red_satin_doll

spankedbyspike , one of the mods/admins of the No Rest for the Wicked Awards, continued our conversation re: the concept of self-nominations in fandom awards a few days ago and I thought their remarks worth sharing (with their kind permission):

"Outside of angelus2hot who contact the nominees and receive the nominations, none of us know who self nominate or who is nominated by others. It's a conversation that doesn't even occur, so for those of you hesitating to self nominate you shouldn't. Also, not all of us have a lot of friends out there that know about the Awards and will think about nominating folks from their friend's list. Therefore there are amazing works online never nominated for some misgavings about self-nomination... We are all poorer for it.

I hope people reading this will stop hesitating and nominate their creations as well as those that impacted them. The Awards are simply a safe place to discover new art,fiction, meta that can touch us, make us think, make us live by proxy with characters and situations that bring new depths to our understanding and love of those fandoms and at times of ourselves. Let's all enjoy it!"

http://wicked-awards.livejournal.com/33488.html?thread=834000#t834000

Some of my friends in this fandom have confessed to me privately that they've self-nominated one of their works, as if it were a dirty little secret. And my response has been to reassure them that it's ok because that doesn't affect the judging processes, and most importantly, they are a terrific writer and have a right to be proud of their work. Do I then apply that encouragement to myself? Oh hell no, honey: "Oh I couldn't because that would be immodest and...unseemly." I think I may actually have done so once in the past year, maybe. (Maybe not, I don't remember. Either 1) I've suppressed the memory, 2) my ADD is getting worse in my old age, or 3) a bit of both. Take your pick.) Then if/when I do I go overboard in nominating work by other fans, as in "way more than the judges' minimum requirement". The Wicked Awards, for example, ask that if you self-nom, you nominate at least three other works as well. In this fandom the problem is not coming up with enough nominees but selecting a few from an embarrassment of riches. It's as if somehow this will counterbalance the terrible sin of pride I've committed.

Spike: "You've nominated how many other peoples' work? One self-nomination doesn't tip the scales!"

(Image "borrowed" and played around with from Shadow of Reflection)

Ok, time for a Reality Check(TM): I'm a fan of a show that includes murder, torture, abuse of power, necrophilia etc as everyday occurrences - hell, I live in a world in which murder, torture, abuse of power, necrophilia, etc are everyday occurrences. (I actually have no idea about that last one, btw. But there's some pretty freaky people in this world.) And I'm worried about being perceived as "unseemly"? What is up with that, really?

As I'm pretty new to fandom and not the only person who has wrestled with this issue, I'd love to hear your thoughts and perspectives on this issue. Agree or disagree with

spankedbyspike , and in either case, why? Have you ever self-nominated your own works, and how did you feel about it? Is the reluctance to do so a "gender thing" (traditionally girls have been conditioned to be "modest" about their accomplishments), a cultural thing, or a more general "personality thing"?

(And, completely OT: Why in the name of all that is unholy do I have to put an ocean of space between every single paragraph on LJ? *le sigh*)