The Hugo Awards Kerfuffle...

Fishbowl Helmet said:
Scalzi took a screen cap of the post that contained the "insult", to whit, implying he's gay. There's no direct link to the original as apparently Brad's either hidden his Twitter account or deleted it.
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A screen-shot of a single post, without any context and posted by a person who is something of a histrionic.
And it also looks like some type of an apology attempt to boot.
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I am sorry, but the person who looks the worst here is Scalzi himself.

I could think of quite a few sexual insults myself, none involving homosexuality.
 
Yes, he did apologise -- that screen cap's from the Scalzi page too (though BT apologised for insinuating Scalzi was homosexual, not for using homosexuality as an insult).

It did seem as if Mr Torgersen shot himself in the foot and gave Scalzi the chance to make a justified fuss. It just seemed like such a silly thing to say, and, even as a fairly disinterested observer, it made me wince.
 
Hex said:
Yes, he did apologise -- that screen cap's from the Scalzi page too (though BT apologised for insinuating Scalzi was homosexual, not for using homosexuality as an insult).
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How is saying that someone is a homosexual in a non-insulting way supposed to warrant a "fuss"?

We really do not have any context here, and as I said already Scalzi is quite notable for his histrionics and somewhat inflated ego.
At least that is my impression of him after I read through several of his blog posts a few years ago, when he first appeared on the scene.
 
HareBrain said:
There's no doubt, surely, that Brad Torgersen intended it as an insult? The "If you know what I mean" makes that clear.
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Ah, I apparently misread the other post, serves me right for trying to do several things at once I suppose.

Anyway, where is the link to this actual insult in question?
 
Quite. You'd expect Brad Torgersen to know exactly what Scalzi is like (I don't -- but he doesn't seem to be the sort of person who lets himself be bullied) and to not give him the chance to be so utterly in the right.

I didn't read the insinuation that Scalzi was homosexual as non-insulting. I think Brad Torgersen intended the suggestion to be insulting.

EDIT -- sorry Jamie -- cross-posted with you. The whole thing is on that Scalzi blog page in screen caps. If he's making it all up, it's pretty bizarre.
 
Hex said:
Quite. You'd expect Brad Torgersen to know exactly what Scalzi is like (I don't -- but he doesn't seem to be the sort of person who lets himself be bullied) and to not give him the chance to be so utterly in the right.

I didn't read the insinuation that Scalzi was homosexual as non-insulting. I think Brad Torgersen intended the suggestion to be insulting.

EDIT -- sorry Jamie -- cross-posted with you. The whole thing is on that Scalzi blog page in screen caps. If he's making it all up, it's pretty bizarre.
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I saw just one screencap in the linked blog post, the one I posted myself afterwards.
 
Fishbowl Helmet said:
You might want to try a different browser then as there's several pictures there, including the one you're asking for.
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Well what do you know, disabling adblock finally revealed the missing content.
I see one bad joke possibly pulled out of context and followed by several rage posts by Scalzi, and the joke could be interpreted as an attack on Scalzi's masculinity, as in that he is impotent.
Really there is still not enough context here for us to know what happened during that conversation.
 
JaimeRetief said:
Well what do you know, disabling adblock finally revealed the missing content.
I see one bad joke possibly pulled out of context and followed by several rage posts by Scalzi, and the joke could be interpreted as an attack on Scalzi's masculinity, as in that he is impotent.

Really there is still not enough context here for us to know what happened during that conversation.
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Ah. Then you're simply labouring under the misapprehension that there was a 'conversation'. There was an off-colour joke made about Scalzi's sexual preferences and readers pointed this out to Scalzi himself. He screen capped the offending tweet and wrote a blog post about it. There was no conversation. And since Brad has since 'gone dark' on Twitter, there's no way of knowing what else was said. Considering the homophobia on display in that single tweet, that's likely for the best.
 
That wasn't the only self-inflicted embarrassment for Mr. Torgerson today.

file770 published Juliette Wade's account of withdrawing from Sad Puppies 3. She concludes by saying:

After that I walked around my house angry for a while thinking about how disingenuous he [Torgerson] was about the whole thing.
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Torgerson shows up in the comments to interpret Wade's words for everyone, including, apparently, Wade herself:

It’s unfortunate that Juliette’s fears — at being shamed, shunned, and ostracized, for appearing on the “wrong” list — caused her to withdraw when the slate was released. Which says far, far more about Sad Puppies’ detractors, than it does about Juliette, or me for that matter.
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He then repeats this charge several times, including, at one point, this tidy piece of histrionics:

You know, 1984 wasn’t supposed to be an owners manual. Juliette’s one of Analog’s bright stars. I think she deserves a Hugo. She was upset because she realized she was going to become a target — a target for the CHORFs. As soon as that hit her, she came to me and requested to be pulled. I think she’s honest about not understanding the “slate” and SP3 were the same thing. But her motivation for wanting off was all about fear. She didn’t want to have to deal with the Peoples Republic of Science Fiction’s version of the NKVD.
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Wade shows up and responds with:

Brad Torgersen, you are pretty brazen, trying to speak for me, and I would appreciate it if you never attempted to do so again. I was entirely unaware of the Sad Puppy connection because I had deliberately been avoiding looking at your wall, much less your blog, for going on two years. My maintenance of our friendship was out of courtesy. I guess I was too idealistic, thinking that Sad Puppies might be over and that you would just be talking to me about some Hugo recommendations, but I do like to think the best of people. It should not be my responsibility to go and look up whether a person is being dishonest every time they say they like my work. Just to be clear, you have clearly got no idea of my motivations and are trying to spin them to your benefit. I was appalled by your actions in the Sad Puppy business last year and obviously made a mistake in thinking that you should be taken at your word (with the understanding that people include all relevant and important information when they are informing someone of something, which you did not do in this case.) I would never, ever have wanted to associate with Sad Puppies after last year, because of the depth of my anger over their behavior. I felt sick that you had deceived me and betrayed my confidence, and the fact that you denied having done so is irrelevant. You, and your actions, were what I was avoiding in pulling myself off the list.
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Yipes. The comments on the Myke Cole piece are really scary. And lots of them (the commenters, not the comments) have biiiiig guns.

Normally I start feeling sorry for people when there's this much of a feeding frenzy, and I do feel a tiny bit sorry for Brad Torgersen because I guess he's become a culture-clash point between the sort of culture he seems to hang out in (which seems to include chunks of the military) where sexual jokes are just the way guys hang out together and, you know, 2015.

And I guess we've all made the mistake where you say something more appropriate in one culture than another and get embarrassed, but I wish he'd stop now.
 
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Fishbowl Helmet said:
Ah. Then you're simply labouring under the misapprehension that there was a 'conversation'. There was an off-colour joke made about Scalzi's sexual preferences and readers pointed this out to Scalzi himself. He screen capped the offending tweet and wrote a blog post about it. There was no conversation. And since Brad has since 'gone dark' on Twitter, there's no way of knowing what else was said. Considering the homophobia on display in that single tweet, that's likely for the best.
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I am sorry, but your statement will never hold up in court.
Torgersen's comment appears to be a reply, unless we know the context and can see the previous posts then we can't know for certain what he meant by responding in such a fashion.
 
Nerds_feather said:
That wasn't the only self-inflicted embarrassment for Mr. Torgerson today.

file770 published Juliette Wade's account of withdrawing from Sad Puppies 3. She concludes by saying:



Torgerson shows up in the comments to interpret Wade's words for everyone, including, apparently, Wade herself:



He then repeats this charge several times, including, at one point, this tidy piece of histrionics:



Wade shows up and responds with:
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Those quotes are somewhat patchy, here is the whole article

Whether everyone on the Sad Puppies 3 slate was asked, and what they were told, has been part of the overall discussion.

Brad R. Torgersen addressed both questions in “Defenders of the nail house” (March 29) and “Sad Puppies 3: were they contacted?” (April 10) and in a comment here on File 770 (February 7).

Juliette Wade is one of the writers who withdrew her story from the Sad Puppies 3 slate, and she has agreed to share how that experience looked from her side.

***

Juliette Wade: Brad approached me on Facebook IM on January 25th as follows:

Brad: Juliette, I would like to include your novelette “Mind Locker” on my Hugo suggestion slate for February. Can I have your permission to include you?

Me: Yes, thank you so much!

I did not notice the word “slate” or think anything of it at the time. We then discussed his upcoming work duties (army reserve stuff). Then on February 1 the Sad Puppies list was posted, and I was alerted to it by my friend Lillian Csernica. I remember feeling cold and a little sick. I immediately IMed Brad at 6:28 pm. This was the conversation I had with him at that time.

Me: Brad, I am sorry, but if you will be labeling me as a sad puppy I will have to ask you to withdraw me from your list.

Brad: You’ve not been labeled a sad puppy. This is the :fight puppy-related sadness list” I contacted you about earlier. You said you were OK with it.

Me: You did not say you were going to be calling it the Sad Puppies list. I feel like you were misrepresenting it. I’m happy to be one of your Hugo recommendations. This is different.

Brad: (shrug) I think your story deserves to make the final ballot. If you elect to not participate, so be it.

Me: I think I would be more comfortable if I were not on the list. Thanks for thinking of including me.

Brad: You’re off the list.

Me: Thank you.

After that I walked around my house angry for a while thinking about how disingenuous he was about the whole thing.
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