I mean, by your own standards, they suck. First of all, yeah, no poorly addressed ballot box stuffing controversies there. Second of all, you know they have a movie category, right? Like, they call it "Dramatic Presentation", but it's movies (Long Form) and TV shows (Short Form). And Disney does all right there. They nominated fucking Frozen, too. Shang-Chi, a Marvel Disney movie, is nominated this year. And I was actually shocked to find this out myself, but the Ursa Majors are actually way better at not being so darn American, at least in the movie categories; we nominated Hayop Kai!, while the Hugos have not nominated anything I hadn't heard of in the last 20 years. In other words, I've watched movies in the past solely on the basis that they were nominated for an Ursa Major. But not the Hugos. And even you point out, for something as large as the fucking science fiction fandom, they're not pulling in large participation numbers. It's almost like, huh, maybe not many people actually care about them that much, either.
I mean, your comparison to the Hugos is basically "the Hugos are a prestigious award because I think they are, and the Ursa Majors aren't a prestigious award because I don't think they are". I mean, honestly, given the size of the fandoms we're dealing with here, the Ursa Majors compare pretty positively, and in some ways better. You say "it's considered the most prestigious award in the science fiction genre." Well, the Ursa Major is considered the most prestigious award in the furry genre. Which also makes your argument come off as "science fiction is a legitimate genre worthy of respect and consideration while furry isn't", which, I mean, yikes!
Also, your solution for the Ursa Majors to gain a higher level of prestige is to, uh, buy it. Setting aside the multiple comments from ALAA members here saying "hey, guys, you know we're the organizational equivalent of paycheck to paycheck over here, right" which you managed to miss your spot check on, I mean, that's just tacky.
I'm sorry, but the Hugos? Really?
I mean, by your own standards, they suck. First of all, yeah, no poorly addressed ballot box stuffing controversies there. Second of all, you know they have a movie category, right? Like, they call it "Dramatic Presentation", but it's movies (Long Form) and TV shows (Short Form). And Disney does all right there. They nominated fucking Frozen, too. Shang-Chi, a Marvel Disney movie, is nominated this year. And I was actually shocked to find this out myself, but the Ursa Majors are actually way better at not being so darn American, at least in the movie categories; we nominated Hayop Kai!, while the Hugos have not nominated anything I hadn't heard of in the last 20 years. In other words, I've watched movies in the past solely on the basis that they were nominated for an Ursa Major. But not the Hugos. And even you point out, for something as large as the fucking science fiction fandom, they're not pulling in large participation numbers. It's almost like, huh, maybe not many people actually care about them that much, either.
I mean, your comparison to the Hugos is basically "the Hugos are a prestigious award because I think they are, and the Ursa Majors aren't a prestigious award because I don't think they are". I mean, honestly, given the size of the fandoms we're dealing with here, the Ursa Majors compare pretty positively, and in some ways better. You say "it's considered the most prestigious award in the science fiction genre." Well, the Ursa Major is considered the most prestigious award in the furry genre. Which also makes your argument come off as "science fiction is a legitimate genre worthy of respect and consideration while furry isn't", which, I mean, yikes!
Also, your solution for the Ursa Majors to gain a higher level of prestige is to, uh, buy it. Setting aside the multiple comments from ALAA members here saying "hey, guys, you know we're the organizational equivalent of paycheck to paycheck over here, right" which you managed to miss your spot check on, I mean, that's just tacky.