Television’s Jeopardy! game show, in the episode aired December 9, rewarded a contestant with $800 for recognizing that “Puppygate was a 2015 scandal” that rocked the Hugo Awards.
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I note that once again, someone has the mistaken impression that the Hugo Awards are about the authors, rather than about the works.
<sigh>
So I dreamed Brian Z. was on Jeopardy and the Final Jeopardy question was about EPH and he bet everything, but his answer was…idiosyncratic. Okay, I didn’t dream that yet, but tonight is probably the night. I have a feeling.
Also, man, the comment box is all wacky.
I saw this on Jeopardy! this evening; the question was answered correctly. I haven’t seen any references to Lovecraftgate, though.
“Puppygate” – bah!
Man, he didn’t even hesitate.
I don’t want us to be that famous for this sort of thing. 🙁
ULTRAGOTHA: I don’t want us to be that famous for this sort of thing. 🙁
I’m not keen on the Hugos being noteworthy for the Puppy crap. But I don’t think it’s a question of “us”, it’s the Puppies and what they’re trying to do to the Hugos. 😐
They might just know the Hugos are the most likely of the SF awards, being one of the best known. (sad though that this is the optimistic interpretation.)
It’s the authors, editors, artists, etc. who actually receive the awards the works get, so it’s a distinction that doesn’t matter that much to people outside the subculture. There’s no point in worrying about that.
And I’m okay with the Puppies being famous for making a scandal.
It made made me stop the TiVo and take a picture of the answer, but having done that, I realized I have no one who’d I’d want to share it with.
It also made me remember Eliot Shorter (or was it Faye Ringel?), Who were the first I knew who’d been on Jeopardy
You’ll know your position has been established when the Answer is CHORFS.
Lis Carey: It’s the authors, editors, artists, etc. who actually receive the awards the works get, so it’s a distinction that doesn’t matter that much to people outside the subculture. There’s no point in worrying about that.
The only reason I think it is a problem is because when asked “Please talk about what it is you love about this novel/story and why you think it’s Hugo-worthy” the usual Puppy response was: “The author is wildly popular / has sold hundreds of thousands of books! He deserves a Hugo!”
@Lis,
Up to a point. Although the question would have been more accurate and just as understandable to people outside the subculture if it had said “these awards for science fiction”.
JJ and Andyl, there’s nothing we can do about how the Puppies talk about the Hugos, and in the end, there’s no point in worrying about it. Hopefully EPH will adequately limit the damage they can do. If it doesn’t, after a reasonable trial, we find some other method.
We also can’t control how people unrelated to all this talk about the Hugos, beyond politely explaining any errors when we have the chance to do so. If it’s trademark/service mark related, the Mark Protection Committee can send them a letter, and take whatever stronger steps are appropriate.
But casual verbal shorthand affecting nothing critical, on a game show? Yes, I know it’s Jeopardy! It’s still just a game show, and they’re concerned about making the questions/answers concise and reasonably clear to an audience that is mostly Not Us. What to us are important distinctions are to them fussy details.
Also, note time. The importance of this being an unimportant detail in context may be somewhat exaggerated in my mind due to failure to sleep adequately. So there’s that.
I’m waiting to see who the Puppies blame this time for the mainstream attention.
@Teresa: I’ll take the hit. I haven’t had a turn.
@Teresa – Clearly Tor’s secret cabal visited Alex Trebec in the night!
…Which in my head looks a lot like that X-files episode with Jesse Ventura.
“The object most often mistaken for a Hugo Award is the planet Venus.”
From my experience, Jeopardy tapes about four months before the shows air, which means this question may have been recorded as early as the middle of August.
It’s not uncommon to see a Jeopardy clue dealing with someone we know.
This is the first time that I’ve seen a questions about something we personally had to deal with. (It really seems like the contestant should have to split the $800 with the Hugo Administrators…)
By the way, be sure to carefully watch all the episodes of the upcoming season of the Hugo-winning series, Orphan Black. (I won’t say anything more than that.)
Jim Henley —
Does that mean you were also responsible for them having an entire category of questions about Hamilton-the-musical? Good going!
@RedWombat
@Teresa – Clearly Tor’s secret cabal visited Alex Trebec in the night!
So, it’s a Canajian thing then.
Is the question: “What are nefarious press-releases?” 🙂
I’m waiting to see who the Puppies blame this time for the mainstream attention.
Probably you! 🙂
@Teresa: Let’s go with that!
@John Lorentz,
!!!
Can I just again say that we need to come up with a new way of identifying scandals other than attaching -gate to some key word? I admit that I love Watergate as much as any other lefty who was alive in the 70s, but couldn’t creative people come up with other scandals to make portmanteaus out of?
@Jack Lint: “-ghazi” is the other suffix of choice, but I’m not sure it really works here. “Hu-ghazi?” Hm, maybe. Puppyghazi just doesn’t sing.
Other countries have cool scandals – nobody can touch the Brits for sexual corruption – but they completely fall down when it comes to naming them.
‘The Profumo Affair’ just named itself – and really, the US can’t just keep naming scandals after the same hotel. What if those guys had burgled the Hilton?
@Camestros: Be serious. “Hiltongate” wouldn’t make any sense at all.
I admit that I love Watergate as much as any other lefty who was alive in the 70s, but couldn’t creative people come up with other scandals to make portmanteaus out of?
Plus, it seems that adding -gate to every scandal was something that Bill Safire did, at least in part, to try to downplay the importance of Watergate.
“By the way, be sure to carefully watch all the episodes of the upcoming season of the Hugo-winning series, Orphan Black. (I won’t say anything more than that.)”
What? WHAT!?
(I mean, I already do – mainly to figure out if it’s really Allison, or is it Sarah pretending to be Cosima pretending to be Alison – but come on,…)
John Lorentz: By the way, be sure to carefully watch all the episodes of the upcoming season of the Hugo-winning series, Orphan Black. (I won’t say anything more than that.)
Oh, that’s just cruel.
I’m just waiting for a scandal that actually involves water.
“I’m just waiting for a scandal that actually involves water.”
Kevin’s Gate?
Camestros Felapton: I’m just waiting for a scandal that actually involves water.
Soon Lee: Kevin’s Gate?
Was that a scandal, or just a travesty? 😉
“I’m just waiting for a scandal that actually involves water.”
In the UK, there was the one about Dasani (I think) selling tap-water in bottles. However, searching for “dasani gate” gives me a link to a book called Lady Dasani’s Debt: The Shadow Gate Trilogy Vol. I. I suspect that’s unrelated, though I haven’t read it.
Searching for “dasanigate” (all one word) gives me a couple of relevant hits, but the term doesn’t seem to be widespread. Searching for “watergate dasani” does reveal that at least one person thought the scandal should have been called watergate. I tend to agree. 😉
@Jack Lint
Can I just again say that we need to come up with a new way of identifying scandals other than attaching -gate to some key word? I admit that I love Watergate as much as any other lefty who was alive in the 70s, but couldn’t creative people come up with other scandals to make portmanteaus out of?
Yeah, I can but all of them also have -gate attached to them already
I do think that Hu-ghazi and The Pro-Hugo Affair both have a certain ring to them.
My default scandal is The Teapot Dome Scandal and just because there’s a hint of a teapot involved. So if you could work tea into the equation that would be a bonus.
If we must stick to Nixon, then we could attach -checkers to everything. Puppycheckers for example is historically accurate and sounds a bit like Puppykickers without the mental image of violence to puppies.
The problem with the “-ghazi” suffix is that it refers to a fake, trumped-up nonscandal.
The problem with the “-gate” suffix is that it has already been added to many fake, trumped-up nonscandals for, well, obscure reasons.
I don’t think it’s actually helpful to associate the Puppykerfuffle with framed-up pseudoscandals.
Well, I’m certainly not going to invest any of my time or money in a puppykerfuffle. I did that this year and won’t do it again. The Hugo simply isn’t worth it.
@Jack Lint
If we must stick to Nixon, then we could attach -checkers to everything. Puppycheckers for example is historically accurate and sounds a bit like Puppykickers without the mental image of violence to puppies.
Sorry, but Puppycheckers sounds too much like a sad and vicious hockey game, involving science fiction writers with partial dentures and twisted scars slamming cute dogs into the boards at the arena. Was Gump Worsley ever published in F&SF?
Gump Worsley should be an Alfred Bester character as he was a goalie who played without a mask* and one of the teams he played for was the Minnesota North Stars**
* The Demolished Man
** The Stars My Destination
RM: Well, I’m certainly not going to invest any of my time or money in a puppykerfuffle. I did that this year and won’t do it again. The Hugo simply isn’t worth it.
If you consider your time and money as being “invested in a puppykerfuffle” rather than invested in the Hugo Awards program, then no, I’d say the Hugo Awards are not your thing. Those of us who feel that the Hugo Awards are worth our time and money regardless of whether Puppies are involved will carry on.
@JJ: Exactly. I’ve been voting for the Hugos and going to Worldcons since Puppies were in doggie diapers, so I still do.
(Not much of an exaggeration: a Wiki check reveals I went to my first Worldcon and Hugo Ceremony when Bwad was 7 and thus still reading picture books. He was literally still in diapers when I went to my first con.)
lurkertype: I went to my first Worldcon and Hugo Ceremony when Bwad was 7 and thus still reading picture books
You are perhaps making unwarranted, overly-generous assumptions about another person’s aptitude.
@lurkertype:
Many of the people in my family were still in diapers when they went to their first cons as well.
ETA: Come to think of it, one’s first was a World Science Fiction Convention and one’s was a World Fantasy Convention.
British system appears to be tagging “Affair” onto the end of things, including things which do not involve sexual affairs, at least when we’re not stealing “-gate” or just, um, naming things (like “Cash for Honours”). Occasionally just to shake it up a bit “Scandal” is used instead of “Affair”.
I still like picture books. There are some really excellent ones.
Meredith: Interesting, because as I recall every The Man From U.N.C.L.E. story was called the-something-Affair.
@Mike Glyer Quite right. The first one was The Vulcan Affair and they kept to the scheme throughout.
Pertinent to our discussion, there was an episode called The Bow Wow Affair. (Season 1. Episode 20.)
The Sad Affair
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