Welcome, folks, to Part 1 of the Second Round of the 2024 Peely Awards for the Worst in Pop Culture! And we at the long-formed but newly Christened Peely Committee must say you folks really delivered this year! We’ve got a whopping forty categories with which to judge, mock, and decry the worst the entertainment industry had for us. Now, because they’re so big, and because we prefer to spread the love, we split this up down the middle. This is the first half. So, here are your first twenty categories:
- The Gold-Plated Lifetime Tom Welling Award for Worst Performance (Merve)
- The “Ian Holm IS Rook” Award for Most Uncanny Valley Use of Special Effects (El Santo)
- The Prequel to a Remake of a Tie-In Miniseries Masquerading as an Original Idea Award for the Least Essential Sequel, Prequel, Remake, Spinoff, or other Form of IP Extension (Mr Ixolite)
- Kraven for a Win Award for the Most Unnecessary, Unasked-For Piece of Media to be Released (Ninjaneer, MacCrocodile)
- The Ubisoft Game-imatic Universe Award for Most Irritating or Perplexing Act of Product Crossover, Cross-Promotion, or Brand Integration (Wolfman Jew, Skipskatte)
- Most Obnoxious Television Commercial (Tigercat919)
- Too Many Fingers in a Sinister Soup Award for Worst Commercial, Billboard, or Piece of Advertising Trying to Sell Us on the Benefits of AI (dollymix)
- Monetized and Scrutinized Award for Worst Corporate Malfeasance (Ninjaneer)
- Dungeonized and Dragonized Award for Worst Corporate Malfeasance (Hasbro / Wizards of the Coast Division) (LibraryLass)
- Serial Cruller Thriller Award for Worst New Food (Shit-Master Slootfass)
- Next Time On! Award for the Mulitpart Streaming Series that, More than Any Other, Should Probably Have Just Been A Two Hour-Long Movie (El Santo)
- Most Late To The Party Trend Chaser (Shit-Master Slootfass)
- The Best in Excess Award for Biggest Belly Flop of a Live Service (Wolfman Jew)
- The Rest in Excess Award for Biggest Belly Flop of Entertainment Product that Was Not a Live Service (Ninjaneer)
- The Jenga Tower that is Capitalism Award for Most Absurd Corporate Self-Destruction (Wolfman Jew)
- The War of the Indistinguishable Bearded Men Award for Most Inscrutable YouTuber/Twitch Streamer Drama (Merve)
- Sawing off the Leg on Which You Stand Award for Most Exhausting Culture War Battle, Something so Banal that It Just Smothers You With Embarrassment (Diptera)
- The “Please Touch Grass” Award for Worst Fan Behavior (Antler Queen Carson Shaw)
- Oh No, They Have Been Here for Years Award for Worst Comeback Attempt, Whether Successful or Not (Shit-Master Slootfass)
- The Torment Nexus Award for Worst Analysis, Take, or Misrepresentation of Pop Culture (Antler Queen Carson Shaw)
The next twenty will appear in an hour after this one’s publication; I’ll link to it afterwards. It’s right here!
If you want to nominate someone or something, make a reply. If you want to vote for a nomination, upvote it. But—and this is the most important thing of all—if you want to nominate multiple nominations in the same category, do it. We in fact encourage this practice! It’s part and parcel of the event.
And I guess that is that! So get in here and start nominating!