Awards? I can do awards…

Let me tell ya. I got awards comin’ out the wazoo. Half the year, the only thing you seen on this blog – you betcha, it was awards. Now ole Seismic Stan wants me to hand out some more.

…Applaud Your Peers, Embarrass Your Enemies…

At the turn of the year in meatspace, award season starts to spin up. Across the general media, folk are encouraged to look to their peers and recognise excellence and inspiration from the previous year.

For the past two years I have attempted to do the same for EVE by distributing imaginary Free Boot Awards to an eclectic assortment of community luminaries. This year I thought it might be nice to expand the concept.

For Blog Banter 43 I would like to invite every participant to nominate their peers for whatever awards you think they deserve. Let’s start the year with some EVE-flavoured altruism and celebrate the best and the worst of us, the funniest or the most bizarre, the most heroic of the most tragic of the past year. They could be corpmates, adversaries, bloggers, podcasters, developers, journalists or inanimate objects. Go nuts.

There’s only one rule: no narcissism allowed (so step away from that mirror and resist the urge to nominate yourself).

Other than that, if it’s great, let’s celebrate.

Banter On.

You asked for it…

Sindel teased on Twitter a couple days ago that her awards might make some people mad. They might, but if they do, those people in question should probably relax, see the sun, etc. They were funny and poked fun at certain people in a ‘don’t take yourself so serious’ way. Maybe mine will do the same, though probably not.

Best Blogging Pundit Award

Pundits are a strange class of people. You see them on CNN and Fox all the time, peddling their opinions as if they matter. Strangely, we’re never quite sure why we should care what their opinions are. Pundits, pretty much by definition, don’t actually have power in a certain realm. They just act like they do in front of as many people as possible.

AND THE WINNER IS…Poetic Stanziel.

Why the hell do we care what this guy thinks? His fact checking is abysmal, his opinions over the top, and yet we can’t stop reading. If he was in radio I’m pretty sure he’d be a part of the EIB Network. Grats, ‘Poe’, for being relevant without cause.

Looniest Loon in iTunes Award

This one is dedicated to that rare breed in the EVE Online community – the podcasters. WAIT! You don’t know who I’m going to pick. JUST WAIT A MINUTE! I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. WRONG I TELL YOU.

AND THE WINNER IS….Rundle Allnighter.

Listen, everyone in podcasting is a little crazy. You sit at your desk and talk into a microphone pretending you’re talking to legions of people while simultaneously hoping you get at least a dozen listeners who aren’t your friends. All podcasters have egos, they all have agendas, and they all are fakers in at least one way. Where Rundle differs is that, instead of buying into his own ego, his own agenda, his own mythos – he’s bought WHOLEHEARTEDLY into the shit being fed to him by an internet spaceship guild. Sorry, but this easily makes you the Looniest of the Loony Bin.

Lifetime Achievement Award

This is a genuinely tough one to give out. 2012 was a year of passing, in some very sad and serious ways. However this post isn’t sad nor serious, so let’s stick to the two names that popped into mind when I typed the header above: Verone and MichaelBolton III. The former was the leader of Veto for quite a long time before finally landing a dream job at CCP. The latter was some dude in TEST.

AND THE WINNER IS…CCP Dolan (aka Michael Bolton III).

Why, you ask? Well, if I was in a more serious mood I’d give it to Verone and Veto together. Veto is dead now and it’s leader has ascended to the pantheon, so to speak, working in CCP. That surely warrants an Achievement award. However, I went with MB3 in the end, because I think we all know this is as far as he goes. He’s peaked, and though he’ll probably live another few decades minimum, this is the shining moment in his life. Let’s let him bask in it.

Best Drama Award

Ah, what’s not to love about a good drama? Laughter, tears, burning hatred and rage – all the things that make EVE so great are basically the same things that make dramas so wonderful to watch unfold. There are many great contenders in 2012, ranging from the recent shenanigans in the podcasting community, my brouhaha with Mr. Rixx Javix, to the Elo Knight/Wicked Princess stuff of not long ago, etc etc. However, one drama trumps them all and, in many ways, exemplifies them all.

AND THE WINNER IS…FANFEST 2012, Featuring THE MITTANI.

Dude essentially told people to go taunt a suicidal guy. Pretty fucked (not BULLYING, you twats, but still fucked). He apologized, of course, but ended up with a ban and a boot right off the CSM for his troubles. 10k votes were tossed to the wind like so much chaff and instead we got Chairman Seleene. Heh

The Honorable Mention Award

Doesn’t it seem like in every awards show, there’s that one nominee that is up for a ton of stuff but ends up with not a thing to show for it? EVE has one of those in this Blog Banter. He was so miffed he even declined to give out a single bit of recognition to his peers!
AND THE WINNER IS….Rixx Javix.

What? Someone had to give the guy a cookie. He brought back the frill, after all.

The Hardest Working Man in Show Biz Award

This guy, like James Brown, is everywhere. You can’t have a Twitter conversation without his name popping up. You can’t listen to a podcast without him being on it. You can’t even talk to your own writers at a certain Eve News website (sans Eve News in the name) without his name being brought into the conversation. This is truly the hardest working man in showbiz…

AND THE WINNER IS….Hans Jagerblitzen.

With as hard as he works at telling people how hard he’s working, you’d think we’d all have gotten the point by now. But we haven’t. Until this award was given out, of course.
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Serious Time!

Serious awards have to go out as well. I would be remiss if I didn’t give Ripard Teg a proper shout out – the dude is a machine. Best Blogger of the year, by far.

For Best Podcast, I have to say Crossing Zebras. They are young in terms of podcasts, but smooth and just all around good. Except for that terrible boy band music.

For Best CCP Dev, it has to be CCP Raivi. As innumerable others have pointed out, he has seemingly singlehandedly changed the game in a fundamental way in a very short period of time.

Finally, I’d like to give a hefty dose of recognition to the guy who asked for it in the first place – Seismic Stan. In a community that seems to come and go more than the tides – bloggers disappearing, reappearing, disappearing once more, etc – Stan has been the one solid rock throughout it all. While having a kid on the way, losing his job and finding new work as a legitimate games writer, Stan has stuck with the EVE community through it all and kept the blog banters flowing. So to him, I say thanks – for everything.

Posted in blog banter general/other crap
5 Comments Posted by Marc