Think Fast

[tracker7]

Things can sure move in a hurry. Yesterday morning, Origins announced the guests of honor for this years show. On the gaming side, there's Ken St. Andre, Eric Lang, and Mike Elliott. Artist GoH is somebody I don't recognize, and can't view his official site because it's Flash-based. All good so far. It was the author GoH that generated a ruckus - Larry Correia. By evening, Correia had been removed from the roster, and boy-howdy, did people lose their shit over it. The comment thread on the FB announcement became toxic at nearly superluminal speed.

I don't much care for Correia - I made it through about a hundred pages of a loaner copy of one of his books before dropping it, and he was kind of a dick in the one face-to-face encounter I've had - but that wouldn't be reason for me to to not want him in a GoH slot. What would - and does - put me off of him as a guest is his leadership of and involvement in the whole Sad Puppies nonsense, which led to the awfulness of the Rabids.

In the end, it doesn't affect me directly or indirectly. I'm not going to Origins this year, and if I was, it would be easy enough to not go to any of Correia's panels or what-have-you. Just a moment in modern fandom.

Comments

[atolnon]

Correia ended up getting mention in my graduate thesis about the fragile white perspective in science fiction, actually. PuppyGate was (and is) deeply weird and ends up tied up with GamerGate, etc. and the larger reactionary movement.

[tracker7]

There had to be some very unpleasant reading and study over the course of writing that.

[atolnon]

In many ways, yes - but it was also a deeply interesting (and terrifying) look into the ways that white supremacy governs the production and consumption of culture.