It happened on the hate website, File 770 this weekend. Former Hugo Award Administrator John Lorentz stated “the rules were changed with the specific intention of making it harder for ‘those people’ to be on the ballot. That’s political.”
This marks one of the first times we’ve seen a person who’s been associated with the Hugo Awards/Worldcon admit political discrimination against conservative/libertarian authors. Even he understands this is a dangerous game for the SJWs in fandom depersoning conservatives and libertarians by use of his scare quotes on “those people.”
For those who aren’t familiar with the situation, a group of such authors made awards recommendations for 2013-2016. Those authors were wildly successful in their achieving nominations and had the stated intention of making their slates because recent nominees/winners had been riddled with toxic identity politics, and not actually the stories most people in fandom loved. The in-crowd at worldcon was so riddled with identity politics for their extreme left causes that they nearly rioted in 2015, ensuring no one received awards rather than their chosen.
This group has become so insular in their identity politics game that they’ve ostracized half the country intentionally. They banned known conservative blogger Dave Truesdale for his commentary at a panel he was speaking on when he warned political correctness was killing the industry, and they most famously pre-banned your favorite humble Hispanic author/journalist (me) in an effort to drive a further political wedge into who is welcome at the convention.
Worldcon also released their panel line up for this year’s convention over the weekend. The line up is riddled with extreme left identity politics on a level I’ve never seen at a convention before, sapping all of the fun out of the convention, and making it worthless for professional writers who are intending on learning the craft or furthering business. Even authors like John Scalzi, known harasser of conservative authors, is scratching his head at how the panels were chosen, posting to twitter in confusion.
The most ironic piece of this thought, is Worldcon has a panel dedicated to Geek Identity, Policing, and Gatekeeping. The panel is billed as a “how do we put a stop to tribal behaviors”, but the panelists chosen is solely comprised of angry extreme alt-left internet trolls who comment on File 770. Oh to be able to be in that room and hear what they have to say on the matter! Of course… I was gatekept out by them and their friends.
The political problems in establishment fandom is absolutely staggering. One thing is clear: it’s probably not safe for a known conservative to even be at Worldcon 2018. If you’re one privatley, bring a friend, never be alone, and be careful who you talk to because they might accuse you of harassment for saying “hi.”
Despite Worldcon’s attempt to Gatekeep me out of the industry because of my political commentary, my novella Knight Training was a #1 Amazon Bestseller last week. Readers don’t care, and they’re flocking to fun people who write fun stories. Which is the real reason these folk are doing everything in their power to deplatform and hold our movement down. You can read Knight Training here. Every sale and every review makes an SJW gatekeeper cry.
What did John Scalzi THINK was going to happen? He brought a PENIS to WorldCon!
Jon, you make it really difficult to check your sources and verify your claims.
Ok?
Leads to a level of distrust in your “journalism”. Especially when one finds out that a particular claim is misleading, such as in this case, when it’s not an admission of organization fault, but rather an individual’s opinion.
No it doesn’t. My blog has steady growth. I also don’t get paid to do this so if you want to contribute funds to it so I can spend more time on it you’re welcome to do so.
A public website’s comments are hard to verify?
Poor John Scalzi! But how did he not see this coming? Did he think the mob going after ‘straight white men’ would make an exception for him?
The only chance for the poor fellow now is to come out as ‘genderqueer’ (after all, if ‘Foz’ Meadows can market herself that way while being a perfectly conventional suburban wife and mother, then anyone can) and make up some silly pronouns. Or he could come over to the dark side and become one of ‘those people’…
The panel on geek gatekeeping is still all nasty white people. Naughty naughty.
I wonder how deep the rabbot hole of SJWS will go when Worldcon comes back to USA?
I think the SWJs will start eating their own.