Which brings me to the wailing and gnashing of teeth, which is really just focused on three winners – Campbell, Cthulhu and Ackerman. And yes, I’m not happy with those wins either.
July 30, Reflections on the Retro Hugos by Keith West
I hadn’t paid much attention to the other categories. I’m not a member of Worldcon and am not likely to be anytime in the foreseeable future. So it was entertaining to see the reactions on Twitter today.
Seems the wrong people won some of the awards.
July 30, 6:00 AM [thread] by Rhube
Lot of people talking about Retiring the Retro Hugos today. Is there anyone with power to raise a voice so this actually might, y/k happen?
Last night's results are a clear demonstration that celebrating so long after the date is ALWAYS going to force ppl to vote on works
July 30, 6:43 AM [discussion] by tadethompson
I'm gonna go ahead and say this for the cheap seats: What's the necessity for the Retro Hugos again...?
It's not as if these titles don't already dominate discourse making it difficult for us newbies to ever achieve 'classic' status.
Because I'm tired of racists and bigots.
July 30, 8:24 AM by JonathanLHoward
I was okay with the "Retro-Hugos" as a concept up until checks watch last night. What was intended as a nod to the roots of the SFF genres has now turned into a bolthole for reactionaries. Fuck, as the kids say, that noise. This should be the last year we bother with them.
July 30, 9:03 AM [discussion] by nameshiv
ngl, I find the retro Hugo Awards hilarious. They manufactured an awards so the dudes who published their same 3 stories in the same 2.5 magazines 50 yrs ago can have one last parade 20 years after they died for the like 8 people who care but SF is forward looking, remember.
July 30, 10:23 AM [discussion] by LeeFlower
The thing that bums me out about the retro Hugos is that they're a great opportunity to highlight and celebrate work that didn't originally get the recognition it deserved (like oh say due to racism and misogyny) but instead we're not doing that.
July 31, 10:24 PM [thread] by jayxwolf
wow didn't know they were rerunning the retro hugos concurrent with the contemporary edition this year.
what a blatant and frankly sad state of affairs. The Hugos are meant to celebrate ambitious new work in the genre, which makes this backwards-gazing emceeing truly egregious.
August 01, Retro Hugos by Siobhan Carroll
I sent out an email today with a proposal for changing the Retro Hugo awards. If you've been following the Hugo discussions on Twitter, you have some idea of why. Edited excerpt below.
August 01, 1:02 PM [discussion] by catvalente
This is the first year I’ve clocked any real pushback against the Retro Hugos or any socially accepted discussion about how weird and not great the whole concept and execution are, and I gotta say—you love to see it.
August 01, 1:24 PM [discussion] by KateElliottSFF
I never understood the need for the Retro Hugos. Like, is there a single person alive who could personally benefit from receiving a Retro Hugo? Giving awards to dead people is not about the dead people imo. As you say, it's just reinforcing the past as superior.
August 01, 3:45 PM [discussion] by KateElliottSFF
What annoys me most about the idea of the Retro Hugos is that at no point does anyone acknowledge the writers working in the 50s & 60s & 70s & 80s, etc, who back in the day would never have been considered important enough to nominate, by the dominant standard of those times.
August 01, 4:55 PM by hyuumanatees
I legit thought the *entire point* of the Retro Hugos was honoring the marginalized authors- especially women and POC- who were shut out from the recognition they deserved by the straight white men of their day.
Not this awful more of the same nonsense.
August 02, 5:41 PM by MortuaryReport
ok but why do we even do the retro hugos at all
August 02, More Reactions to the 2020 Hugo Ceremony and a bit about the Retro Hugos by Cora Buhlert
I’ve already pointed out how strongly I disagree with the people who cry for the Retro Hugos to be abolished, because they don’t agree with some of the winners (and I’m not thrilled about the Retro Hugos for Campbell, Cthulhu and Voice of the Imagi-Nation either). I also strongly disagree with Jason Sanford when he calls Retro Hugo voters “a small group of people stuck in the past giving today’s genre the middle finger”.
August 02, More on the Retro Hugos by Siobhan Carroll
You know what I haven't heard? Anyone arguing that the current award should remain untouched.
Hugo Awards ceremony overall
July 31, 2020 Hugo Awards [discussion] by Mike Glyer @ File770
CoNZealand presented the 2020 Hugo Awards in an online ceremony today.
July 31, 9:55 PM [thread] by tinytempest
I feel like @TheHugoAwards & @CoNZealand have done everything possible to ensure that marginalized nominees feel lesser, from the way they handled programming for these folks on down to an award broadcast with bigoted nonsense & mispronounced names. It's infuriating
August 01, 10:19 PM by AlasdairStuart
The thing that's genuinely very sad is that this is an excellent array of winners and they've been buried inside a deeply misjudged, intensely overproduced 3.5 trudge that looks for all the world like an extended ego trip.
August 01, 12:43 AM [thread] by suzusaur
The longer I think about it the angrier I get about the STAGGERING level of deliberate disrespect shown to finalists and winners tonight. I say deliberate because what the hell else can it be?
August 01, 1:35 AM by anne_l_fortune
I've just been at the Con Feedback session - apparently they left it all in because it was adjudged that none of it breached the Code of Conduct!
August 01, 1:55 AM by anoutlawlife
Tonight, I got really, really angry on behalf of the amazing writers, artists, & fans whose accolades tonight risked being lost amongst the weeds of a shitty toastmaster & a desperate desire to cling to the SFF Old Guard
So, I did a thing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yGPBIQvs0Y
August 01, 3:57 AM [thread] by GeekMelange
Here’s the thing: When your priorities are window dressing & pageantry rather than treating the folks with a basic modicum of respect, it says everything abt whose enjoyment you think really matters.
And let’s be real, this was a failure on multiple levels not just one person.
August 01, 9:05 AM [discussion] by jyneonyang
The thing that haunts me about the Hugos hosting fiasco is that this was all pre-recorded. PRE-RECORDED!! This could have been 100% prevented because they KNEW what was gonna be said. That it went on as it did was an active CHOICE.
The more I think about it the more upset I get.
August 01, 9:05 AM [thread] by CoraBuhlert
So here's my take on last night's Hugo mess: There is a place for older authors like GRRM and Robert Silverberg reminiscing about the past. However, that place is NOT the Hugo ceremony.
August 01, 9:25 AM by elizabethminkel
Gotta say, as someone on the periphery of this world, the whiplash of the [the content of the] winners' speeches vs [the content of] GRRM's rambling days-of-yore narration was one of the more astounding things I've seen in a while.
August 01, 1:06 PM [thread] by snarkbat
So. Last night’s Hugo Awards.
Those were a travesty.
We are professionals. The people nominated for awards are the *best in our field* and we deserve to be treated with respect.
And instead it felt like I was back in middle school.
August 01, 1:26 PM [thread] by tinytempest
Yesterday I used this form to file a Code of Conduct complaint against George RR martin, Bob Silverberg, and everyone involved in allowing the Hugo ceremony to be a garbage fire.
Today, I received a response.
August 01, 3:57 PM [thread] by seananmcguire
I have thought of one good thing about last night's disaster:
You all saw it.
August 01, 7:07 PM [thread] by ann_leckie
I still haven’t watched the livestream. I know how the voters voted, and that was never a matter of suspense to me because with that list of finalists, any result was bound to be a good one. It’s a great ballot.
August 01, 7:26 PM by AlasdairStuart
Here's what it comes down to with the ceremony and why so many people are so angry. There's more nuance here but it's basically this:
The man doesn't care about Hugo finalists. Stop putting Hugo finalists in his care.
August 01, Some Reflections on the 2020 Hugo Ceremony a.k.a. Reminiscing with George by Cora Buhlert
So yes, let’s talk about the 2020 Hugo Ceremony. By now, you may have seen some tweets or read some posts about the fact that the 2020 Hugo Ceremony was a) very, very, very long , and b) pretty damn awful.
August 01, George R.R. Martin criticized for racism, transphobia while hosting Hugo Awards by Rachel Kiley @ Daily Dot
Celebrated author George R.R. Martin angered a lot of fans this week. No, not because he still hasn’t finished the next book in A Song of Ice And Fire (although he missed his self-imposed deadline for that this week, too), but because of the incredibly lackluster job he did hosting a prominent award ceremony.
August 01, George R.R. Martin Can Fuck Off Into the Sun, or: The 2020 Hugo Awards Ceremony (RageBlog Edition) by Natalie Luhrs
That said, I have never in my life seen any awards ceremony that, in its whole, was so blatantly disrespectful of the nominees and winners. And I’m including my high school senior awards ceremony where I learned that half the money my family donated to the music department after my mother’s death had been used not for the purpose for which it had been donated in this assessment.
August 01, Holy Guacamole: WE WON A HUGO AWARD?! by The Book Smugglers
George R.R. Martin was the host this year and in between his pre-recorded messages and his live performance, he sadly managed to somehow be simultaneously boring, infuriatingly oblivious (we are going with this perhaps too-gracious reading), yet often offensive.
August 01, Behaving Badly at the Hugos by Cheryl Morgan
I would imagine that everyone has now seen the outrage that accompanied the CoNZealand Hugo Award Ceremony. If you haven’t, the short version is that a fabulous list of winners and some really great acceptance speeches were completely overshadowed by a couple of old men grandstanding.
August 01, Last night's Hugo Awards ceremony was a mess by Andrew Liptak
Despite that inclusive message, Martin’s work last evening was embarrassing, tone-deaf and racist, and was in stark contrast to the messages of the winners, who spoke about confronting and overturning the long-standing barriers that have largely blocked them out of the field.
August 01, Uh-Oh, the Hugos Were a Hot Mess! by Sean E.
Well, the Hugos are over, and I can tell you: they were kind of a hot mess!
August 01, The Hugo Winners Versus the Hugo Awards Ceremony by Miyuki Jane Pinckard
Lots of people have commented on the disaster that was the Hugo Awards 2020 last night. What became starkly clear to me was that there is an enormous chasm between what two competing visions of the future of SFF: one is inclusive, radical, anti-racist, anti-fascist, queer. The other is atavistic, moribund, and even hostile to the vision of the other.
August 01, George R R Martin is not my fandom by Matt
Sadly the awards ceremony was notorious for one bloated author’s pomposity and what appears very coded finger wagging of the new wave of fandom. I now understand Martin’s fans wanting him to finish yet another of his bloated overlong epics.
August 01, Worst Hugo Award Ceremony - Ever by Ed Fortune
If you were a British teenager back in the 1980s, there’s a fair chance that you’ll remember the 1989 Brit Awards. Presented by Mick Fleetwood and Sam Fox, it’s gone down in award ceremony history as how not to do the thing. Plagued by technical difficulties, presenters who had no empathy with the audience and a general lack of scripting and planning, I was pretty sure it was the worst awards presentation I’d ever see.
August 02, The Hugo Awards 2020: Or How Not to Run an Awards Ceremony by Adam Whitehead
To say the handling of the award ceremony was flawed is an understatement: there was a tone deafness given recent changes in SFF fan culture and the makeup of the nominees (somewhat inexplicably, given that GRRM has championed some of those changes himself during previous Hugo controversies and has brought in new voices to the field through his anthology, Wild Cards and TV work), the ceremony went on around twice as long as was strictly necessary and there doesn't seem to be any excuse for making mistakes with people's names given the resources at hand.
August 02, When Dinosaurs Roamed The Earth by Turnip Lanterns
The 2020 Hugo awards ceremony has been widely discussed and derided. As toastmaster, an unfettered George R. R. Martin rambled on about Hugos old and past. He also mentioned the awards he’d won, once or twice. The worth of his contributions can be best measured in its length; so much that there is a “When The Toastmaster Talks Less” supercut. There were many technical glitches, and GRRM seemed to have taken more care selecting his panoply of hats than finding out how to pronounce the names of the (international) winners. When a Black magazine for speculative fiction, FIYAH, is up for a Hugo, it matters that it’s pronounced correctly.
Mispronouncing names
In R. F. Kuang's Astounding speech at the top of the night she talked about the hostile environment of SFF. Including... the mispronounciation of names. And what do we get, at LENGTH...? YEP. MISPRONOUNCIATION OF N AMES.
July 31, 8:32 PM by SarahPinsker
Apropos of nothing, the year John Picacio was the toastmaster, every time I passed him that weekend he was practicing the names of the nominees and their work to make sure he got them right in the moment.
July 31, 8:33 PM by ClaireRousseau
They asked us for a pronunciation guide.
July 31, 8:34 PM [discussion] by tinytempest
Can I get 80 authors to sign an open letter telling @TheHugoAwards to not allow people who allow presenters to mangle names to run this show, anymore?
July 31, 8:41 PM by fiyahlitmag
"FIYAH" is a colloquialism for "FIRE" and is pronounced as such. It is an homage to the publication's ancestors, creators of the 1926 Black speculative fiction magazine FIRE!! Devoted To Younger Negro Artists, started by Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes and others.
July 31, 10:02 PM [thread] by Catrambo
Being an award presenter who does not bother to get the pronunciations of the winners' names - let alone nominees - right is showcasing your contempt for the award, the nominees, and the field in general. There is no excuse for this kind of utter arrogance and selfishness.
July 31, 11:03 PM [thread] by ECthetwit
He can fucking name someone Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, First of Her Name, the Unburnt, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons, but can't take the time to get Hugo finalists right.
July 31, 11:51 PM [thread] by _vajra
Getting GRRM, sff's most famous old white guy, to mangle Fiyah's name—the only magazine in the shortlist edited, staffed, dedicated to, and publishing entirely Black speculative fiction writers, a magazine started in response to the field's racist biases—is racist by design.
August 01, 3:14 AM by MaryRobinette
I've talked to some finalists who were not asked. As a presenter, I wasn't even given a list of names and works.
August 01, 10:17 AM by LegalValkyrie
*shrieks* THE AWARD CEREMONY IS NOT PARTICIPANT PROGR AMMING! IT IS LITERALLY THE EDITORIAL CHOICE OF THE EVENT! THIS DOESN'T JUSTIFY -PRE- -RECORDED- -SEGMENTS- MISPRONOUNCING N AMES!
August 01, 11:32 AM by seananmcguire
I was NOT given a pronunciation guide for the Retros, and I actually apologized when I wasn't sure I had a name correct and couldn't find anyone to verify it. Apologized! On tape!
August 01, 12:58 PM by George R.R. Martin @ File770
Whoever is circulating the story that I was asked to re-record portions of my Hugo hosting to correct mispronounced names, and that I refused, is (1) mistaken, or (2) lying. Never happened.
August 01, 1:27 PM [thread] by BrentCLambert
A thread about microaggressions and how toxic they can be. I'm sitting here, still very angry about what happened last night, and now I'm in the mode of falling into an old habit of policing my anger. It's something my therapist has told me to relinquish again and again.
Timing with Eid and Shabbat
August 01, 6:00 PM by sarahrana769
Yeah it was Eid yesterday, a gigantic holiday for over a billion Muslims. This was the equivalent to hosting the Hugos on Christmas but of course they did it anyway
August 01, 11:08 PM by asimonereid
far from the first to say it but the hugos taking place on eid AND shabbat when one of the nominees is an observant jew is, uh. well.
August 02, 12:16 AM [thread] by Rachel_Gutin
So, now that Shabbat is over, and now that I’ve had a few hours to catch up on what everyone is saying about the #HugoAwards, I have some thoughts I want to share.
August 02, 2:10 AM by MargueriteS_IE
On this point alone, I can state that this category was recorded live-for-the-finalists earlier in the day specifically so that it could be done before Shabbat began. Navah learned of her win and delivered her speech "live", and the segment was then edited into the larger whole.
August 02, 9:50 AM by Rachel_Gutin
Addendum to my previous thread: While Ariela was able to see the results her award category before Shabbat began in her timezone, her business partner, who currently lives in a different timezone, was not able to see the results until after Shabbat - and that's a problem too.
Video in Best Fancast
July 31, 8:22 PM [thread] by ClaireRousseau
Absolutely crushed to hear the presenter for Best Fancast introduce the category by discussing podcasts only, NO MENTION OF VIDEO, in the first year that a youtube channel was nominated. It was pre-recorded, @CoNZealand reviewed this footage. It is unacceptable.
August 01, 12:17 PM by bigswingdaddy
Ok, Apology time. @ClaireRousseau - I wrote the intro for best Fancast, and I blew it completely. I SHOULD have of course had a reference to video casts. Athough an unintentional oversight that's only a reason, not an excuse. I apologize sincerely
CoNZealand's apology
July 31, 8:07 PM by CoNZealand
Our Chairs apologise to the Fans beyond the binary who were offended by any statements in the Hugo Awards that were disrepectful or minimising.
August 01, 12:13 AM by catvalente
It’s kind of weird this is the only apology.
Because this was one problem, yes. But what about second problem, and third, and fourth, and…
August 01, An apology from the CoNZealand Chairs by CoNZealand
We acknowledge that we got some things wrong at the Hugo Awards Ceremony today, and through doing so have hurt members of our community.
August 01, 3:51 AM by chesneycat
You can't be neutral on a moving train.
Neutrality/agnosticism is a political choice. Don't like the destination it took you to? Fucking acknowledge it, don't use neutrality as a flimsy excuse.
August 01, 5:52 AM by ClaireRousseau
I need to properly articulate my feelings about this - it'll probably come in video form, natch - but I will say, it's not good enough. The Chairs should take responsibility but it doesn't absolve the people who made the decisions from responsibility.
August 01, 8:53 AM by kellyoyo
This is one of the worst non-apologies I’ve ever seen. Conrunners: You chose the presenters. You made a choice and got what you asked for. This is your design.
August 01, CoNZealand Chairs Apologize for Some Hugo Ceremony Flaws [discussion] by Mike Glyer @ File770
After last night’s Hugo Awards ceremony CoNZealand posted “An apology from the CoNZealand Chairs”:
George R.R. Martin's apology
August 01, 11:45 AM [discussion] by GRRMspeaking
Words for our times...
August 01, 12:04 PM by AlasdairStuart
Honestly didn't think I could be angrier than I am right now.
GRRM just tweeted an image of a Voltaire quote about how we should all forgive one another.
Instead of learning how to pronounce people's names.
Or respecting Shabbat.
Or saying 'I'm sorry.'
August 01, 12:18 PM by alwayscoffee
This isn’t an apology. You did real harm last night, and you should think on that, instead of attempting some piss poor deflection.
Don’t center yourself as “poor me, I’m only human.” Good people own their mistakes flat out. I suggest you work on yourself.
August 01, 12:39 PM by _alexrowland
Racism, misogyny, transphobia, and fascist ass-kissing aren't "FOLLIES", George. You owe us an apology. A real one.
August 01, 7:09 PM by ClaireRousseau
That's not how apologising works, if anyone's wondering.
New Zealand representation and the Sir Julius Vogel Awards
August 01, 7:46 AM [discussion] by AlasdairStuart
What’s getting lost inside the horror at the endless, self-indulgent and unprofessional horror show we were subjected to last night is this:
-There was absolutely no NZ cultural content to that show. None. Zero. At all.
Almost TWO HOURS of Salute to old white men though.
There's a lot of anger about that down here. Our own national Sci Fi awards were jammed into twenty minutes at the end of the Retros, and then the only NZ content in the endless Hugo ceremony was a rerun of a bit from opening ceremony.
August 01, 8:26 AM [thread] by understatesmen
I feel like the SJVs and the Retro-Hugos were a microcosm of the issues with the main Hugos Awards: more interested in venerating dead racists than showcasing anything challenging, new, or different.
August 01, 3:47 PM [discussion] by CaseyLucasQuaid
it was absolutely devastating to have our year's best NZ awards--whose slate was full of bright young queer, indigenous, immigrant, disabled, neurodiverse voices--get bundled into the ceremony that honoured fucking campbell and lovecraft.
August 01, 1:42 PM by ed_fortune
Y'know, there's a alternate reality out there where @CoNZealand picked a New Zealand based host and comedian to host the Hugo awards and we are all now buzzing about this fresh talent we had never encountered before.
August 01, 4:53 PM by charibdys
oh yeah and let me not forget to mention, everything else aside: what a horrific, ignorant, callous, colonizer fuck you to the entire Pacific of a Hugo ceremony that was. Complete erasure of NZ culture.
August 02, 8:03 AM by PrinceJvstin
I want to make sure that this is seen by everyone who have been more paying attention to the main Hugo show. I've lamented elsewhere about how NZ authors and fiction really got excised out of this year's awards and that really pisses me right off.
August 02, 8:07 AM by CaseyLucasQuaid
Every Hugo voter was eligible to vote in the SJVs and we spent hours on our voters packet and nobody could be fucked to email it to you all! Sorry!
August 02, 11:39 AM by AlyshonraM
.@CoNZealand please make the Sir Julius Vogel awards packet available, so we can appreciate the work of the awesome people who we could have voted for.
August 02, 10:40 AM [thread] by fran_wilde
The host country’s *own awards* got buried & then un-named during the Hugos. This is a disgrace. If we are going to call it a World Con, it cannot be run like a private rolling party where the core homogeneity year-after-year club sits in first class yelling “get off my lawn.”
August 02, 12:27 PM [thread] by MiriBaker
I had no idea about any of this. I wish I was surprised.
Awards shows are like any other technical artifact: if you do not design for failure, you have failed to design.
Let's talk about what an empathetic, inclusive design for this ceremony could have been like.
August 02, 2:58 PM by ULTRAGOTHA
I just checked my email. Evidently there was an item in the February member's newsletter, and one in January's about nominations. It should have been much more widely disseminated.
I am baffled by the decision of the Chairs to not celebrate NZ SFF more prominently at the con.
August 02, 6:49 PM by AJFitzwater
A lot of us planned releases and goals well in advance to be in alignment with Worldcon coz we knew we'd never get an opportunity like this again. It's broken a lot of hearts.
Glorifying only white cishet SFF history
July 31, 7:32 PM [thread] by tambourine
i'm not sure talking at length about the history of the hugo awards, with a focus on various racist white men who defined them in many previous decades....... is that welcoming to new people............. engaging with worldcon for the first time lol
July 31, 10:15 PM by anoutlawlife
If you name-searched the transcript of the Hugos tonight, in 2020, you'd think the winners based on mention would've been:
Heinlein, Silverberg, Campbell, Lovecraft, and good ole' GRRM himself
That's despicable #HugoAwards, you should be ashamed
July 31, 10:40 PM [thread] by her_nibsen
Cheers and congrats to all the winners! Hugs and beaming to all my fellow nominees! I fucking hate that your glory was cut up by the whiny little death-rattles of egotistic old white men who flail, pathetically, in their refusal to admit that they are HISTORY!
July 31, 11:38 PM [thread] by katsudonburi
Like how many fucking times are you gonna talk about fucking Campbell when the whole fucking point is his fascist ass doesn’t have an award named after it any more and then we have another Hugo to the speech that catalyzed that?
August 01, 1:25 AM by jyneonyang
Can we make it a rule that, if you have nothing interesting or impactful to say about work that has been published in the last, I don’t know, thirty years, that you then don’t get to host a Hugo ceremony??
August 01, 5:36 AM by weimingkam
I see the Hugos once again showed that they had more respect for the old gatekeepers of SFF than those who are the boundary breaking future of the genre
August 01, 10:27 AM [discussion] by tadethompson
You know, I was already on the fence with the Retro Hugos thing. I removed "Hugo-nominated" from my profile because who wants to be associated with that racist nonsense, right?
I'm now convinced that people like me are not valued as much as old dead racists/bigots.
I'm done.
August 01, 3:26 PM [thread] by KateElliottSFF
My dad taught history so, yes, it's important to understand the history of Worldcon & the Hugos. It matters to see what won in the past but also WHAT DIDN'T WIN & why, & that's the part that gets left out in these long winded diatribes which are about status & power, not history.
August 01, 3:32 PM by tadethompson
Also, say what you mean.
When you say "Campbell helped shape SFF into what it is" what you mean is "Campbell helped shape SFF into a space for white, cishet males".
You don't need to tell us; we know. We have smash our heads against this Whitewashed wall all the bloody time.
August 01, 3:35 PM by aliettedb
Campbell actively participated in gatekeeping and making sure that marginalised folks were left out. For sure, he shaped SFF. Do we like the shape he'd made? Do we need to still worship said shape? (my answer is f no. I know what he'd have thought of the kind of stories I write)
August 01, 3:35 PM by jeannette_ng
The Hugos gains more legitimacy, more relevance, more clout from the participation of marginalised writers than we do from them.
Without us, they stop being the future.
August 01, 4:04 PM [thread] by aliettedb
Look, I'm annoyed, so: a thread of things that have happened to me. They're disjointed, and they're just off the top of my head. They're not intended to be exhaustive: just my personal experiences
August 01, 9:23 PM [thread] by fozmeadows
So, I don't have the energy to formally blog about the Hugos and Worldcon, but I still have some thoughts to share about the SFF community in relation to both, so I guess I'm doing a thread.
August 02, On Dinosaurs and Context by Dag-Erling Smørgrav
Some of you may know that the 2020 Hugo Award ceremony was held last night and that it was hosted by George R. R. Martin. Some of you may have heard that it did not go well. Some of you may already know what happened, more or less. I watched it live, and unsurprisingly, I have opinions.
August 02, 7:15 AM [thread] by tashadrinkstea
I hope Foz will forgive me using this as a jumping off point but this really makes me aware how my early love of SFF was shaped by the stories I stumbled on: queer stories, POC stories, women-focused. My SFF is not The History of SFF.
My SFF is *also the history of the genre*.
August 01, 8:27 PM by KateElliottSFF
thinking about all the sffh writers across the decades who were quietly reinventing and re-envisioning the genre in unnoticed, ignored, and/or incremental ways and who never got any credit for it
August 02, 5:51 PM [thread] by megelison
I read all of it. I mean A L L. Cleaned out the Gold Room at Powell’s. Not just Asimov and Heinlein; I tracked down vintage copies of Galaxy and Weird Tales. Read “The Comet” by WEB DuBois and works like it on PDF.
I thought I had to, to break into this business.
August 02, 7:47 PM [thread] by jeannette_ng
I grew up on a lot of Mercedes Lackey and Ann McCaffrey as well as also, Mists of Avalon. There was also Jin Yong’s wuxia and all of the Gothic for me.
When I say I want us to be better than our legacies, I mean them as well.
August 02, 8:26 PM [thread] by englishmace
all right and I've been staying quiet 'cause plenty of smarter folks are speaking, but, one quick thing on the Hugos:
you cannot defend that debacle as "laying out the history of the awards," as if presentation of history is a neutral action & not one charged w/ choice.
WorldCon atmosphere
July 28, 11:57 PM [discussion] by tinytempest
well WorldCon is off to a roaring start as I've already been accused of being "Racist" in the Discord for pointing out someone's hypocrisy. This is gonna be a great time.
Got a friend whose virtual background got policed for being too political as well. I'll just be over here working on my new one.
July 29, 1:26 PM [thread] by tinytempest
Apparently someone on a panel at #CoNZealand was chided for have a "too political" virtual background. What was Too Political? A Black Live Matter bg.
I didn't see this & don't know what form it took but perhaps it was one of these.
July 29, 1:42 PM [thread] by stlemur
Now that the @Catrambo is out of the bag--yes, last night someone from the #CoNZealand program team told me to get rid of the below Zoom background because it's "political." #Worldcon so far has not provided dialogue on this point, though I have offered & waited patiently.
July 29, 6:16 PM by CoNZealand
We sincerely apologise. CoNZealand has an official policy of not policing backgrounds that are not in violation of our Code of Conduct. We have no issue with your Zoom background. The individual staff member acted independently and has since quit our staff.
July 31, My Zoom Background Censored Again by Edmund Schluessel @ File770
According to Programme Ops, my background was indeed policed and censored by Program staff. I asked why my video had been cut. Patrick Maher, Con Ops manager, told me in reply, “Same reason as before. I informed the Room Manager that we cannot do that because your background, whilst overtly political, is not in breach of the CoC. they then lifted the lock on your video.”
August 01, 11:52 AM [thread] by nkjemisin
For those wondering: I pre-recorded an acceptance for last night because I do not attend Worldcon anymore. Sometimes that's bc I'm busy, but mostly it's bc I would rather have toenails pulled. Only reason I even made it to 2018 was friends' badgering.
I have had some of the worst experiences of my professional life at worldcons. Repeated harassments, threats of physical violence, constant micro-aggressions, and those are just for me. The situations I've had to intervene in for my clients and friends are legion.
August 01, 7:17 PM [thread] by Hello_Tailor
just checked thru my tweets from attending the 2014 Worldcon, a jarring experience that really opened my eyes to the political/generational divides in SF/F fandom.
in some ways actually worse than i remembered:
August 01, 8:20 PM by GeekMelange
Bottom line: if luminaries in our field like Nora & Tade & a growing list of others, incl 1st time finalists, won’t attend Worldcons anymore *this is a huge flag that the culture & systems are toxic & need fixing NOW*. It’s horrifying & heartbreaking & I can’t blame them at all.
August 01, 11:06 PM [thread] by laviecestmoi
Apart from CoNZealand's systemic failure to make BIPOC attendees feel included, safe, and seen, here's another example of the whitewashed wall we keep running up against:
Attendee behavior on panels.
August 02, 11:51 AM [thread] by seananmcguire
I have finally allowed myself to get truly angry about the "let's fuck with this year's nominees in the guise of presenting the award" bullshit that's been going on for literally years.
YES A THOUSAND TIMES YES.
Every word of @seananmcguire’s thread. This stuff stopped being amusing decades ago. If it ever really was.
August 02, 4:36 PM [thread] by sl_huang
Ok one more thing on Worldcon -- aside from the awards ceremony, there was a lot that happened with this con that was largely out of the public eye. A lot behind the scenes with people fighting & fighting for more inclusion. It was exhausting... but you know what kills me?
August 02, 7:27 PM by JohnBarnesSF
Echoing Patrick’s “decades ago”: I quit attending awards ceremonies, with one exception due to request from a close friend, in the mid90s, and this brilliantly outlines one of several reasons why. The Labor Day Club is dead; we should’ve placed a Do Not Resurrect Order.
Man. How many people in our subculture have been quitting our awards events because we enabled a bunch of asshole abusers? Not all of whom were dudes, I note. How many?
It’s not fucking funny.
August 02, 9:25 PM by MarkDoesStuff
I’ve kept out of this discussion but just want to echo this. It’s why I haven’t been to a Worldcon since 2016. It just all became Too Much. It is exhausting to have to fight for space and humanity in the community every year.
Moving forward and lessons for future WorldCon committees
July 31, 10:04 PM by LeeFlower
my new criteria for which worldcon bid to support: don't tell me how pretty your city is; I'm not gonna leave the hotel anyway. Tell me who your toastmaster is, and how you're going to celebrate and feature the SFF fiction of TODAY
August 01, 3:53 AM [thread] by therisingtithes
I’m still awake, and if I’m being honest it’s because I’m still annoyed.
But let it be said: I could have not been annoyed. I could chalk that feeling up to fandom being fandom, unchanging, hopeless.
I am annoyed because I know that’s not true. That’s why I nuh leaving.
August 01, 6:55 AM [discussion] by LegalValkyrie
Dear every active Worldcon bid, please spend today sharing with us how you plan to learn from last night and make your events spaces that are open and safe for all.
August 01, 8:23 AM [thread] by aus2025
The Brisbane 2025 bid team are going into this process with inclusivity and accessibility as our two highest priorities.
August 01, 8:47 AM [thread] by KameronHurley
Congrats to all the #hugoawards winners! Listen, kids, in my day the boring white guys presented, insulted their colleagues, AND won. We are making progress! Look at these winners! Absolute treasure trove of excellence. An excellent time to be writing sff.
August 01, 9:03 AM [thread] by nchanter_x
I’m the head of Program for Chicon 8. The Program page on our website has a statement of goals (written a few weeks ago) and outline of our process. The process outline will be updated with more steps closer to the convention.
August 01, 1:27 PM [thread] by seattle2025
Apologies for the later reply. Just waking up here in PST. Our reply will look similar to Chicago's because the programming model described there is one we've been using at Norwescon. So, that's one part.
August 01, 1:44 PM by gregvaneekhout
We owe writers like Rebecca Kuang and Jeannette Ng a debt of gratitude for pushing back against the racism in SFF with the truth. In a better world, they wouldn’t have to, but we’re not there yet.
August 01, 2:40 PM [thread] by renay
I’m feeling some sort of way about watching my friends and other winners have to balance their happiness over being a Hugo finalist/winner with being so disrespected by WSFS members who run bids/cons.
August 01, 2:53 PM [thread] by Glasgowin2024
Glasgow in 2024 want to embed diversity and inclusion into our bid from the start. We are doing the following:
August 01, 4:13 PM [thread] by MaryRobinette
I have a fairly ferocious temper that I've spent most of my life learning to channel. Anger is an energy and I can let it consume me, or I can redirect it into change.
As a result, my frequent reaction now to things is "how can I fix it."
August 01, 4:57 PM by worldcon2021
We are aware of what happened at this year's #HugoAwards.
Discon 3 will issue a full statement on Monday after #ConZealand wraps up.
August 01, 6:02 PM by CherylMorgan
Important thread here. When faced with a Big Name behaving badly, even Mary was reluctant to rock the boat by challenging him. It is even harder for a fan. That’s how power works.
August 01, 7:27 PM [thread] by GeekMelange
Seeing some “but how do I find folks who can help my con be better?” and look. I’m glad y’all are asking, really, but this is important: It is not an honor for folks to be approached to help a Worldcon—*it’s the concom who should be honored marginalized folks are willing to help*
August 01, 7:31 PM by MiriBaker
Future concoms who are swearing they're going to be better in this:
At some point, you will have to face yourself and your team and ask "Am I willing to personally piss of George R. R. Martin?"
Probably best to figure out your answer in advance.
August 01, 7:49 PM [thread] by kbwagers
Being on a con staff means you need to be prepared to enforce the con's rules and mission. It means you may have to boot a friend for violating the code of ethics. It means you may have to tell a famous person "no."
If you can't you shouldn't be on staff.
August 02, 1:54 PM [thread] by SarahPinsker
I just wrote a really long thread and then accidentally lost it. The gist was this: it must be incredibly demoralizing for the people who put a decade into crafting an in-person #CoNZealand experience that none of us got to have, & then see big (necessary) criticism online. But
August 02, 2:47 PM [thread] by her_nibsen
Same applies to all of SFF. We’re in a new golden age, particularly of short fiction, and the best and sharpest work is being done by the people whom the old white boys’ club once shut out. We’re finding our voices and our teeth and tearing shit up.
August 02, 5:08 PM [thread] by ann_leckie
My first experience with one of GRRM’s Hugo Losers Parties showed me right away that there was a lack of attention to organization beyond that food/music/venue angle.
August 02, 10:21 PM [thread] by katsudonburi
This is a really good thread.
I’m upset and angry and heartbroken about the Hugo Ceremony, the way the NZ authors were treated, the lack of NZ content, the DEI issues.
But I am so grateful to the technical staff and volunteers. Y’all busted ass and did a GREAT job. Thank you.
August 02, Why Worldcons Go Wrong by Cheryl Morgan
There are lots of people on social media currently saying things like, “Worldcon is broken, it must be fixed” or “Worldcon is irredeemably broken, we must replace it with something new.” These are all entirely understandable sentiments, but in order to fix Worldcon, or to build a replacement, it helps to know how and why it goes wrong. In this post I want to talk about a couple of specific examples from CoNZealand.
August 02, Genre Grapevine (Worldcon and Hugo Award Edition) by Jason Sanford
I’m tired of the science fiction and fantasy literary genre — a genre based on imagining and building new futures and worlds — being endlessly compared to how the genre was a half century ago. I’m tired of today’s diverse world of SF/F writers and fans being dismissed by certain fandom gatekeepers and essentially told no matter what they do, they’ll never match the glories of the genre’s past.
no subject