The Terrible Realities Behind Prestigious Awards Institutions
by Pauli Poisuo
At some point during humanity’s evolution from the stupid apes we were to the stupid apes we are, we developed an almighty need to figure out who’s the best at every single thing. That progression saw us move away from deciding this by beating each other to death with rocks, and instead toward the much more civil giving of shiny objects in expected shapes. Which is awesome, but those trinkets have some pretty heavy problems of their own. For instance …
The Nobel Prize Mocks How Science Actually Happens
Ever since they were established by the guy who felt bad for inventing dynamite, the Nobel prizes have been the be-all and end-all of scientific and artistic awards. If you win a Nobel, you’ve officially beaten life on Expert Mode, and now find yourself among the most esteemed people in your field, and even the entire world. Also, any future argument someone tries to have with you presumably becomes very difficult to win. “Well excuse me. The dishes didn’t get done because I was too busy over here being a Nobel laureate.”
With the prize’s glowing reputation, you’d assume that they’re only given after extreme deliberation, and distributed to only the most absolute of absolutely deserving beacons of science, literature, and peace. R-right?
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And bubble gum flavors. Don’t forget the bubble gum flavors.
Well, as Ed Yong of The Atlantic notes, every year that the science Nobels are given to our perceivedly best and brightest, a foul wind follows the announcements like a rampant, all-encompassing fart that, much like a real one, fills the proverbial elevator with voices of protest. The problem is that the science bits of the Nobel prize assume that scientific achievements are made by some lone dude in a lab coat looking at things through a microscope and having “Eureka!” moments or some weird doctor in a basement with lightning-powered, reanimated corpses.
In reality, of course, science happens by a bunch of scientists working together in a huge, interconnecting weave of information, and everyone builds on top of other people’s discoveries. Nobel prizes do not give a single shit about this fact, which is why you might know Rainer Weiss, Kip Thorne, and Barry Barish as the Nobel laureate physicists who discovered gravitational waves -- but not the literally hundreds of other people who worked on the project and the countless others who made the discovery possible in the first place.
This is not a new problem, and the scientific community is well aware of it. It started way back in 1901, when the very first Nobel prize for medicine happily ignored Shibasaburo Kitasato, the guy who collaborated with Emil von Behring when they discovered antitoxins.
Of course, no one’s saying that the Nobels aren’t a worthy way to shower at least some much-deserved recognition to science. Or at least worthy to the parts of science that are white, male, don’t drop dead before the Nobel committee bothers to recognize them, and work on the small handful of scientific fields they actually bother to note.
The Academy Awards Has Been Run By Old White Men Who Like To Give Awards To White Men
Ah, yes, the Academy Awards! What red-blooded movie business person wouldn’t give their … personal assistant’s left arm for a chance to wave a small statuette of a naked golden dude at the world and clumsily rattle off a list of half-remembered thank yous? Over the years, the Oscars have taken the number one spot in the category of entertainment awards ceremonies, which, we know, is roughly as important and meaningful to people’s everyday struggles as Steven Seagal’s career as a “goodwill ambassador” to Russia is to politics. Still, people are watching … at least the gala itself. But who is it that actually decides who deserves the awards? What is this mysterious “Academy?”
A bunch of old white dudes, because of course it is. In 2014, the Los Angeles Times conducted a survey that revealed some interesting facts about the industry folks who make up the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. On average, Oscar voters were 63 years old, 94% white, and 76% male, which might be related to a whole lot of the awards’ notorious lack of diversity. Historically, the whole thing’s just been one big … what do you call an all-white sausage party? A bratwurst festival?
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“Do you have any— what’s that, you say? Just the one kind? Great …”
Granted, things have improved a little since that survey, and the Academy has gradually increased its diversity over the last few years (it is unsurprisingly still heavily slanted). However, that hasn’t changed the fact that the process involves a lot more than just making a great movie and dicking around until it gets noticed. Alissa Watkinson of Vox describes the race to win an Academy Award as a “cross between a marathon and a political campaign,” which requires everyone gunning for the award to devote an insane amount of time and energy to rubbing shoulders with the right people and making appearances this way and that. As Antonio Banderas put it in 2020: “I’m tired of campaigning. I am not a politician! I am an actor!”
The Guinness World Records Help People Break Records For Money
The Guinness Book of World Records has been around in some shape, form or way since 1955, but in the 2010s, they reportedly faced a new dilemma: No one was buying books anymore. That’s a bad thing when your business model has traditionally had the word “book” in its very name. So, what’s a poor record-keeping entity to do?
Help people invent new records and break them, for money. That’s what.
Here’s the logic: Everyone secretly wants to be a world champion at something, and it sure seems that stacking up spoons on your face is a lot easier to master than, say, Olympic-level javelin throwing. Add to that the fact that there are many companies that are willing to allocate some of their marketing budget to having their brand associated with a Guinness World Record, and Bob’s your record-shattering uncle.
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As long as the increase in business allows for plenty of profit after covering funeral expenses.
Sometimes, this approach has led to some pretty strange bedfellows. In 2019, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver told us that Guinness World Records has done plenty of business with folks like Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, the authoritarian and reportedly rather ruthless President of Turkmenistan … and a record-breaking enthusiast.
The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Is Routinely Arbitrary And Controversial
You’d be hard-pressed to find an institution more hated by the very people it’s supposed to honor than the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Actual inductees, such as Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols, Ozzy Osbourne, KISS, Steve Miller and Axl Rose, have spewed various amounts of hate and criticism at the concept, and some have even outright refused to be inducted, only to be inducted anyway. Almost like the music industry itself is just ignoring what the artists actually want and … oh, riiiiight.
If you think that’s bad, well, other critics loathe the Hall of Fame even more, calling it “outdated” and “wildly inconsistent.” But why are all these folks up in arms against this particular institution? Well, that’s the thing: It’s an institution, which you may recognize as the exact thing rock ‘n’ roll is supposed to rebel against. In fact, Dave Bry of The Guardian has gone as far as to call it “the worst arts institution in America,” and even suggested that we honor the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in the most rock ‘n’ roll way available: by burning the entire thing right the hell down.
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Yep, you got it.
If it was only that, it would be easy to think that the people rallying against it are old rockers who are uncomfortable about The Man trying to hurt their beloved music. However, there’s plenty more going on here than just a bunch of old bikers helplessly flashing devil signs at the big, bad establishment. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has a pretty shady history of admittance, as they largely focus on artists of the male persuasion, and routinely snub and omit tons of artists who have more than earned their place in the annals of rock ‘n’ roll, as well as made tons of incomprehensible induction decisions over the years. Still, the spirit is there, honoring th—
Hold on, they inducted Bon Jovi over Iron Maiden? OK, yeah, let’s go with Bry’s plan.
Michelin Stars Are So Stressful That Restaurants Are Returning Them
If you’re a bit of a foodie or, let’s be honest, haven’t lived under a rock for the last few decades, you’re probably familiar with the Michelin Guide, which ranks particularly awesome restaurants with a system that runs from one to three stars, with the occasional “bib gourmand” badge thrown in for the kind of places that normal people can afford and that don’t require fourteen specialized forks and a knowledge of cooking terms in Ecclesiastical Latin. It’s all a bit hoity-toity, but then again, it’s supposed to be. After all, a restaurant with three Michelin stars is certifiably among the best of the best, and therefore, it’s a huge honor that guarantees a line at the door.
You’d expect chefs to jealously guard their prestigious stars, and painstakingly make sure that their eating joint is up to the challenge, come the next inspection. Hell, there have even been incidents where chefs sue the guide when they lose a star. So, why have several chefs started returning theirs?
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They hate money?
The answer is simple: With prestige comes pressure. As such, some chefs simply grow tired of the newfound, intense demands, and want to see more of their family and, you know, have a life outside the kitchen. They’re good chefs, their career is going fine even without some tire factory’s foodie subsidiary breathing down their neck. Sure, the Michelin Guide still holds a certain amount of sway in the restaurant scene, but it’s also struggling against a changing culinary landscape, where chefs like to experiment with food trucks and other tomfoolery, and where social media recommendations can be just as powerful attractors as the shiniest trio of pointy Michelin symbols.
But how bad, exactly, are things for the Michelin Guide right now? Well, in 2019, South Korean chef Eo Yun-gwon sued them for giving his restaurant a Michelin star. So, not perfect?
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