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The 2023 Peely Awards for the Worst in Pop Culture, Round II, Part I

Welcome, folks, to Part I of the Second Round of the 2023 Peely Awards for the Worst in Pop Culture! We have collected from you, the readers of the Avocado, a whopping FORTY categories to discuss the year’s biggest schlock, flops, and mishaps. That’s why this is Part I; it’s only covering the first twenty, and Part II will cover the second when it publishes an hour after this (check it out here!). This cuts down on a problem that’s happened in previous years, where so many of us comment in so short a time that it becomes nigh-impossible to read.

Here are the first twenty categories, which we’ll be voting on in here:

  • The Neil Breen Award for Worst Performance (Owen1120)
  • The Blizzard’s Bargain Basement Award for Worst New Character (Wolfman Jew)
  • The Fastest, Longest, Most Embarrassing Flop Alive Award for Worst Return for the Effort Put In (Owen1120)
  • The Practically Tripped Over Your Own Dick Award for Worst Action Choreography (Shit-Master Slootfass)
  • Worst Marketing, of any Kind, from Commercials to Posters to More (Lovely Lily Bones, Owen1120, Antler Queen Carson Shaw, Eagle Hand Sleigh Co.)
  • The “Because You Didn’t Demand It!” Award for Worst Franchise Extension (Pliny the Elder, Yuri Petrovitch, Mr Ixolite) 
  • Horizon‘s Bad Luck Award for Project that May Have Been Good or Bad, but Utterly Crushed Under the Weight of Bigger and Better Things (Wolfman Jew)
  • Schmigadoon Award for Most Inconvenient to Watch Media / Best Thing Locked Behind a Service, Platform, or Device You Don’t Want (SadClown / Lovely Bones)
  • The Bronze Embracer for Worst Cancellation of a Released or Unfinished Work, Series, or Product in 2023 (Owen1120, Ice Cream Planet)
  • Most Shovelware of Media (Lovely Bones)
  • Most Spectacular Self-Own (Lovely Lily Bones)
  • The Miles Bron Is An Idiot Award for Elon Musk’s Greatest Debacle of the Year (LibraryLass)
  • The JK Rowling Award for Worst Egregious Celebrity Behavior (Antler Queen Carson Shaw, Pershing48)
  • The “It’s Riku, They Put Bugs in Him!” Award for Worst Technical Performance (Lovely Lily Bones)
  • It’s 2023 so… C’mon, Why Not Award for a Lack of Basic Accessibility Features in a 2023 Product or Service (Soufflé Cat)
  • Worst Deployment of This Year’s Prerequisite Tech Trend, AI Generation (Lovely Lily Bones / Shit-Master Slootfass)
  • The Louie from Pikmin’s Cookbook Award for Most Cursed Food Item (Real Division) (Shit-Master Slootfass)
  • Most Egregious Corporate Malfeasance (Lovely Lily Bones)
  • Worst Labor Abuse (Lovely Lily Bones)
  • Most Egregious Corporate Malfeasance and Labor Abuse by Hasbro and its Subsidiaries (LibraryLass, Merve)

I’ll have a comment in the bottom section for each category, along with a description of what it means. That’s what the big award shows do, right? If you want to put in a nominee, just reply. And—and this is paramount—vote for as many nominees as you like. Even if they’re in the same category! There’s nothing wrong about it! In fact, we not only support it, we encourage it, and think it’s vital to the spirit of the event.

So jump on in and have fun!