For April Fool’s Day, and just weeks from the annual Golden Raspberry Awards (The Razzies), a program featuring some of the worst and sometime unintentionally hilarious film music of the 80’s and 90’s wrapped in an essay of how badly people have ruined the entire award system by truly not challenging it at every level. #razzies #filmmusic #1980s #1990s #razzies #aprilfools #webbys #commuunicatorawards

Currently, we are in the middle of awards season. The supposed “best of the best” will be honored in a string of, for the most part, glitzy, made for ratings spectacles meant to draw you away from your recent binge-watch.

You root for your favorites. You tweet complaints about who didn’t get nominated at all. Sometimes, you are a judge in these contests or a celebrity who has won some awards at these programs, being a part of the machine itself, while railing against its unfairness. The latter is often referred to as working inside the system to change it, but honestly, you can’t be in it and not of it. If that was the case, we would not be here in this mess we are in now.

Kanye West’s (left) has often lashed out on Twitter against Grammys CEO Neil Portnow about the unfairness of the Grammy Awards. Photo credit: Frank Micelotta/Invsion/AP and Jeff Kravitz/MTV1415/FilmMagic/Getty.

Rapper Kanye West, for example, has issued a firestorm of Twitter activity (no, you don’t say) about how unfair the Grammys are and also states just how important they are. Ironically, he was won 22 of the trophies out of 70 nominations, which is 22 more wins and 70 more nominations than one of the most celebrated rock groups in history, The Kinks, have ever received.

Awards, at times, aren’t meant to recognize the most talented people or projects during a given time period. Remember, at the end of the day, they are judgments by people you have never met or probably never will meet, kind of like being on social media, for example. What the motivations for these decisions has always been a source of debate.

Prince, in a still image from the film Under The Cherry Moon, 1986. He won the Razzie for Worst Original Song for Love or Money, which didn’t even appear on the official soundtrack LP, but as the B-side to the “Kiss” single. Courtesy of Warner Brothers.

The stakes can be much, much higher when winning or losing one of the major industry awards. Remember that word: industry, not artistry.

Awards are akin to the lottery: if you want the big prizes and the privileges they unlock in this media-and-money obsessed society, they you have to buy a ticket. Is it fair? Well, of course it’s not. It never has been, either. Am I making excuses for the game? Hardly, but I understand how it is played, and so do you, whether you admit it publicly or not. No one stars in a movie or records an album to be anonymous. The same goes for podcasters.

Liberace, the queer icon who made millions but was mercilessly trashed by critics. This is from his Leapin’ Lizards TV special from 1978, back when there were only three networks and PBS. Courtesy of the Liberace Foundation for the Performing and Creative Arts.

Believe me, there are more than enough lottery winners who have very ugly tales to tell about what happened to them afterward.

Speaking about admitting it publicly, this year, I have entered into two international contests. Why? Because being anonymous isn’t putting food on the table. So what if my work gets criticized and I can still put a roof over our h...