I’m late in getting my analysis up about the Hugo nominees, so I have the advantage of seeing other folks’ commentary. Somehow I’m getting the feeling that Vox Day is going to win this fight—the opposition is reconsidering their stance for a number of reasons.
First, Day has escalated his attack on the Hugo Awards. Second, his recommendations this year were put together to undermine the No Award strategy that shut out the Rabid Puppies in 2015. Here’s how it works: He has pretty clearly listed the unsuitable material as an attack on the reputation of the institution. That done, he has also included nominations of quality work in each category that will cause voters to question the No-Award-slash-and-burn strategy of last year. This will most clearly play out in the Best Short Story category, for example, where the only competition for the brilliant “Asymmetrical Warfare” is mostly attack fiction and porn. If voters choose No Award above this story, then they’re voting against a high quality contender who has no relation to the Puppies except his name on their list of recommendations.
Besides this, I’ve had a look at the math geeks’ opinions. You can read the analyses at both Rocket Stack Rank and Chaos Horizon. These analyses use different methods to estimate the size of the Rabid Puppies voting bloc. RSR’s method seems to be more precise than Chaos Horizon’s, but they come in with fairly similar numbers. What’s most interesting about this is that the guys at RSR have done an analysis of how it would have gone under the new E Pluribus Hugo nomination system that’s proposed to cut out slate voting for next year. According to RSR, the size of Vox Day’s voting bloc will still have a strong influence.
This is an important point. Commenters have a tendency to carry on like Vox Day is alone in this fight and that he’ll get tired and give it up soon. However, as I understand things, he’s actually just the main strategist for the activist group called the Rabid Puppies. According to the recent estimates, there are 200-500 dedicated Rabid Puppy voters, which would be about 20-50% of the SFWA (if we made that comparison), or about 2-5% of last year’s WorldCon membership. This is without adding the possible votes from the Sad Puppies, who have a similar activist agenda.
So what conclusions should we draw from this? First, Vox Day isn’t going to get tired of this. Second, there is a strong conservative element in the SFF community. Third, the major SF awards can be easily gamed, and fourth, we should probably take a second look at the Puppies’ claims that the awards have been subtly coopted by other groups.
P.S. The announcement today about the addition of “Cat Pictures Please” by Naomi Kritzer to the Best Short Story finalists will change the dynamic.
Lela E. Buis 
May 06, 2016 @ 07:38:39
“Coopted” is probably a fair word for the feminist culture in SFF. You can always tell people aren’t telling the truth when feminists claim their opponents see an “SJW conspiracy.” There is no conspiracy. There is open and public collusion to value the racial and sexual identity of characters, authors, or authors who support same over story and art. There is an open and public dissemination of demonization theories which treat straight white men as if they are a criminal syndicate of “rape culture,” “white saviors” and “heterosexual privilege” including paranoid lies about something as innocuous as magazine marketing. Of course once one lights such Reichstag fires one must put them out using diversity and affirmative action. It is a self-contained ideology which at no times brushes up against reality. Supremacist ideologies never do.
As you’ve seen here and elsewhere, you can’t even have a rational conversation with these people. The all-female Locus category is as cool as the all-male one is not. There is no principle ever created which can embrace that, but a supremacist ideology explains it quite easily. Nazis would never criticize an all-Aryan category and never permit an all-Jewish one.
The problem is these people cannot or will not extend that simple analogy over to other biological supremacist groups. They state quite openly that misandry, anti-white racism and heterophobia are mythical creatures, though surely they are nothing more than an expression of human failure. When one is addicted to identity over principle, that is an analogy too far for feminists who have irrational suspicions of every move straight white males make.
There is no self-awareness or understanding of parody and satire in such cults. They themselves are parody and satire. Rachel Swirsky believes Tingle’s story is fan fiction, rather than the parody it obviously is. Now this feminist cult believes Tingle wanting Zoe Quinn to accept his award is trolling Vox Day, though it is obvious Tingle is trolling feminists. There is no better outcome for the Puppies. Suddenly feminists take Tingle at his word? Everything Tingle writes is false and meant to be so. Tingle knows Day is a troll who isn’t taking this seriously and that Quinn is deadly serious. So, like a fool, Quinn walks straight into the tiger trap grinning from ear to ear.
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May 06, 2016 @ 13:21:45
Actually, I do know what you mean. There was a sort of surprising discussion about “rape culture” on the SFPA listserve just a few days ago.
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May 06, 2016 @ 20:52:46
You’ll notice no one’s pranking the Tiptree Awards. That’s because it’s not a bait-and-switch. Given the Hugo replacement nominees today (“Hugo Ballot Finalist Announcement, or More Ladies and Queers on Your Ballot” – Lady Business), WorldCon doesn’t need to change the rules to end the pranking. They just need to change the name from Hugo Award to Intersectional Lesbian Feminist Award, because that’s all it is. If you look at the 2013 and 2014 award nominees (minus the impact of the Puppies in 2014) the overwhelming majority of nominees are in some way connected with that miserable cult. Take away the Puppies in 2015 and 16 and it’s the same thing.
This is an award which has long since run out of irony or satire. Contrary to why anyone would want to prank the Hugos, I wonder on what basis any normal human being could resist pranking it. As a literary award for achievement in SFF, the Hugos are now as dead as the Nebulas. That is a fitting fate for an ideology of racist, man-hating heterophobes which postures as “social justice” and anti-bigotry.
This comment from 770 probably sums up the entire madness as well as anything:
“Well, Lady Business could make a few misogynistic heads explode.”
Anyone familiar with that site and the Twitter feeds of its members understands that quote is like saying Stormfront could make a few Jewish and black heads explode. There has never been a clearer understanding of what these fools consider “misogyny,” which is in reality anyone who opposes their insane paranoia of men.
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