Eyes on the Prize

I was reading about that French academic who awarded himself a non-existent international prize for philology.  The truly amazing thing about it was that it took years for anyone to call him out, so accomplished was his deception - he created a whole fake institute, (which, in reality, was nothing more than a website), to nominate himself (and other candidates), then award him the prize.  He even had a fake physical trophy created to award to himself.  It was amazingly elaborate and amazingly successful.  For a few years, at least.  Anyway, as I was reading about this guy, I couldn't help but think to myself that this was the sort of thing that I might do.  In fact, I sort of have done it in the past.  Way back when, there all manner of utterly spurious online 'awards' for websites going around, including some for satire sites.  Now, I have utter contempt for awards of any kind, (not just because I never win any, but on a matter of principle - they are setting up false competition between entirely unalike entities on the basis of highly dubious criteria), so I never entered The Sleaze for any of them.  The fact that many of them required a fee just for entry was a big clue as to their spurious nature, (plus, I'm a notorious skinflint).  Yet others seemed to be setting great store in these awards and were happily trumpeting how their site had 'won' one or other of them.  Which pissed me off no end.  So, I invented my own 'Sleaze Satire Awards', which, naturally, went to The Sleaze.  Now, there was never any physical trophy, (as already note, I'm a notorious skinflint, so spending money on this venture was out of the question), and nobody ever really noticed that I had won my own award (I really couldn't be arsed to publicise it in any way), but it amused me.

Getting back to the French dude, one might argue that he was actually some sort of trendsetter, as fake awards have, nowadays, become fashionable.  After all, what is that FIFA 'peace prize' they awarded to Donald Trump other than an elaborate piece of fakery designed to flatter and assuage a notoriously temperamental head of state whose country is jointly hosting your main international competition?  Will this 'peace prize' ever be awarded again by FIFA?  I somehow doubt it.  Were there other possible candidates to win it?  Again, I somehow doubt it.  Was there a clear set of criteria for candidates to be eligible?  I refer you to my earlier comments.  Who actually decides on who will win it, a panel of worthies, an academy of some sort?  Who knows.  It has absolutely no legitimacy.  Less legitimacy, in fact, than that French academic's fake award - at least he only gave it to himself and claimed that his motivation was merely to bring more attention to his academic discipline.  But it isn't just entirely fake awards that are the problem - nowadays the entire concept of having to earn an award is being undermined.  I mean, Trump seems to think that he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize simply because he feels that, as Obama once won it, it must be his turn.  Sadly, there seem to be plenty of spineless politicians prepared to pander to him on the issue by nominating him.  In the meantime, of course, he's been happy to try and purloin the prize awarded to that Venezuelan opposition leader - who has had a hard lesson in Trump's fickleness, with him effectively abandoning her in the wake of the US's illegal kidnapping of Maduro, favouring his deputy as new Venezuelan leader instead.  So now she has given away her prize and is still no closer to toppling the current regime in her own country.  Which all goes to reinforce my belief that all these awards are utterly pointless and of questionable value.