There was much giddiness at the announcement that the Archive of Our Own won a Hugo Award at the 2019 Worldcon in Dublin, Ireland. AO3, and the OTW behind it, are a prominent voice in the conversation about the legitimacy and legality of transformative works.
An admin post went up on AO3 a little while ago conveying a reminder from the World Science Fiction Society, who administer Worldcon and the Hugo Awards, that the win by AO3 does not mean every work in the Archive, and every creator, is a Hugo Award winner.
The most immediate and common reaction to the post seems to have been, "We know. We were having fun. Stop harshing our squee."
Aside from those responses, though, there is a more serious question that goes along with these reactions. What did AO3 win a Beat Related Work Hugo for?
( Thoughts lie within )
The Archive wins because it is a technical marvel.
The Archive wins because the stories there fill so many needs that traditional publishing won't.
The Archive wins because representation matters.
The Archive wins because transformative works are an essential part of any and all fandoms, a conversation running mostly in parallel to their source works. People can choose their level of engagement with that part of the fandom, but they can't pretend that it doesn't exist.
The Archive won, and that means all the contributors to the Archive share in the win. Collectively, everyone who contributed to the Archive are Hugo Award-winning creators. To state otherwise is to ignore reality.
At this point, realizing that my voice is but one among many, and I'm not even to the level where I'm pulling out any citations, I'm going to leave![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
elf's roundup of the Hugo Things here so you can get more perspectives, including some solid roastings of the position that the Mark Protection Committee needs to be aggressive in enforcement (synecdochic brings the citation game to the yard, for example.)
An admin post went up on AO3 a little while ago conveying a reminder from the World Science Fiction Society, who administer Worldcon and the Hugo Awards, that the win by AO3 does not mean every work in the Archive, and every creator, is a Hugo Award winner.
The most immediate and common reaction to the post seems to have been, "We know. We were having fun. Stop harshing our squee."
Aside from those responses, though, there is a more serious question that goes along with these reactions. What did AO3 win a Beat Related Work Hugo for?
( Thoughts lie within )
The Archive wins because it is a technical marvel.
The Archive wins because the stories there fill so many needs that traditional publishing won't.
The Archive wins because representation matters.
The Archive wins because transformative works are an essential part of any and all fandoms, a conversation running mostly in parallel to their source works. People can choose their level of engagement with that part of the fandom, but they can't pretend that it doesn't exist.
The Archive won, and that means all the contributors to the Archive share in the win. Collectively, everyone who contributed to the Archive are Hugo Award-winning creators. To state otherwise is to ignore reality.
At this point, realizing that my voice is but one among many, and I'm not even to the level where I'm pulling out any citations, I'm going to leave
elf's roundup of the Hugo Things here so you can get more perspectives, including some solid roastings of the position that the Mark Protection Committee needs to be aggressive in enforcement (synecdochic brings the citation game to the yard, for example.)
