Sad Puppies, Rabid Puppies and Vox Day's Very, Very Bad Day

 Come with me back to the thrilling days of yesteryear -- 2015, and the culmination of the Puppies' war on the Hugo Award for Outstanding Science Fiction!

In the early 2010s, a bunch of aggrieved SF conservatives decided the reason they weren't winning awards was that some sneaky cabal of left-wingers behind the scenes was gaming the system.  Why were liberals and lefties and women (O my!) winning the awards?  Because they were somehow cheating!  Had to be!  Something must be done!

These unhappy people even named themselves the Sad Puppies.

For three years, the Sad Puppies tried to push a chosen slate into the nomination list.  It was an unprecedented attempt to make the Hugos about a political viewpoint, rather than the quality of the nominees.  They weren't doing all that well until a guy named "Vox Day" created a new group.  The RABID Puppies.  (I swear,  I am not making this up.)  

Here's "Vox," whose real name is Beale, not foaming at the mouth at all.

In 2015, the Rabid Puppies managed to buy enough supporting memberships to the World Science Fiction Convention to put outrageously unqualified nominations on the ballot -- just to teach those mean ol' liberals a lesson.  One nominee was actually called " Space Raptor Butt Invasion. " And in reaction, a lot of people in science-fiction fandom pushed in a list of "no award' winners, rather than reward the Puppies' nominees for starting such a stupid battle.    

And the names people were calling each other were almost good enough to make it worthwhile.  Such as CHORFs, or “Cliquish, Holier-than-thou, Obnoxious, Reactionary Fanatics,” and the HPPC or “Hyper-Progressive Pissypants Club.”

The toastmasters that year were David Gerrold, who is gay, and Tananarive Due, a Black woman.  They handled the awards well, but, as one commentary noted, seemed embarrassed each time "no award" won.  The general consensus, though, was that the Puppies got scolded pretty badly.

Well, Theodore Beale --sorry, Vox Day-- is still out there.  And recently, he put together a million in funding to launch a new movie, starring "The Rebel," a right-wing super-hero who fights for conservatism and against mean ol' America-hating liberals.

And, oops, someone appears to have stolen all the money.  And it's not coming back. There's a federal indictment but the money is gone, gone, gone.  As if a puppy had widdled all over it.

This is akin to "Gamergate," "Comicsgate" and other attempts to attack art forms based on a presumption of what their narratives should be.   The reality is nobody wins.

What do you think of these culture wars?  Should we make peace?  Or pieces?

  AlextheKay likes that "New Wave" stuff!