The Unterganger Awards (UA) was a monthly award show managed by BewegungsunFISH (previously by JennieParker87), with Ako675 as assisting manager. Parodies are nominated throughout the month, within 12 (14) categories, on the untergangersawards.com website. A team of judges then select the winners. The winning parodies are then presented in a video made by BewegungsunFISH.
In January 2018 BewegungsunFISH told Ako675 that she would retire from the UA starting from February. This left the Unterganger Awards to him. After six years of running, He decided to close it down, since he no longer wanted to run a contest for a community that - in his opinion - "had turned its back on many profilic Untergangers, especially Parker87, who was responsible for reviving and popularising the UA in the community". The website went offline on February 10th, 2018.
History
The UA was created to replace the increasingly biased Downfall Parody Awards run by sole judge, jury, and executioner notoriousrob01. It was conceived after months of evident favouritism on the DPA surrounding PiretBCN. Official wiki recognition of the DPA ended after June 2012, and now the wiki supported he Unterganger Awards.
The previously independent Unterganger of the Month (UotM) and Parody of the Month (PotM) were planned to be presented under UA's label though the two would run semi-independently and continue to have their own nominations. However, early plans for integration met with resistance from the judges of each contest. Therefore, the first series of UA awards announced in October 2012 were made without the UotM and PotM, and the two continued at their own pace and with their own announcement videos. As time went on, however, and the two began to falter, both were eventually successfully incorporated into the UA.
The main judges for the new Unterganger Awards were originally Benad361, TheSilverUniverse and Master Studios, with guest judges for each month. Later, Master Studios dropped from his position, leaving only Benad361 and TheSilverUniverse.
In June 2014, Benad361 announced he was retiring as the manager for the UA, for pragmatic reasons, namely other commitments. He decided to step down, rather than seeing the UA decline. It was decided through a voting process that JennieParker87 would take over as manager, with Soalric Parker as "Deputy manager" and judge, along with Hitler Rants Parodies as backup manager and judge. Sadly, TheSilverUniverse got caught in the middle, since he had been away from the community for quite some time and was considered inactive. He had made attempts to contact Benad361 about the UA, but with no luck. He told JennieParker87 about this later on, but he was fine with her being the manager.
In December 2014, Soalric Parker stepped down from his position as judge and Deputy manager. Later on, Hitler Rants Parodies also stepped down as a judge. Instead, AlphaSkyRaider, Vulpix95NL and Fuhrerandhissoldiers became judges alongside JennieParker87. Fuhrerandhissoldiers has since left the judge role. Later on, RandomDolfyParodies and Nerdington 0 joined the team of judges. In November 2015, Parodyhall and CoLDe84 joined as well. In December 2015, RandomDolfyParodies stepped down from his role as judge, citing lack of commitment. Upon retiring, Nerdington 0 stepped down from the judge post in January 2016. CoLDe84 became dormant in February 2016, and when JennieParker87 didn't hear from him, she removed him from his judge post. He was then replaced by TheSilverUniverse, who was one of the original creators of the UA.
Many gaming videos were quite long, and this bothered some of the judges, who need to sit through a rather long list of parodies each month. JennieParker87 decided to add a few judges specifically for the gaming category (they will only judge in that category, meaning they can still nominate parodies for other categories) in March 2016. This would ensure that those parodies will get full attention from the judges, and that the remaining judges can focus on the other categories. The first judges in this new position were QuestionTuesdayFTW and Awesome Face!. QuestionTuesdayFTW later quit this position to become a full judge for the UA.
In May 2016, Parodyhall no longer wanted to be a judge, due to lack of time and interest. In June 2016, Delphox (AlphaSkyRaider) and Ninetales95NL left their judge positions, and were replaced by FegelAntics and QuestionTuesdayFTW. The latter had started out as a special Video Game Category judge. Paul Stompbox joined the team of judges in July 2016. Around the same time, FegelAntics wanted to step down. In December 2016, Paul Stompbox also stepped down. Superdumpfback and Shadow Briton Parodies joined the team of judges in the same month.
The Unterganger Awards for September and October 2016 were put on hold, as Ako675 was asked by JennieParker87 to build a website dedicated to nominating parodies for the UA. Before this, parodies were nominated on the Downfall Forums, which were notorious for long loading times and page crashes, due to the amount of videos having to be rendered by the page. The website was launched in November 2016. In December 2016, JennieParker87 announced that she would be on leave from the UA until June 2017, due to personal reasons. During this time, Ako675 was the manager.
QuestionTuesdayFTW stepped down from the judge post in March 2017 due to school and other related reasons, after having to skip judging in February 2017 due to conflicts with The Hitler Rants Parodies Contest judging.
In August 2017, JennieParker87 realised she no longer had the time to return as manager. She then asked BewegungsunFISH to take over, which the latter agreed to. AKO675 agreed to remain as assistant manager.
In January 2018, BewegungsunFISH and Ako675 decided to close down the UA due to recent drama that happened in the community.
On February 10th, 2018, the website permanently went offline.
Nomination & Winner selection
Anyone (except judges in the UA) could nominate up to three parodies for each category. Nominating one's own parody was fine, as long as at least one other parody by someone else was also nominated before deadline (which was on the last day of the month). Nominations used to be made in the then-current Unterganger Awards thread, until a new website was launched in November 2016, which now required people to nominate via a spreadsheet system. As of December 2016 the spreadsheet system was dropped for a simple online form, following difficulties in working with spreadsheets. If the same parody was nominated 3 times or more in the same category (by others than the person who made it), the parody got an extra vote in the judging process. So called "Emergency judges" were called in quite often to settle ties and to vote in categories where a judge is nominated.
Since December 2014, judges were allowed to nominate parodies (and Untergangers for UotM, but not for PotM), if there was a need (for example if a category doesn't receive any nominations, or if there was just one nomination in a category). Judges could also nominate a parody of their own. However, If a judge's own parody was self-nominated; a 7th judge must be called in to vote in that category, to ensure justice. Judges could not nominate in categories where there were more than one nomination, or if another judge nominated a parody in the same category. Also note, that judges could only nominate parodies on the day after deadline, and only during that day.
Categories for nomination
In November 2012, TheSilverUniverse, who was one of the original creators of the UA, allowed for three parodies to be nominated per category and that system remains today. In September 2014, JennieParker87 changed some of the categories, based on a suggestion from Soalric Parker. In November 2014, Unterganger of the Month returned as a category in the UA, as a separate category. This means that the winner of the title is presented in the same result video as the UA. Since December 2014, Parody of the Month is also included in the UA as a separate category.
In March 2015, 3 new categories were added; "Most Humorous Parody" (suggested by Ako675), "Best use of a rare scene" (suggested by Fuhrerandhissoldiers) and "Best parody by a newcomer" ("newcomer" here meant a person who has been making parodies for less than 6 months). In May 2015, DPMVs got a separate category - Best DPMV (Music Parody) - instead of being included in the "Best Audio-Based" category. This was decided after JennieParker87 and AlphaSkyRaider had discussed the subject. In July 2015, JennieParker87 decided to replace "Best Seasonal" with "Best Series", a category which was previously in the UA. It was missed by several Untergangers, so she decided to put it back in. In November 2015, the "Best Superweapon" category was removed from the UA. The category received very few, if any, nominations. So JennieParker87 decided to remove it as an independent category. Superweapon parodies now counted as part of a series, and could be nominated in the "Best Series" category instead. In June 2016, the category "Best use of a rare scene" was removed since it barely received any nominations for several months.
- Parody of the Month (Separate category)
- Unterganger of the Month (Separate category)
- Best FX Parody
- Best Current Events Parody
- Best Series
- Best Story-Based Parody
- Best Video Game Parody
- Best Audio-Based Parody
- Best DPMV (Music Parody)
- Most Innovative
- Most Humorous Parody
- Best parody by a newcomer
Judges
Name | Period |
---|---|
BewegungsunFISH |
2016-2018 |
JennieParker87 | June 2014 - December 2016 |
Delphox | January 2015 - May 2016 |
TheSilverUniverse | October 2012 – June 2014 |
Master Studios | October 2012 - March 2013 |
Benad361 | October 2012 - June 2014 |
Recipients
External links
- The UA's own site
- Parody of the Month
- Unterganger of the Month
- The Untergangers Awards - An earlier DPF thread on having a similar award-giving event