In which the Hugo host debacle online conversation became a many-tentacled AI that wants to steal our souls, and ladies are cranky. Get us from iTunes or over here!

Speaking of Cranky Ladies – check out Tansy and Tehani’s crowdfunding campaign.

News In Depth: The Hugos v. Jonathan Ross, Safe Spaces & Online Discussions

Foz Meadows laying out the original drama in her usual inimitable style.

Cheryl on the arguments for & against Jonathan Ross as host as particularly on the importance of Intersectionality – how to be a good ally, and why you LISTEN to why people are upset, even if it’s inconvenient to you or your community.

The Chairs of LonCon apologise for the situation – weirdly, this graceful and thorough acknowledgement of their responsibility for how the chain of events went is often not being mentioned in coverage of the discussion.

UPDATE, PLEASE READ:

The downside of recording several days ahead of broadcast is that sometimes the conversation we are contributing to moves on without us – in particular with the “Hugos and Jonathan Ross” conversation we recorded on Wednesday night there has been some serious reframing of the narrative, some of it highly gendered.

We wanted to reference some of this further discussion rather than be seen to ignore such an important (and troubling) development.

Some important posts calling attention to the reframing of the narrative to trivialise the concerns of women (and to hide the fact that many prominent men shared and vocalised those concerns):

Kameron Hurley on Power, Responsibility, Empathy and Privilege

Kari Spelling on how the conversation has changed from being about the unsuitability of Ross as a Hugo host to being about how women were “mean” on Twitter – and how those women are continuing to be unfairly targeted.

Natalie Luhrs on “Reframing and Punching Down” – with particular reference to how those posts calling for people to be nicer to each other, or how fandom is too hysterical to deserve nice things, aren’t always as helpful as you think they are.

David Perry questions the mythical concept of Seanan Maguire’s Angry Mob, calling particular attention to how Seanan and her tweets are now being reframed as central to Jonathan Ross’s resignation, due to selective quoting, selective memories and gross misrepresentation of the actual timeline of events. This is important stuff, people. Our history just got rewritten while we were watching.

[note: we deliberately didn’t mention Seanan by name while discussing the issue in this episode of GS because we could see she was already being unduly blamed and centred in the discussion despite being only one participant – it’s the exchange between Seanan and Jane Goldman mentioned in the Perry article that Alisa also refers to as a conversation that ends in mutual apologies and is later misrepresented by others long after it’s concluded.]

Another important post by Kameron Hurley, Rage Doesn’t Exist in a Vacuum. On why internet rage happens, why someone else might be more upset than you are about a thing, and why it’s important to speak up about upsetting things even if it ruins someone else’s happy party fun times.

Culture Consumed:

Alisa: Game of Thrones S1, Fringe S3, Kaleidoscope ToC

Tansy: Ms Marvel #1 & She-Hulk #1 Fringe S3

Alex: Midnight and Moonshine, Lisa L Hannett and Angela Slatter; A Stranger in Olondria, Sofia Samatar

Pet subject: feedback

Galactic Suburbia Award!! (last call for suggestions)

for activism and/or communication that advances the feminist conversation in the field of speculative fiction

Please send feedback to us at galacticsuburbia@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter at @galacticsuburbs, check out Galactic Suburbia Podcast on Facebook and don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes if you love us!