Blogging awards are funny things. They seem to mark a particular point in a community’s lifespan that suggests establishment. Establishment in the chronological sense of showing a robustness of community in supporting such ceremonies, and establishment in the sense of drawing out a canon of popularity, influence and age.
I hate them as a rule. They impose a sort of food chain that, regardless of the original egalitarian intent, feels dangerous in how it entrenches bigotries and draws very specific lines around things that are wholly subjective. Equally, they just seem so obvious and redundant. I remember in the early days of blogging when an award ceremony appeared and Kottke swept the decks. It’s not hard to imagine the resounding NO SHIT SHERLOCK that immerged from the lips of those who read the results - like it’s no surprise that exactly the same thing happened with Anime Bog Awards’ nominations and what’s happening with its results.
I don’t mean to attack the ABAs particularly – it has a number of good qualities that, if they existed independently from the back patting, I’d wholly support. I’m just worried about what it will do to a community that I’ve loved because of its nebulous existence – because people have had their own favourites without any particular authority to validate or deny them. There’s nothing wrong with recognising bloggers who occupy important roles in the community, but I can’t see the point of overtly awarding them for something that is expressed through other, healthier means. We all know who is important in this community; the influential are explicit by their nature of being, yknow, influential. As are the humorous and the thought-provoking. I know who influenced me, I know who gets me thinking and makes me laugh. Surely these personal things are so subjective that to canonise them is to dilute their meaning completely?
It’s all very doom and gloom to say this, I know, but the ABAs do have elements I love. Ideally if it was just concerned with awarding new blogs then I’d be enthused to the point of irritating. And the ABA is commendable in how it gets new blogs some attention. I just fail to see why categories like Most Influential etc need to exist when their participants speak for themselves. Do we really need to know who is Most Most Influential? Don’t we all know, in a general sense, that Hop Step Jump, Memento et al are the reason for the existence of most current blogs? Their recognition is implicit through practice – in the way they spur others to start their own blogs - which feels the ultimate form of community building to me. My biggest fear is that by standardising their position with a shiny gold badge it alienates the potential influence of other blogs and the different approaches they present.
My main point, then, is that award ceremonies compromise the natural growth that keeps a community healthy. It’s funny that Impz, one of the core responsible for the ABAs, also produced the best alternative to it: a nostalgic snapshot of our history. Because fundamentally this is all the inaugural Anime Blog Awards will be: a history lesson and statement of the bleeding obvious.
