What are the 2nd Annual TREEMY Awards?
Six new categories, plus last year's controversy, explained.
There’s a thing you should know about tree people: we’re a bunch of idiots, and it’s our favorite thing about ourselves.
What are the TREEMY Awards? It’s the only awards show for trees in film, television, and the internet. What about trees in books and print? Simple: there are already a lot of trees in those mediums, and the popular visual mediums need a whole lot of encouragement.
The TREEMYS, in essence, is my effort to organize our tree-idiocy into something bigger than itself. Also, the Razzies are a mean institution that likes to victimize children and Bruce Willis. Not ok. Bruce will forever rule, and children are fine. My biggest hope is for the TREEMYS to replace the Razzies as the go-to alternative awards show of the season, signaling our societal transition from snickering schadenfreudists to beautiful idiot dreamers.
Anyway, last year’s TREEMYS featured four categories, the first three for achievement in 2021 (Best Tree—Film, Best Tree—TV/Streaming, Best Tree—Internet), and the last, our marquee award, the Lifetime A-tree-vement Award. The votes were collected via an online platform, where, after it was live, I realized you could vote twice. Four thousand votes were cast, perhaps 3500 of which were unique.
Don’t think an awards show for trees can have controversy? Think again. Last year’s Lifetime A-tree-vement award winner, Treebeard from the Lord of the Rings series (dominant with over 1800 votes cast in his name from ten nominees) isn’t technically a tree and he didn’t come to the ceremony. Category fraud and moral protest in the same ceremony.
All former categories remain this year, but, because the TREEMYS will be a live, late-night event this year on Earth Day, April 22 (forest-green carpet, semi-floral affair), we’re expanding the roster in anticipation of a raucous evening. The following five votable categories will be added. For these second-tier awards, trees in any medium are eligible.
• Best Line of Tree Dialogue
• Best Leaf Rustle
• Best Use of Tree as Phallic Symbol
• Best Forest
• Most Promising Seed
In collaboration with Casey Clapp and Alex Crowson, the guys at Completely Arbortrary, we’re also introducing a special award:
• The Dank David Douglas Achievement in Video Games
This award will be presented this year to Erdtree from The Elden Ring. David Douglas (1799-1834), of course, had limited familiarity with video games. But alliteration is great for business, and sex sells.
The nominating period is currently open in my instagram stories (jewslovetrees), where you can submit nominations for each category for the next few days for consideration, but you can also simply respond to this email if you have one or more nominations for the year of 2022 that you’d like me to consider. And, believe me, I will consider them.
Stay tuned for announcement of the actual nominees, how to vote, and details on how you can attend the live TREEMY Awards on April 22 and have your lives changed.
Best,
Tobin
An Out-of-Context Sentence from Must Love Trees: An Unconventional Guide
Page 28:
“In terms of hosts, I think I most resembled Billy Crystal due to my lengthy song-and-dance routines and vaudevillian facial expressions. And, of course, the Judaism.”
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