Puppy Watch 2016 Begins

Jeopardy apparently kicked the puppies out of their general hibernation the other day and they’ve now declared that it’s time to gear up for 2016.

This means it is also time for Puppy Watchers everywhere to break out the binoculars and keep a jaundiced eye on all of the “fun” that is about to begin.

It means that it is also time to formalize things with the creation of the International Association of Neonatalcanineologists.  Membership only requires a few basic necessities:

1. a pair of binoculars for observing neonatal canines in their natural habitats from a safe distance (note that this is an olfactory safe distance and depends entirely on the direction the wind is blowing)
2. the ability to parse language in a logical manner, including the ability to recognize Pnuspeak (puppy language) when one hears it. (For example:  claiming they “won” the 2015 Hugo Awards kerfuffle by ‘making CHORFS do what they wanted them to do all along’ translates to:  they lost in a publicly humiliating way that has managed to become mainstream news, are deeply embarrassed that bubble-thinking led them to miscalculate so badly and are so confused by the general and widespread rejection of their platform that the only strategy they can come up with is to double down)
3. the ability to laugh and snicker quietly at neonatal canine antics so as to not disturb observations

Joining I.A.N. requires no money. Only a willingness to participate and a cast iron stomach.

A few other developments of note:

Kate Paulk, designated barrel denizen for Sad Puppies IV, has declared that it is time to begin and is begging for people to contribute “recommendations” to this year’s slate.  I’ve not looked at it lately, but last time I did there weren’t all that many recommendations and not that many participants.  That will undoubtedly change as the Pnuspeak gets more inflammatory.

“Recommendations have been trickling in, but we need more. MOAR!”

Oops.  It’s already getting inflammatory.  A few choice bits from the post & comments:

“In the meantime, we can all bask in the warm glow of the knowledge that Sad Puppies have gone mainstream and appeared on Jeopardy….It’s the big time, baby!” (K Paulk

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“Blame? I want to know who to *thank*. That question has now pretty much permanently associated the Puppies with the Hugos. PR win, baybee.” (K Paulk)

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@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.” No, after last year, it will be most often mistaken for the planet Uranus. (C. Chupick)

Other (far too many) comments were devoted to objecting to Jeopardy’s “PuppyGate” appellation, with commenters suggesting that it was yet another attempt to hang Gamergate around puppy necks.  Well…

Larry Correia offers the following:

“Personally, I like it. Especially the part where they used “Rocked”. Damn right. Rocked you like a hurricane. The scandal was the part where the CHORFs ran a lying media smear campaign, and handed out wooden butt holes, while block voting No Award to keep out barbarian Wrongfans having Wrongfun.”

(NOW you see why the ability to parse Pnuspeak is a necessity…)

and not too far down in the comments, we hear from Daddy Warpig (who is associated with…)

“Looking forward to this year. If they thought last year was a scandal, they ain’t seen nothing yet. : )”  (smiley face in the original)

You know, I used to attribute most of the Puppy stuff to ignorance (sometimes willful) of what fandom was all about, but now I’ve changed my mind.  There’s definitely ignorance of fandom floating around in there, but now I attribute that ignorance to mean-spiritedness that approaches apoplexy;  they’re so angry, butt-hurt and flabbergasted that the real world doesn’t work the way they think it ought to that they don’t care what they sound like, how illogical their statements are, nor how much they continue to marginalize themselves with every breath they take (preparatory to yet another foam-flecked, spittle-filled, near-schizophrenic rant).

More from comments on Correia’s post:

“I wonder how they’ll use fantastic literature to serve the cause of lesbian emancipation and the abolition of whiteness this year.”  (J May)

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After watching the Hugos, with the Ass-terisk and everything, I decided that voting in it was the most satisfying thing I’d done to poke SJWs in the eye in a long time. Watching them block-vote for Noah Ward was extremely juicy.

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Watching them scream about block-voting puppies before and after was even juicier. Vile770 has been particularly entertaining in this regard.

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I look forward to this years noms, where block-voting will be the rule. Lefties will close ranks, pick one (predictably asinine) slate and WIN!!!1!

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Maybe this year Noah can have a sweep. Burn the village to save it indeed. (The Phantom)

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It’s not block voting when CHORFs do it… It’s… diversity, and solidarity, and tolerance. Or something like that. (TRX)

At the risk of banging a gong:  if nothing else, the preceding should serve as a reminder that those not wishing to have their works caught up in a repeat of last year would do well to state, publicly, that they don’t want to be included on any nomination slates and do not endorse any such slates their works may appear on.

The “trick” this year will be for Puppies to try and nominate as many generally popular works as they can, in the hopes that the poke-eyed SJWs will be presented with the quandry of either endorsing Puppy slates or NO Awarding genuinely deserving works.

Several authors have already taken peremptory steps in this direction.  Despite the low-likelihood that Amazing will find its way onto a ballot, I’ll do that now for myself, by referring you all to our “No Campaigns, No Slates” page and the statements thereon.

As an observation, I’d like to note the following:  MidAmericonII is already shaping up to be a tremendous convention.  Attendance looks to be going very well.  I predict that, if SadPuppyIV begins to gain any traction at all, the participation in Hugo Award nominating and voting will leave puppies of all stripes wishing that all they’d been handed was a wooden asterisk.

And of course, not to be outdone, John C. Wright offered up the following on Vox Day’s website:

I was pleased in a dark and evil way to see the Morlocks burn their own cities rather than allow me be elected mayor. I would have been MORE pleased had he Hugo Awards kept even a modicum of decency and honesty, and actually received the awards I earned, but I cannot expect powerdrunk patheticos to give up on power. I did not expect schoolboy wooden anus jokes, however. That was pathetic. Numbers wise, I am not sure if we can sweep the nominations again, but I would like to see the Hugos either returned to the old worth, or destroyed utterly. Leaving them in the clammy webbed hands of Christ-hating America-hating, Science-hating, Literature-hating Morlocks is unimaginable to me. (Emphasis added) (comment #57)

…the awards he earned?  Get in line, pal, get in line.  (That’s the line for people who believe they deserve a Hugo.  It’s not a very long line.  I’m sure he’ll be close to the front.)

The remaining rhetoric on that site ought to provide more than enough reason for maintaining a continuous watch:

I think the biggest question with nominations will be whether we want to play it straight and nominate the best contenders, or use the opportunity to poison the well a bit.

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After what happened at the last Worldcon, I’d tend to play it straight. Make the opposition take the responsibility for smashing the Hugos. It’ll make the creation of a new award more palatable. (Hammerli280)

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My thought is that Rabid Puppies’ job should be to nominate all of the SJW’s while Sad Puppies try and put in the best contenders. (Malcolmthecynic)

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I second the Halo novels. They won’t abandon the nominations and they probably would bring in a hell of a lot of gamers. (Daniel)

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Also it would be hard for the SJWs to denounce a book that has a smug science popularizer who “debunks” global warming deniers and creationists. (maniacprovost)

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Nominate everyone who has said that they would refuse the nomination if we voted for them.(Mendoscot)

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What part of SJWs Always Lie did you find hard to understand. Never, ever, count on an SJW doing what he says he’ll do. Never bother trying to “that just proves” one either. You can’t shame the shameless.”

The key would be… you can’t do it to all of them. but you can nail one to a wall and make him tear himself down in shame.

The key is to pick the moderates.

A moderate will turn it down. A freak like the Toad will not. (Nate)

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Again @Cataline, the movie for “The Martian” is clearly worthy and getting it on a slate — before Puppy Kickers are in motion — would provoke comical reactions.

Weir has had a couple interesting (and funny) web comics that could be twisted and distorted by reactionary SJWs; which of course would be completely irrelevant to the movie “The Martian”. (J Melcher)

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Next year’s voting is unpredictable, with so many more voters this year. While many were there to follow the SJW’s dogwhistle, others will look at the outcome and question whether that was a wise choice. The rules and the strategy may remain the same, but the tactics won’t. I’m assuming that both the SPs and RPs will field larger numbers, but the NWs might actually decline now that they’ve seen the consequences of a straight anti-puppy vote.

What the yellow horde will do is an unknown, beyond voting for Liu, but if they sign up I doubt that they won’t take the opportunity to vote in other categories. (Mendoscot) (Note the reference to Chinese fans as “the yellow horde”)

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If we want to vote/help what should we do? (JC)   Depends. If you want to go with the Sad contingent, sadpuppies4 dot org are collecting the suggestions. Otherwise, wait for directions from the Supreme Lord of Darkness as to how to proceed.  (Masha K) (Emphasis added)

One need say no more.