How “the slap” blinds us.
SPOILER ALERT: Award shows are stupid.
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Media Awards. I’ve won a few in my day. Before I became Sexy Hermit, a writer, I used to work in TV doing it all. In the 90s, I used to produce and direct a lot of college sports through our public access cable channel. Up until very recently, I’ve also done some acting. Thanks to one particular local producer-director, my work with him has been in film fests all over the planet. I’ve won awards for doing all sorts of these things. Nothing on the level of getting near to an EGOT but some were international anyway. I only say this to hopefully not come off as “just another loser that hates people for being successful.” I begrudge no one for winning anything. I too have had my fair share of success with regard to awards.
Who cares?
No one.
I’ve known too many people who chase awards like an old-timey dog to a fire engine. Sometimes those dogs catch up to the engine and get pats from the firemen. Most often they just eat dust. Either way, the only one that gets much out of the deal is the fire engine that always gets washed after use. This metaphor may now be falling apart but my point is that so is the whole concept of an “award show” for anything in the media.
Media awards mean next to nothing to most people who actually work in the media. Last I checked the only thing that matters to most gainfully employed media professionals are two things:
- How many people are watching the media they just spent what felt like forever producing.
- How much money did the production net.
If the answers to one and two amount to ZERO, who fucking cares if it gains the “critical acclaim” of anyone or our peers?
Full disclosure, I’ve never gotten an award for writing and I really do not care if I ever do. As long as I can keep writing whatever I want and get paid by Medium because you all keep reading whatever I feel like writing, that is all I need or want from this. I…
