Phosphors on Parade: Brad Torgersen weighs in on "Sad Puppies and the Future"

Sad Puppies and the future
Posted on December 27, 2015
Many people have already seen George R. R. Martin’s optimistic (and well-intended) commentary at his LiveJournal. However, just as with George’s hood ornament Alfie awards (also well-intended) there is more than one way for a thing to be perceived. My perception — and I am not alone in this — of George’s desire for an end to the rancor, is that George still seems to think that a) the rancor was flowing almost entirely one-way, from the Puppies’ side to the Trufan side, and also b) none of the Puppies are themselves fans. Not Fans (caps f) and certainly not Trufans. No. Puppies are still an outsider bunch, who carry an outsider’s stigma.

There is also a bit too much parentalism in George’s tone: dear kids, I hope you’ve learned your lesson, now wipe those dirty looks off your faces and come give your mother a hug!

As long as that’s George’s take — and he’s certainly not alone in this — then attempts at reconciliation will be difficult at best. Because as long as Puppies are deemed to be subservient, second-class citizens within the field proper, the emotion that spawned Sad Puppies, will remain. I don’t know anybody who easily accepts being a second-class citizen in her own country. Especially not after certain people within George’s beloved community — including certain individuals at George’s own publisher — moved heaven and earth to slanderously and libelously smear all Puppies indiscriminately.

Also, consider the carpet-bombing of the Hugo awards in August. And the infamous wooden asterisks — the CHORFholes.

An analysis of the post-Hugo numbers identifies a 2,500-vote block of individuals who seemed to think the best way to annihilate the infamous forces of the Kurgan — Vox Day — was to accept Vox’s challenge to play chicken. Now, I warned everybody that chicken is the Kurgan’s favorite game. But that 2,500-vote block went ahead and played the game anyway, nuking five whole categories, and cheering themselves in the process. It was their finest moment. It was also precisely what Vox Day wanted them to do, because it gives Vox his pretext for further assaults on the Hugos in future years, while also radicalizing and alienating many people who wanted nothing to do with Vox, but who did want to see justice done at the Hugo awards proper.

And the CHORFholes? A straight-up dick move, covered by a fig leaf of charity. Sorry, there’s no excusing that one. The CHORFholes were a deliberate insult, done deliberately, and there is no way possible to put enough lipstick on that pig to make anyone who received the insult — loud and clear! — believe it was not an insult. I don’t think George knew about the CHORFholes. I suspect strongly that this was David Gerrold and some snickering Trufans, being too-cute-by-half. Only, it was ugly. About as ugly as watching the annihilation of the categories, by people who think burning down a thing, is the equivalent of saving or celebrating that thing.

Is anyone else struck by the fact that we’re living out a They Might Be Giants classic?

Now, I don’t hold George R. R. Martin responsible for David Gerrold, nor the people who worked together to conduct the CHORFhole, nor do I hold George responsible for the 2,500-vote block bombing. George is on record opposing the game of chicken with the Kurgan, and he said he hated the results of the block bombing, in the editor categories specifically. (Note: George, I think I can speak for every Sad Puppy when I state that warm-blooded human beings with souls hated what happened in the editor categories.) So I don’t think George has to answer for the burner-downers.

I’ll say it again, for emphasis: I do not hold George R. R. Martin responsible for the burner-downers.

I bring all of this up, however, to demonstrate — for George, and any other onlookers — that there have been some horrendously poor decisions made on his “side” of the fracas. And until or unless some accounting is made for these horrendously poor decisions, I can’t see attempts at reconciliation — with the Sad Puppies — producing much fruit. Because almost nobody on the Sad Puppies side has ever received anything like an apology that is worth a damn. Far from it. What Sad Puppies gets, is being blamed for Rabid Puppies, and being treated like the Rabids and the Sads are no different from each other. It’s Putin bombing the Syrian opposition, to get at ISIS. Putin doesn’t give a damn because Putin only cares about Assad, just as the 2,500-member block bombers and CHORFholers only cared about “defending” the Hugos — from people who have just as much right to participation, as anyone else who’s in this field.

Many Sad Puppies find Vox Day and the Rabids to be revolting. It didn’t save any of the Sad Puppies from being treated as synonymous with the Rabids — which is (again) exactly what Vox wanted. And, to be truthful, it’s what many CHORFs wanted too. As long as the CHORFs don’t have to reckon with Sad Puppies honestly — as long as Vox gives the CHORFs an excuse to be zealously hateful toward all things even remotely canine — the CHORFs will happily use that excuse, and hate with a clear conscience.

Knowing what I know about the personalities behind the CHORFholes and the block-bombing, they will never, ever regard any of it as a mistake, because for them, it’s been blood sport from day one. All is fair in love and war, and for the block-bombers and CHORFholers, this was absolutely a war. Before, it was a cold war — when they could treat the not-quite-good-enough-fans like shit, and nobody said or did much about it. Sad Puppies became an exercise in second-class citizenry demanding full participation and recognition, which caused the block-bombers — and the CHORFs, with their crybully accomplices — to launch not just a wide media slander campaign, but a deliberate destruction of the Hugos proper; in direct violation of their own stated principles. Remember how many people were so upset at Sad Puppies, because Sad Puppies was supposedly a block vote, and block votes are bad?

So, while I respect George’s sentiment — I truly do think his heart is in the right place — I think George still isn’t recognizing the full scope and nature of what’s gone on, and how what’s gone on has its roots in the deeper divisions which trace back through fandom and science fiction publishing for decades. This isn’t a fight that manifested from nothing. 2015 was all of that shit — years and years of it — boiling to the surface, and it was ugly, and a giant amount of that ugliness was on the Trufan side, and now that the block-bombers have given Vox Day his pretext for an all-out assault on the Hugos, I suspect what’s going to happen is that Vox will keep fucking with the Hugos — regardless of what anyone says or thinks — until Worldcon literally has to shut off the faucet. Make the Hugo a juried award, or at least cordoned off from direct public participation — voters being screened and vetted. Because it’s obvious (at this point) that the defenders of Hugo propriety do not want everyone being able to have a say. Too much of the “wrong” people, and the village will get burned down; so as to save the village.

I don’t know how bridges get built from here. Most of the CHORFs and the crybullies will hate Larry Correia and myself forever. I knew in April that for me specifically, there would never be any kind of going back. I was, and would forever be, an outlaw in the minds of the CHORFs and the crybullies. And since the CHORFs and crybullies occupy numerous seats of prestige and influence within the SF/F establishment, this would relegate me to the role of desperado — forever riding the fences. I can get away with it because, as I told one critic, my career path doesn’t depend on me bending my knee to the SF/F establishment. That’s a big reason why I knew I was a good pick for running Sad Puppies 3 in the first place.

But the future of Sad Puppies isn’t in my hands. It’s not mine to say.

I will, however, hypothesize.

I suspect that in order for a genuine mending to take place, between your average Sad Puppy, and the SF/F establishment, there would need to be several things.

1) A very public admission by the establishment that the NO AWARD bombing of the 2015 Hugos was a gross error.

2) A very public admission by the establishment that the CHORFholes were also a gross error.

3) A very public apology from the establishment, for the deliberate conflation of the Sads, with the Rabids.

4) A cessation of the endless game of shibboleths and street cred checks, on the part of Trufans, as conducted against everybody else (looks hard at Steve Davidson.)

Frankly, I think the chances are slim to none that any of this could come to pass. And while some Sad Puppies might be wooed by enticements and promises of amnesty — we saw this leverage playing out over the summer — most Sad Puppies are not in the mood. They are, if I put my finger to the wind, quietly determined. And this is not a hot thing. It’s the old, tired sentiment of a people too long ignored, spurned, neglected, overlooked, even mocked and derided, who played by the rules in full view of the arena — so as to have their place in the sun — and were shut out and shouted down, by an establishment that pretended (falsely) that it was the afflicted party in the whole affair.

Meanwhile, I fully expect the quiet manipulators of Hugos past, to double down on that manipulation. I suspect the behind-closed-door games are going to be hotter and heavier than ever before. Now that they know there is competition from a competent body of people. I also expect the crybullies will continue framing the Hugos as part of their larger culture war — the Hugos are exactly that at this point, no question — which means they will have to attack future iterations of Sad Puppies, regardless of who is running the store. (aside: can the crybullies bring themselves to admit that women are running Sad Puppies 4? That’s a bit like asking zealous Democrats to admit there are black Republicans.)

I suppose it’s always possible that people just mutter to themselves, reach a hand over the fence, and hope somebody takes it — sans joy buzzer. This would require a kind of across-the-aisle, deliberate amnesia. A mass forgetting: that what has happened, has not happened. There may be a few willing to do it. But my finger to the wind (again) tells me that the Sad Puppies are not in a mood for forgetting. On the contrary. There is memory here — like wormsign! — the likes of which even God has never seen.

You can find the original post and ensuing comments here: