[carabiner]

I think the Nobels, especially in the arts, have lost their relevance, similar to the Michelin restaurant awards and the Oscars for film. We now know they're from a select group (of Norwegians in this case) with certain tastes no more noteworthy or transcendent than any of ours. The world has too much culture and achievement today to be marked by one group of awards like this per year. We have "Oscar bait," but I think the phenomenon of "Nobel bait" has been around for a long time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_bait

[parodysbird]

I enjoy Oscar bait films and Michelin star restaurants. Oscar bait film season (winter) is the main season I look forward to going to to the movies, not summer (blockbuster season). But it's not some attack on mainstream culture just because there are awards for niche/elite/artsy/etc culture. Similarly, just because the Nobel for literature goes to a niche literary author you don't know/like doesn't demean whatever your reading preferences are.

[esjeon]

> Similarly, just because the Nobel for literature goes to a niche literary author you don't know/like doesn't demean whatever your reading preferences are.

You know how things work. The media starts to chant about how great those winners are, with only a few seriously digging into the actual works. They are quickly followed by internet trolls who derail every discussion by insisting that these are masterpieces certified by big-name committees, claiming that we, the lowly masses, must accept the decisions of the great authority as the absolute truth of our lives.

Every awards season is like this, and I now hate awards

[parodysbird]

> They are quickly followed by internet trolls who derail every discussion by insisting that these are masterpieces certified by big-name committees, claiming that we, the lowly masses, must accept the decisions of the great authority as the absolute truth of our lives.

Who does this with the Nobel Prize on literature? I've not even heard of any of the previous winners on until Bob Dylan in 2016.

Even with the Oscars, like who is demeaning the lowly masses that they must view as absolute truth that e.g. CODA or The Whale or The Power of the Dog etc are masterpieces?

[nottorp]

They tend to be awarded only to works treating depressing subjects. Or to authors in depressing situations.

When was the last time an Oscar or a literature prize (Nobel but not only) has been awarded to something funny?

[locuscoeruleus]

> We now know they're from a select group (of Norwegians in this case) with certain tastes no more noteworthy or transcendent than any of ours.

Only the nobel peace prize is handed out by Norway. What would you consider an example of nobel bait?

[carabiner]

Ok, the physics prize is given by swedes. The overall point stands though; there's a massive nationalist bias to the Nobels that is well known: https://www.quora.com/Why-does-Sweden-have-so-many-Nobel-lau...

I used to think that Nobel committee was made up of researchers around the world, and the Nobel dudes would just present it for a ceremony. Nope, it's really just people from one college who are picking these prizes.

[ojl]

No, it’s not people from one college. The members of the different committees are professors or scientists from various Swedish universities, and the Royal Swedish Academy which gives the awards doesn’t not only have Swedish members as far as I know.

Edit: It seems the committee for physiology and medicine is actually at Karolinska institutet, so in this case it was one college.

[mongol]

Obama getting the peace prize after less than a year as president. He had not done anything extraordinary related to peacse and he seemed mostly embarassed to receive it given that

[JumpCrisscross]

How is that relevant to the literature prize?

[pie420]

what did obama do that was considered nobel bait? he had no idea they were about to give it to him. And really, him getting the nobel is probably more for signifying the end of racism since america finally elected a black president, but we all know how that turned out.

[ericmcer]

Bob Dylan?

[JumpCrisscross]

> similar to the Michelin restaurant awards

Michelin stars remain coveted and are a sure-fire way for fine-dining restaurants to fill their seats.

[pie420]

name a more prestigious/better guide (marketing tool) for restaurants?

[cafard]

The lists are curious--did you think of Bergson or Russell as men of letters?--and I think that only scholars will have read more than a couple of the laureates from any given decade. I was interested to see that Mommsen received it.

[Edit: changed "know" to "will have read"]