The Hugo Awards Ought To Go Psycho

     This past Summer I attended, on two consecutive weekends, both the WorldCon in Kansas City, which hosts the Hugo Awards, and thereafter a Heavy Metal festival in Las Vegas known as Psycho Vegas. In terms of entertainment and “Social Justice” the contrast was stark.

     The Hugo Awards and the WorldCon (MidAmeriConII) has been previously discussed. To whit, it was all about child molestation and puppy kicking, so as to speak. Panels didn’t just have individuals on them that declared themselves “unironically” to be Social Justice Warriors, they has panels about Social Justice and kicking straight White “cis-gendered” men in the groin, so as to speak. Both the Hugo Awards and the “business meeting” took glee in attacking those fans who find that the “fandom” that controls the Hugo Awards are becoming nothing more than Social Justice Warriors who trumpet “Social Justice” and smashing the “Kyriarch” over quality science fiction, fantasy, gaming, and horror. The WorldCon quite often seemed bent on obsessing over the race, sex, gender, (dis)ability of the writers, and of the fans, than the actual content and purported reason the Worldcon even exists.

     In contrast, Psycho Vegas was about the music, and about headbangers and metalheads having fun together. It was not about race, one’s biological sex, gender identity, or other such Leftist assigned interest group. Was there a bunch of straight White “cis-gender” men? Yes. Were there women who were more than just victims of misogyny to be used by The Patriarchy™ as sex objects? Yes; there were women dresses-up and looking hot as well as women dressed more casually; there were young babes and there were older women; there were White women and there were non-White women; there were skinny women and fat women. There were women playing in many of the bands. There were non-White men playing in the bands, including bands that didn’t have a single White person. And yes, even a “woman of color” rocking out on stage. There was even a guy in a dress.

     This is unsurprising as Heavy Metal has been an unsuccessful target, one of the few, of Social Justice Warriors.  Hashtag #MetalGate.

     And what did this in actuality diverse crowd focus on that weekend? Listening to great music and mixing it up in the mosh pit. What did this in actuality diverse crowd not do? Obsess over identity politics.

     There was no racism. People loved awesome bands regardless of one, or even all, of the band members weren’t White. Whit and non-White men could aggressively slam into each other in the mosh pit and then celebrate together afterward. Why? Because their race did not come first to them; having an awesome time together came first.

     There was no actual misogyny. In fact, the men were in general acting like gentlemen. Yet again the mosh pit is elegant proof of this. On occasion a woman would jump into the mosh pit, and the men would go out of their way to not slam into them, not even the non-White women. Why? You don’t hurt women, that’s why. There was no complaints about women invading a sacred male space or whining that women don’t belong. There was indeed more men than women, but that just resulted in men trying to attract the rare single women by… being nice to them and starting friendly conversations.

     In general, a mosh pit, while at first glace might seem an act of communal violence, is in actuality a quite civilized place where men can bond and people help each other up if they fall. Truly, a paragon of civic virtue.

     An interesting confluence of the Hugo Awards and Heavy Metal, is RazörFist, who was nominated for a Hugo Award for his podcast “The Rageaholic“. He recently went on an admitted rant belittling the notion that Metal is “sexist“:

     If you don’t want to bother with Social Justice Warriors, ignore the Hugo Awards and read the good stuff. If the Hugo awards want to regain relevancy, they should “go psycho”. If you want to listen to good music, crank up the Heavy Metal to 11.