Every time I see someone put "award-winning (insert profession)" on their profile, it gives me an ick. In the field I work on now, lighting design, there's this annual award for lighting designers all over the world in lots of different categories. I first noticed it when my then-boss would always put the award and its logo as his email signature. Awards like this are always by submission, and it was judged only by photos. The thing with lighting design is you really can't judge the quality of the work by photos. Same thing applied to any architecture and interior design works. But especially lighting design because the light on what you see on the photos could be very different than the reality. Also photos are very easily manipulated.
In architecture we can't really judge a building by looking at the photos, sure it could look nice, but what mattered most is the space, how the experience is within the space. And I also always judge by the details and workmanship, something we can't always see from photos. I went to several building built by the most famous architects in the world, and I was always surprised at how different they are from what I perceived from knowing them before from photos. Some of the freakier shape of buildings could turned out to have a very nice flow of space. Some of the prettier building could have the nastiest workmanship and made me feel easily disoriented inside. Some of the nice looking building with good space could be standing out of nowhere having no respect to the its context and surrounding at all.
The thing about awards is that they mostly never are about awarding the bests in the industry, but about marketing. It's not always a bad thing. Awards create buzz and make people talk. But it bothers me when people see awards as a measure of quality. Take the Oscar for example, the most known award out there. It is more a popularity contest than a judgement of quality. If it's for quality, why do the nominees even need to campaign? The works are already there to be judged for their quality. When you see the list of winners and watched the films, it's crystal clear the winners aren't always and most likely aren't the most deserving. Rather than a celebration of talents, it's a marketing tool at best. Awards are there to support the industry.
I once watched a crime documentary and it was so good I looked up the profile of the person who did some kind of psycho-analysis on criminals. On her instagram page she wrote on her profile: award-winning criminal behavioral analyst. Like what do you even mean? You analyse criminal behavior, what would an award have to do with anything? It gives me an ick but it is what it is. In capitalism everything is about marketing and driving engagement. People often notice the loudest but more often than not we have to look at the quieter for better quality.
Update: Here's Damon Albarn talking about how all awards are fucking bullshit that are never fair and therefore shouldn't exist: around minute 18.
