The other day I came across this very amusing article, "The Case Against Awards: Why the Wrong Person Always Wins", published in The New Republic. The basic idea of the article goes something like this: the awards system is by default flawed and, more importantly, so what? "So what" - exactly.
Funny enough, those who are the most vocal about the unfairness and/or futility of the awards, the author observes, are those who - paradoxically, perhaps - care the most: "Those most convinced that, say, the Oscars do a horrible job of rating films are the very people who cling to their emotional investment in the outcome," he writes. And, a bit later: "Magazine writers tend to be both obsessed with who wins and convinced the process is a pathetic joke." I can't help but see a parallel to advertising industry. But again - so what? It's all for the show anyway.
The question here is not one of the awards at all - it's the one of sociology. The organization of human groups are rarely chaotic for a long time, if at all. There's always some form of order based on horizontal or vertical distribution of authority, power, and accountability. Games people play to reorganize the ties of power and authority are, for me, one of the most interesting domains of sociology and psychology.
Best part here, though, is that a game becomes increasingly more complex as the objective criteria of authority/power decrease. That is, as we move from matters of survival (where the winner is obvious - just think Darwin Awards) towards the matters of taste, the ranking becomes arbitrary. In short, there's no way to prove it.
Who judges these awards, at the end of the day, is really not important. Either way, we won't like the outcome.
(the image is from the Creative Faceoff.)