More than five thousand readers have voted and the results are in. This year’s Malkin Award, given for noxious, divisive and hyperbolic commentary from the right, goes to Dinesh D’Souza offering his intemperate worst on the legacy of American slavery:
Did America owe something to the slaves whose labor had been stolen? I think so, but that debt is best discharged through memory, because the slaves are dead and their descendants are better off as a consequence of their ancestors being hauled from Africa to America.
And when it comes to the year’s best window views, this shot from Eilean Donan, Scotland took top honors:
2014’s Yglesias Award, given for criticizing one’s own side and thus risking something for the sake of saying what one believes, goes to Charles Krauthammer for his statement on the notorious rancher and conservative cause célèbre Cliven Bundy:
It isn’t enough to say I don’t agree with what he said. This is a despicable statement. It’s not the statement, you have to disassociate yourself entirely from the man. It’s not like the words exist here and the man exists here. And why conservatives, or some conservatives end up in bed with people who, you know, he makes an anti-government statement, he takes an anti-government stand, he wears a nice big hat and he rides a horse, and all of a sudden he is a champion of democracy …
Look, do I have the right to go in to graze sheep in Central Park? I think not. You have to have some respect for the federal government, some respect for our system. And to say you don’t and you don’t recognize it and that makes you a conservative hero, to me, is completely contradictory, and rather appalling. And he has now proved it.
Camels can graze wherever they want if they keep stealing selfies like 2014’s Face Of The Year:
For the first-ever Beard Of The Year competition, this magnificent piece of work won in a landslide:
Meanwhile, Susan Elizabeth Shepard and Charlotte Shane have been crowned the year’s biggest poseurs for this pretentious mess:
69 confronts us with an unfortunate truth: it is a distinctly capitalistic, efficiency-emphasizing endeavor that erases the unique personhood of each participant by relying on a crude approximation of how human bodies fit together if human bodies are conceived of as identical, two-dimensional figures like the numbers of its name. … The position also echoes the service economy in its demand (mainly on women) of a convincing performance of pleasure. It’s not enough to simply be present and to competently do the job that’s asked of you by your lover, you must also appear to simultaneously enjoy said lover’s ministrations, regardless of the delicate balancing requiring to keep from suffocating him or breaking his nose. This is a form of emotional labor like that demanded from baristas, servers, and sex workers; not only do you have to do a good job, you have to like it.
Cattle weren’t the only ones to show up in support of 2014’s Mental Health Break Of The Year:
But a stoned Maureen Dowd might have considered that video a viral nightmare. She wins 2014’s top Hathos honors for her novel summary of what it was like to take too many edibles:
Then I felt a scary shudder go through my body and brain. I barely made it from the desk to the bed, where I lay curled up in a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours. I was thirsty but couldn’t move to get water. Or even turn off the lights. I was panting and paranoid, sure that when the room-service waiter knocked and I didn’t answer, he’d call the police and have me arrested for being unable to handle my candy. I strained to remember where I was or even what I was wearing, touching my green corduroy jeans and staring at the exposed-brick wall. As my paranoia deepened, I became convinced that I had died and no one was telling me. And then I wrote a column on Hillary.
According to the polls, more than 30% of you thought this powerful New Zealand PSA was the year’s Coolest Ad:
And Pavlina Tcherneva’s bar graph tracking America’s income growth disparity is the Chart Of The Year:
Finally, we also added maps to this year’s awards, and Dishheads chose Nik Freeman’s overview of where Americans don’t live as 2014’s best:
Thanks to everyone who took the time to channel their Dishness and vote. For our newer readers, you can find out more about how and why we nominate award candidates here. To recommend a new nominee, email us here.
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