Irreverent Humor: Making fun of Puppygate (seriously how can you not?) and work humor

[shadowkat]

[Italics are from a recent post on GRR Martin's journal. Although I saw the Sad Puppies make these comments on various media sites today. They are attempting to distance themselves from the Rapid Puppies. All claiming they aren't racist, misogynistic, or hateful, and how dare anyone say so! Seriously? You are calling yourselves Sad Puppies and whining about minority and female writers who write about gender issues and racism getting all the awards, and how evil affirmative action is - because you feel it discriminates against white heterosexual men? Oh, and bullying people in social media, calling people names, and making threats. And you can't figure out why folks think you are misogynistic and racist? And are angry at you? Alrighty then. Although I'd go more with clueless, bigoted, entitled, and sexist...but that's just me. Sigh, you are giving traditionalists, libertarians and conservatives a bad name.]

Brad Torgensen has added a post to his blog: "Sad Puppies: We Are Not Rabid Puppies."

LMAO. Okay let's think about this statement. No, but you are both certifiably insane and giving the sci-fi fandom a bad rep. As if it needed the help. I mean people there's a reason science fiction rarely gets an award outside of the science fiction fandom. And why most academics and literary sorts tend to look down their noses at the genre as "pulp". It's basically folks like Brad Torgensen.

They should just call themselves - Sci-Fi Back to Dime Store Pulp! (And hopefully only charge 10 cents for it. Heck, I'd read a book about Captain Blowhard and his Green Boobed Babes for 10 cents. I read 50 Shades of Grey. Same difference. I like pulp.)

Larry Correia has also spoken up on MONSTER HUNTER NATION: "I Am Not Vox Day."

No, apparently they think they are FDR and Churchill who accidentally fell in with Stalin. (I beg differ, sounds more like Beavis and Butthead who fell in with Pinky and the Brain.) You can tell these guys are narcissists.

I commend them both for making the distinction so loudly and clearly. And I accept what they say. The Sad Puppies are not Rabid Puppies.

LOL. Can we just call them Sick Puppies? Or I know the Puppies Who Like Pulp. Notice how they aren't cats? There's a reason for that.

Larry Correia is not Vox Day.

No, he's apparently a Sad Puppy? I thought he was a man? Silly me.

I regret anything I might have done or said that blurred the line, or created a false impression that all Puppies were the same. (Admittedly, having 'Puppies' in the name of both slates does foster confusion). I am glad you set that straight.

Yes, in the future you might want to go by Beavis and Butthead, although that would be copyright infringement. So...hmmm how about... The Sad Knobs. (Actually that one's good - a knob is apparently British slang for well a penis.)

Sounds like we need to save the Sad Puppies from the Rabid Puppies? Maybe we should man a kitty-cat brigade and rescue them from the clutches of the rapid puppies?

This reminds me of work humor.

An email went out yesterday at work:

"Please advise of the whereabouts of my cactus. It went missing from my desk when I was on vacation."

Coworker1: Someone took her cactus?
ME: Why would anyone take a cactus? (Oh just wait, this going viral soon.)
Coworker 2: SMH!!
Coworker 3: Cockroaches ate it. (He provides a picture of cockroaches, named and labeled.)
Coworker 4: We have your cactus, and unless you provide us with a dollar a day, we will take one thorn off at a time. (ME: Well that didn't take long.)
Coworker 5: Wanted dead or alive, a cactus! [Makes a poster with the Cactus] Reward for information on the whereabouts of said cactus!
Person missing cactus: (Sends a photo of the cactus.)
Coworker 5: Oh we can do regression aging and see what it looks like when it was last seen.
Coworker 6: I can give information in return for cookies!
Person with missing Cactus: I Have Cookies, Just let me know if it is alive! [She makes a poster with pictures of the cookies.]
Coworker 7: Maybe someone is sitting on it?
Coworker 4: Maybe it's in the garbage.

It's sad though, this was a special cactus, that she brought with her from another land and raised slowly. I felt for her. They did too. They apologized. But it's also hilariously absurd. And she joined in on the joke.

Comments

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Well of course, just because they want the same thing, campaign on the same premises, use the same arguments and consider the same goal a success, doesn't mean they're remotely similar...

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

LOL! Exactly.

I still love the comparison that Brad Torgensen makes in a post to WWII. "We're just FDR and Churchill who got in league with Stalin. You can't hold that against us."

In short, "we only combined forces with the Rapid Puppies to get our end. So, you know the means justify the ends and all that, it's totally okay...you really can't hold that against us. People do that all the time. It's not our fault they are rabid and making death threats online. That's not us."

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Plus, of course, it paints their opponents as Hitler. Which is completely reasonable when your supposed main complaint is "They write books that are different from the books I like!"

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

The whole thing is so juvenile and immature.

Which is why, it feels absurd. Why would anyone waste their time and energy stuffing a ballot box for the Hugo Awards? What does that accomplish? It's not like there aren't other science fiction and fantasy awards, with better voting rules. So, all they've done is pointed out to the people in charge, assuming anyone is in charge, that there may be a flaw in how the awards are nominated and some changes need to be made. And to those of us who were just using the awards to find quality science fiction and fantasy - to look elsewhere, taking away the marketing power of the awards. (I mean if I wanted to read fun pulp fiction, I could find that on my own - don't need the Hugos. Or just look at the best-seller list for that matter. Giving Jim Butcher a Hugo, is a bit like giving James Patterson an Edgar or for that matter Fifty Shades of Grey a RITA or The Avengers an Oscar - it's silly. Nor do they need it. They are best-sellers. Their readership could care less about the Hugos.

So, if you do that, no one will take your awards seriously. )

Both of which appear to be counter-productive to their aim. It's stupid and juvenile.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure a lot of them actually believed in their own bullshit about there being a vast conspiracy of communists, feminists and people who like (spit) literature who deliberately voted to keep proper SF out, and now they're as surprised as everyone else that it only took a couple of hundred votes to sweep the whole thing. They wanted to expose a conspiracy, and when it turned out to not exist, they only exposed themselves.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

So now, they look a bit crazy and paranoid. Not to mention whiny and clueless. Although they did manage to jolt the sci-fi fandom into participating more in the Hugos and Worldcon. Since this happened, more people have joined. (Heck, I was sort of tempted. But alas no time.)

It really was just popular opinion. Note - Anne Leckie's Ancillary Sword was still nominated. She was the winner that they took exception to last year. And according to sales, she's the most widely read next to Jim Butcher. Also has a lot of positive reviews.

And look at GRR Martin and Neil Gaiman, huge winners and big time sellers.

They'd have a case -- if it was little known works that got nominated. But that's not the case. Or works that have only won a Hugo, also not the case.

And the claim that space opera, swashbuckling sci-fi, or action oriented sci-fi is no longer getting the acclaim it deserves is blatantly untrue and sort of silly. Orson Scott Card (who is a bit nuts himself) is still popular and recently had Ender's Game made into a movie (granted people boycotted because of the man's insane homophobia, making me think he needs to seek psychiatric counseling). The J.A. Corey Expanse series is space opera, swashbuckler sci-fi. And it got nominated in recent years.

Anyone who reads a vast range of sci-fantasy, knows this. I think that's why GRR Martin and David Gerrold spoke out about it with such fury, along with John Scalzi - all of which have written the space opera/swashbuckling fantasy/sci-fi novels or read them. I'm amused by the people who have stayed silent. Not a beep from Gaiman, wise man. He got into the fray last year...over something or other. And Jim Butcher - has remained notably quiet, which I also think is probably wise.

Yeah, there's a segment of the fandom that has taken "political correctness" to anal extremes (but they are in the minority and in every fandom) - ex. Requires Hate.
Just as there's the other extreme faction - the Sad Rabid Puppies, who think they are being disenfranchised (and think their political views should hold sway and books pushing their political agenda should be furthered.). But most people fall in between and just like to read sci-fi. There's no political agenda to speak of in Jim Butcher's book, and from what I've heard, none in The Goblin Emperor. [ETA: I don't know about Anne Leckie's and John C Wright - appears to have one in his works, although according to the reviews isn't adept enough a writer to make it workable or interesting. He's a bit right of Orson Scott Card, or so I've read.]

They've made something that wasn't a political battle into one - to the annoyance of many of the people they nominated, who have since declined. Because they didn't want any part of it.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Ann Leckie's first novel was really good, and IMO deserved all the awards it got; I assume this one can't be much worse. Of course, the Puppies are guaranteed to hate it, since it features a narrator who (being an AI) is gender-neutral, doesn't understand the difference between men and women, and always defaults to using "she" as pronoun regarding of who she's talking about. Which, of course, is just more feminist propaganda designed to ruin REAL SF.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I found her one sentence response to their complaint rather funny. Which was basically that she didn't care what they thought - she was focusing on her fans, and her sales and her next book. And she was doing fine, writing what she wrote. They didn't have to read it.

I've been flirting with Ancillary Justice for some time now. Adore the concept of a genderless spaceship/AI becoming self-aware and a person. I'll probably get it and read it after I read Goblin Emperor. Ancillary Justice won last year. So I sort of would like one that hasn't won - to win this year. And there are three that look interesting - Goblin Emperor (I'll let you know what I think of it, it's gotten mixed reviews. Co-worker and GRRM were sort of lukewarm about it, but several people on my flist liked it quite a bit. ) and the one by the Chinese novelist entitled The Three Body Solution, I think. Need to look it up. It looks intriguing and different.

From what I can tell - the Sad Puppies/Rabid Puppies banded together over the gender issue. This isn't about racism or really feminism per se. But the idea that there is a spectrum in regards to gender and human sexuality. They really can't deal with the idea that there are people out there that are not definitively male or female, or heterosexual. The idea of transgender, same-sex marriage, or bisexuality bothers them - it seems to eat away at some core belief or standard. And they freak out.
Which is what I've found interesting in the responses - GRRM, Scalzi, EW, and various media journalists...haven't really hit upon what they were upset about.
They call them misogynists and racists. When in reality, I think, they are just really really homophobic. I mean they can't handle it. It's not really about religion either. People use religion to excuse their homophobia. But if they actually read the religious texts, they'd note it's not consistently or actually against homosexuality.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

The weird thing is, you'd think SF as a genre would leap upon the idea of sex and gender fluidity with gusto. Thousands upon thousands of novels, movies and TV series exploring the divide between human and alien, biological and technological, good and evil, god and science... this is what the genre DOES. But no, apparently that one thing makes far less sense than faster-than-light travel...

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

I kept puzzling over the same thing. I think a lot of these guys are techno-nerds. They like the advanced technology, but not the biological bits. (ie. They love Asimov's take on Robots...or even the whole Terminator franchise, but the idea of gender or anthropological/sociological science fiction leaves them sputtering.)

It's almost as if they have a knee-jerk emotional reaction to anything that delves into an exploration of sociological, anthropological, biological, or sexuality which isn't well boilerplate or traditionally based? Not sure why. I know a lot of hard core sci-fi fans did not like Maria Doria Russell's The Sparrow and The Children of God - which played with religion and cultural anthropology. But was far less interested in hard science or technology. She sort of skimps on that, which annoyed a friend of mine. And Sherry Tepper more or less did the same thing with her Hugo nominated novel "Grass" - which explored sexuality and had some heavy political themes.

And, I agree, science fiction and fantasy is the perfect place to explore all that. I certainly have done it when I wrote science fiction (nothing published), and its why I read science fiction and fantasy - to explore those ideas and concepts. Actually, arguably Heinlein explored it a little bit (Cat Who Walks Through Walls) as did Ann McCaffrey (Ship Who Sang), albeit not necessarily well. And Ursula Le Quinn certainly did, as has CJ Cherryth (sp?). It's not like people haven't been exploring it before now, as GRRM pointed out.

Also, really good art is supposed to be uncomfortable -- it's not supposed to be fluff.