Quote:
Originally Posted by DiapDealer
Of course we understand cliques and how they operate. Many of us just don't view it as WorldCon being run by a "clique." It's just the current natural trend. It may stay the same for while, and it may change again. It's one thing to not like the current trend. It's another to say the old trend was perfectly fine while this new one is being driven by a cabal that's plotting to keep the old school SFF shunned and downtrodden. There's no "rightful order" that's being repressed or that needs to be restored.
And it's not as if you're exactly open to opinions that differ from your own either.  |
That is, of course, a strawman. No one is claiming a cabal. A cabal is different from a clique. A cabal manipulates behind the scene, a clique simply exists and generally engages in groupthink. In this case, they complain about other groups doing formally what they have been doing informally. An example -
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N.K. Jemisin’s third Hugo win for The Stone Sky last year made her the first person to win three consecutive Hugos. But that almost didn’t happen. Anyone who’s read The Broken Earth Trilogy knows these books are some of the best SFF written. Ever.
Yet in 2015, a white supremacist gamergate faction calling themselves the sad puppies (and also later the rabid puppies) decided that books with social themes (like Jemisin’s) were taking over SFF awards, and they would put a stop to it. Alex Acks gives an excellent analysis of the mess, but essentially, the sad puppies lost because SFF fans didn’t let them take over the Hugo Awards, and some of the rules changed. Fans became voting members in record numbers and voted the racists out.
But now is not the time to rest on our Jemisin laurels. If you want to read diverse and imaginative SFF, see diverse authors honored for their excellent work, and subvert racist schemes, then buy a membership and vote (if you’re financially able).
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So basically, the small group of people who either attend Worldcon every year, or buy voting memberships every year (remember, you can only nominate if you had a membership by the start of the calendar year or went to the previous Worldcon) nominate their favorite authors and the same authors get nominated year after year. That's pretty much the definition of a clique. The overall number of voters in 2017 was 2339 voters. In 2015, the year of the sad puppy controversy, there were some 2122 nominating ballots and 5950 votes. So nominated works tend to get a few hundred first place votes, some years the number of nominating ballots is down in the 1000 range.
The people who nominate Hugos are a very small subset of SF&F fans for who the Hugo is an important part of their life. Most people who attend a Worldcon don't even know they can vote for Hugos. I attended the Atlanta Worldcon (1986 Hugos) and certainly no one mentioned voting to me.