Hugo Ceremony Hot Takes
Ok, time for bleary hot takes on a ceremony I have not yet watched (nor do I intend to)!
— T Ash (@crewgrrl) August 2, 2020
I warn you that the movers for the boat have been here and our house is... odd and I am exhausted. You may need more than just a grain of salt.
So, GRRM done fucked up and made it All About Him, the shanda fer der goyim was allowed to talk and also there were tech issues up the fucking wazoo. This is the summary I have gleaned from the Internet.
— T Ash (@crewgrrl) August 2, 2020
I hate to say this about the team that was hit with a pandemic, but y’all ASKED that man to host this ceremony. I have little sympathy for the results you got. You broke it, you bought it, and no amount of watered down non apologies will fix that.
— T Ash (@crewgrrl) August 2, 2020
Especially considering the debacle that was last year’s Loser’s Party, y’all should have known better.
— T Ash (@crewgrrl) August 2, 2020
You invite a Big White Name to host, you get what you pay for.
And this year, we all got the bill.
You wanted a White Dude with name recognition? At least pick one who did a shitload for the NZ economy. I bet Peter Jackson would have been thrilled.
— T Ash (@crewgrrl) August 2, 2020
Now, as to the entire lack of NZ content. That’s on the ceremony planning team.
I understand that the pivot to virtual age everyone’s spoons, I really do. But was there going to be any indigenous content in the original ceremony as planned?
— T Ash (@crewgrrl) August 2, 2020
Remember, a bid is seated 2 years before it runs the convention. That means you have 2 years to plan.
*Ate. Fuck you autocarrot, I know what I want to say.
— T Ash (@crewgrrl) August 2, 2020
The fact that there was no recorded local content tells me that none had been planned. Which is damn shame. One of the things that “puts the world in Worldcon,” as us North American fans are often yelled at for not doing, is celebrating the host culture.
— T Ash (@crewgrrl) August 2, 2020
@Dublin2019 was excellent in this regard. One of the hosts is an Irish author, and there was a wonderful amount of Irish programming (as well as signage in Gaelic, etc).
— T Ash (@crewgrrl) August 2, 2020
Again, I understand that the pandemic crashed all initial plans.
Some of this is on the CoNZealand concom. They made very specific choices when they picked the Hugo Toastmaster. Those choices have consequences, as played out in this mess.
— T Ash (@crewgrrl) August 2, 2020
And it’s not like GRRM is an unknown quantity. This is a man who BLAMED THE HUGO LOSERS in public.
A group of people who already had to suffer disappointment, and who his negligence left outside on the chilly Dublin streets in their formalwear. And he decided it was the losers who were in the wrong.
— T Ash (@crewgrrl) August 2, 2020
That should have told y’all something. And you decided to ignore it.
So once you knew who you had, you could have given him a script, or even time limits. But y’all chose not to. And that is ON YOU. So is including Mr. Shanda Bob himself, the year AFTER a speech castigating the old racist fascists WAS ON THE BLOODY BALLOT.
— T Ash (@crewgrrl) August 2, 2020
OK, done blaming the people who could have done something about the ceremony content and programming.
— T Ash (@crewgrrl) August 2, 2020
Next I’m going to blame MORE people! Isn’t this fun!
So, the tech issues.
— T Ash (@crewgrrl) August 2, 2020
Some of this was inevitable. Autocaptioning sucks (proved that in Dublin), humans have variable levels of tech skill and access at home, not everyone could get a decent pre-recorded speech out, etc. Most of that can be laid squarely at the feet of COVID-19.
But from start to finish, the finalists were given short shrift. The comms team was perpetually late getting in touch with them, various finalists failed to get emails at different stages of this process. It was a shitshow.
— T Ash (@crewgrrl) August 2, 2020
When you are given video ahead of time and do not test how it streams, THAT IS ON YOU.
— T Ash (@crewgrrl) August 2, 2020
When you do not double check your pre-recorded host’s pronounciation of the finalists’ names, THAT IS ON YOU.
Some of the mistakes were unavoidable. Many were not.
It’s amazing that I can glean all of this from Twitter and those who watched the stream without having had to watch it myself.
— T Ash (@crewgrrl) August 2, 2020
It’s painful that what should be the night to shine a light on this year’s best and brightest stars became a sea of fail.
Everyone’s anger is justified. The rage is legitimate.
— T Ash (@crewgrrl) August 2, 2020
Other people (esp. those directly affected by the racism, sexism, etc.) have already spoken and you should listen to those voices. @GeekMelange, @snarkbat, the entire @fiyahlitmag team are good places to start.
I don’t actually think the solution is to scrap the Hugos or to somehow pry them away from Worldcon. (For the first, it’s way easier to change an extant thing than to start a new one from scratch, for the second they’re inextricably constitutionally linked, good luck with that).
— T Ash (@crewgrrl) August 2, 2020
I think it’s time for those of us with more power to buckle down, do the work, and uplift voices of those with less to make sure they have an equal say and place at the table. It’s up to us to make the table LESS SHITTY. I’m doing my best to make change. I hope you’ll join me.
— T Ash (@crewgrrl) August 2, 2020