I half-noticed recently that this year's Sad Puppies' slate (perhaps not the right word) contains a sprinkling of SJW pixie-dust. My first thought was, alol, a wedge issue and bid for legitimacy courtesy of the right wing genre culture trolls, perfectly tactically commendable if perhaps a bit transparent. It's a familiar pattern in mundane politics too: divisive, nasty, "populist" tub-thumping to build your brand, then try to de-toxify it and play in the mainstream. I.e. I assumed those recommendations weren't sincere.
Just now I half-noticed that the Sad Puppies list (perhaps that is the right word) was put together by an open process (albeit one perhaps not very well-publicized outside veteran Pup circles). So while I wouldn't put it past a cadre of battle-wizened Pups to have infiltrated that process, in order to promote the very thing they hate -- a v. GG move obv., playing the long game bro -- it's much more likely it is what it seems: a collated recommendations list drawing on a right-leaning constituency, but not a totally repulsive constituency.
Obviously this Sad Puppies should have done a bit more to distance itself from last year. But my inclination would be, on the little I've seen, let's give them a break? This is deep, deep ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ territory. If you have awoken with horror to find yourself on their list, maybe don't sweat it. You're no more in a moral quandary than usual. Don't feel obliged to fall on your #SJWaward and declare yourself ineligible, or anything brave and silly like that. My hunch is, ignore it. This is probably the one time in your life you're not a pawn in somebody's grand evil scheme.
Acknowledgements:
I would like to thank The Atlantic, from whose Google cache snippet I have copypasted the shrug emoji more times than you've broken hot takes.
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