(no subject)

[seekingferret]

Worldcon Day 4

I got home from work, cooked Shabbos dinner and watched a livetweet of the shortest WSFS business meeting in history, then I figured out how to cast the Hugo Awards ceremony to my TV and settled in to watch. I followed the main chat on the discord and also had open a chat window with cahn and got ready to enjoy myself for the first hour, only to have the slowly dawning realization that the awards were a disaster.

It wasn't the technical issues. The virtual ceremony was a mixture of live streaming and pre-recorded video, and people were concerned beforehand about problems with execution, but while there were a few problems, for the most part the video stream was just fine.

The problem was George RR Martin, serving as emcee in his role as ConZealand toastmaster. His pre-recorded segments were rambling and ill-judged, full of self-aggrandizement and false modesty, and even more damningly, full of encomiums to racists, fascists, and sexual abusers like John Campbell, Isaac Asimov, and Harlan Ellison. He refused to use the name Astounding Award and instead offered at nauseating length a series of fawning stories about the way that Campbell had influenced himself and the genre. After I signed off, the Hugo electorate gave Jeannette Ng a second Hugo for her speech last year in which she reminded everyone that John Campbell was a fucking fascist and it was wildly insulting to the young, diverse voices in the SFF community to give them an award with his name on it. Clearly Martin was okay with continuing to insult those young voices. Clearly he wanted to, because this was a prerecorded segment and the whole thing was premeditated. And clearly ConZealand was okay with it, because it was prerecorded and they must have had an opportunity to veto those segments that they didn't approve of.

The internet doesn't seem to be giving it quite as much attention, but Harlan Ellison and Isaac Asimov were sexual predators and the way Martin spoke about them without mentioning that was offensive as well.

It's startling to imagine Martin thought he could pass this off. If he were doing it live, the boos would have drowned out his speech within the first ten minutes, it escapes me why he thought that the virtual audience meant he could get away with it.



I just... I wish I weren't so invested in Worldcon, because it gives me so many reasons to give up on it and try to invest more of my time in fannish communities that aren't so frequently disappointing.

Comments

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I watched the fan work cut of the ceremony, which has much less of the GRRM content, all of the winners' speeches, and even has the information from the artist that designed the trophy base.

[alexseanchai]

I attempted to watch that version. Predictably enough, my brain did the thing where the noise that is supposed to be words is not in fact words. I have read transcripts of Kuang's and Martine's acceptance speeches, and I'm hoping someone rounds up transcripts of the rest. (Though judging by D_Libris's tweets, I want to actually watch Ng's speech because hat.)

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Ng's speech is good to watch; the Condensed version Award Ceremony does have some sounds that aren't words, the lag effect artifact. Hers isn't too effected by that, and she does manage to breathe a few times, so that's good. I think her being on ConZealand Fringe panels has given her some practice this year prior.

[kass]

I haven't listened to or read GRRM's remarks, but it does sound like they were horrific. I'm disappointed in him and in Worldcon writ large. What a balagan.

[alexseanchai]

If he were doing it live, the boos would have drowned out his speech within the first ten minutes, it escapes me why he thought that the virtual audience meant he could get away with it.

Probably because the booing can't actually disrupt his remarks when his remarks are prerecorded.

*sympathy*

[elf]

One of the bright points was Neil Gaiman's acceptance speech for Good Omens. It's rare that Best Dramatic goes to someone who knows and loves the Hugo Awards.

But for Martin... the absolute best and most generous explanation is that he was trying to share some of what he loved about fandom with the next generation. And he failed at that. So hard.

He could never have done this live; he'd've been booed off the stage AND people who didn't even mind what he was saying, would be yelling "WRAP IT UP!" Nobody wants to sit in convention chairs for 3.5 hours.

[cynthia1960]

I'm trying to imagine what attendees would have done if he had tried this shit live. Booing, for sure. Standing up and turning your back to him until he shuts the fuck up. Would want to make it clear that the disgust would be at him, not the nominees and winners.

[cynthia1960]

You just reminded me of Neil's reaction at the 2002 San José Worldcon when he won for American Gods ;).

[seekingferret]

There were a lot of bright points among the winner speeches, which after all is the point. A good MC can improve an awards ceremony, but they're not what makes a ceremony good, and the MC is not what the awards ceremony is about. IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT CELEBRATING THE HONOREES!

There is a difference in what people are willing to endure in person. I've attended fairly long Hugo Award ceremonies that I didn't mind because I got swirled up in the pageantry of everyone dressing up and being excited and being invested. In the virtual format there was none of that, so Martin absolutely should not have spoken for so long. But the booing for the content would have come much before the complaining about the length, the shit Martin pulled with the Astounding Award was entirely offensive.

[primeideal]

Yeah, I've been stalking the DisCon III site because half of me is like "big fandom event! DC! Cool people! let's go!" and half of me is like "sounds like a great place to crawl under a rock and never interact with humans."

[seekingferret]

Come to DisCon!!! There are lots of amazing things at Worldcons and lots of frustrating things and if you have someone to guide you away from the frustrating things you'll have a great time at the con.

[primeideal]

Well, between you and the DC/Baltimore Yuletiders there should be plenty of guides. Worst case, I have a migraine and can't do anything anyway, which is no worse than some of the board game cons I've tried <3

[cahn]

At least I had you and ase on chat to share the UTTER DISASTER with. That part was good. Well, and also some of the actual awards parts were good (as opposed to George RR Martin, and there was also a bit with Silverberg that you thankfully missed). THAT I GOT TO SEE, because I also had to sign off -- well, "before it ended," that is to say, "late compared to how long it should have taken."

I wonder if ConZealand just... forgot to listen to GRRM's segments beforehand. That would explain a lot. But that doesn't even explain how they could not have noticed that the length of all his segments were seventeen times as long as they needed to be!

[cynthia1960]

I have heard that his segments were late, but I would want to verify this. He seems to have posted something at File 770, but I have no interest in hearing his self justification of this horrible behavior.

[seekingferret]

It's not a good self-justification. He says the rumor that he was provided name pronunciations and ignored them is untrue, but he admits that he knew that other toastmasters spent the effort of learning pronunciations and he didn't bother, and doesn't really apologize for it. And his comment makes no apology for talking about John Campbell ad nauseum.

[cynthia1960]

Yeet him into the Sun.

[cahn]

You know... if that's true he sent his stuff in late, I actually do have some sympathy for the WorldCon people; I've been on the other side of this for work and church stuff, when I was sent stuff late and it had to go in a larger thing with minimal or no editing and it just was really suboptimal. But I've never had that happen with stuff that was was THIS BAD, thankfully!

Ugh, yeah, I have no interest in what he has to say (and it sounds from what seekingferret said below that this was a good choice on our parts). I think I'm just trying to figure out a way in my head that doesn't make Worldcon 100% the bad guy here :P

[seekingferret]

According to the chairs' apology, " The Chairs also made the decision to provide an agnostic platform for all the participants, and did not place restrictions on any speech or presentations."

...

Apparently they just let Martin talk as long as he wanted and say whatever he wanted in the name of creating an 'agnostic platform'... as if making the choice to have GRRM host the Awards was itself some sort of neutral action that came out of nowhere and had no consequences. It's also incredibly, predictably going to lead to colossal unnavigable issues. What if Martin decided he wanted to talk for six hours, would they still have held by their policy of no restrictions? What if Martin didn't just praise racists, what if his prerecorded segments actually included racist diatribes, would they still just air them? Of course the convention needs to maintain some sort of editorial control over the Awards show that they are producing, how they could imagine otherwise?!?

[cahn]

*facepalm* Yeah, I wonder if this is a variant of sort of a geek social fallacy -- like, you assume that you give everyone carte blanche and it works out great because everyone will of course be great and work with you and have meaningful things to say -- and maybe you've even done something small before where it works like that and is all really great -- but, like, this just isn't a good plan because eventually it will MASSIVELY BACKFIRE because SOME PEOPLE ARE JERKS, just saying.

I am wondering whether they just told everyone "Hey, record what you want!" and then GRRM turned his in late and no one had time to listen to it and they figured it would all be OK, see above. I mean, it's still a colossal screwup, but like I said above I think I'm just grasping at any straw that means it's not 100% WorldCon being past saving.

[sophia_sol]

ughhhhhh yeah, I didn't have an attending membership so I didn't watch, but I was following along the livetweeting in the hashtag and it was breathtakingly awful that this is seriously what the award ceremony was like

[seekingferret]

FWIW, (and before the ceremony I was wishing this were more widely known and after the ceremony I was glad it wasn't), the Hugos livestream was not limited to just members. It was publicly available.

[sophia_sol]

oh wow, yeah, I didn't know that! In retrospect I'm glad I didn't because I don't know if I could have handled actually watching what ended up going down

[starlady]

GRRM did all this deliberately and he's not even very good at trying to obscure that after the fact. Why the con chairs thought this was the way to go--and why they decided to completely ignore NZ content at this, their NZ Worldcon--is perhaps even more offensive. Aotearoa in 2020 my fucking foot.

[ghost_lingering]

Saw a link to this interesting thread re: the con & wondered how much of the sidelining of NZ came across the you / the average con goer and/or if you had a different sense. It seems like another side of the same coin you mention here.
https://mobile.twitter.com/understatesmen/status/1289538949497511936

[seekingferret]

Oh, Sascha's spot on, and I got to hear it from him in person last night in the bar. But that bar was the flip side of it... On the one hand, the official program shortchanged local NZ programming in a bunch of different ways, and on the other hand I got to meet so many cool fans from around the world and especially from the Antipodes, and learn a whole bunch about NZ SF and NZ history and culture, from the unofficial parts of the con, and I was really grateful for that opportunity.

[ghost_lingering]

Ahhh, glad there was at least some upside re: the social/unofficial aspect. Worldcon is such a trip to read about -- always a step or two off from my typical fannish experience, but the reports are still familiar in many ways

[morbane]

Now I am kicking myself for not catching you both at the bar - I saw your name and Sascha's and AJ Fitzwater's and thought "I was at Sascha's in-person book launch earlier this year, I can totally say hi - I was just at that person's reading, maybe I can springboard from that into engaging," but I was reeling from the Hugos' delivery and reception, and mentally drafting apologies, and so I went to do chores instead.

I am sorry the Hugo award ceremony acted to undercut the celebration of the very awards it was giving. I am sorry we let George R. R. Martin bloviate. I feel confused and ashamed, not exclusively. I want to find out all about why that happened.

I am happy you got to learn more about NZ SFF and culture. It was a joy to me to attend, however superficially (I am talking about time investment rather than the virtual aspect) a global sci-fi convention with a large number of attendees, and hear so many New Zealand and Australian voices alongside everyone else.

Man, I wish we'd had a pōwhiri.

[seekingferret]

Aww, don't kick yourself and don't apologize. If there's anything I hope I've communicated in my Worldcon reports over the years, it's that Worldcon is a massive experience full of too many things, and some are good and some are frustrating, and you will always leave it wishing it were better and wishing that you'd approached things differently, but you just have to take that all with the good, and try to push everyone to make it better the next time around.