The Skating World and Its Discontents

Ice dancer (and part-time P/C uber) Tim Koleto posted this polite but troubling request this afternoon.

Let’s enjoy this Olympic experience together with kindness and compassion, and supporting our friends and favs. Love you all ♥️ pic.twitter.com/r71Npfb0YD

— Tim Koleto 小嶺都帝夢 (@Timkoleto) January 20, 2018

Telling fans that it is not their place to criticize is getting very old. While there are indeed things such as gossip and pointless name calling that can go too far, it is not appropriate for skaters to be the ones putting limits on what fans can say. It is disingenuous to suggest that they don't have the means to mostly remove themselves from being exposed to fan comments. For example, if skaters feel like they can't escape fan criticism because their friends text it to them and they don't find it helpful to see, they can tell their friends to stop. They can unfollow people who like tweets criticizing them. They can use the mental fortitude they surely have as elite athletes, and not scroll on Facebook posts or Youtube comments. A lot of high-level skaters in fact seem far too invested, for either athletes or artists, in what fans think of them, or in being part of the cliquish unconstructive social media scene themselves. Putting the burden on fans to create a nice cheery environment for them, so that they don't need to create any healthy boundaries for themselves, or endure the thought someone thinks they're being scored too high, is not reasonable. 

"If the result is unfair, we already have our own opinion about that", Koleto says. It's hard to read that any other way but that lowly fans don't deserve a meaningful opinion of their own, when his concern is not fans who confront or try to convince skaters by tagging them (which for my own part is something that I don't think it is appropriate to do), but that fans simply put their blunt opinions out there where it could possibly be discovered by the skater being discussed. (It is never a good look, in my opinion, for a skater to engage with a critical fan, but at least Mirai Nagasu was tagged here.) Insisting that tweets that are harsh or that question outcomes should only be made on privatized accounts would be a ridiculous enough standard, but to suggest that not even that is allowable takes my breath away.

Yes, it's impressive how skaters have dedicated themselves to a challenging lifestyle, but it was their choice to put themselves out there. Criticism is part of what any athlete, any artist, any public figure signs up for, not something they can exempt themselves from by pointing to how hard they work. Lots of people work very hard in life, lots of people have difficult jobs - I wonder, can fans earn the right to criticize by how much effort they're putting into their own lives? Athletes are indeed inspirational, but they have also been blessed with talent, and even if they weren't born into monetary privilege (as many in skating are) and have had to make huge real-life sacrifices, they also had at least some good fortune to make it to the international stage. Lots of people's dreams don't come true, no matter how much merit or effort is involved. 

Simply appreciating the achievements of every Olympic athlete is a much easier proposition for the majority of sports where results speak for themselves. You can see who crosses a finish line first. You can see that the athlete that finishes last tried their best. It's not complicated by misdirection. There is no judge-splaining going on, convincing the audience that the 10th fastest is actually the best. The commentators explain things like disqualifications, but they don't mislead the audience about what is supposed to earn a victory.  A skating fan can realize that every skater at the Olympics is among the best in the world in a broad sense, that they have put a lot of work into being there, and that they tried to perform at their best, while at the same time think that the results were not accurate to a troubling extent. If that seems less fun, then that is on the sport of skating and the way it conducts itself by constant obfuscation - not on fans who voice their concerns if things seem shady. They have every right to do so - and in fact I think most are too polite, suggesting that the system is merely malfunctioning, somehow, rather than the sport being deeply corrupted.

Freely offering up encouragement and congratulations to favourite teams is great, but fans have no obligation to make skaters feel validated, even by silence, if the scoring system is being ignored. For quite a while, the ranking of teams has rarely been defendable, scores across the board have gotten completely out of whack with reality compared with criteria, and ice dance choreographers have been brushing aside what is outlined as truly necessary for highest difficulty and top scores, such as skating very close together and dance-specific elements. And many in the ice dance world make it perfectly clear that they're fine with ice dancing being an art instead of a sport (but somehow they still think Olympic medals should be part of the deal). It has all gotten so wildly out of hand that I feel the skaters themselves are indeed complicit. Some make it clear that they already know and don't care that the Code of Points has become nothing but a front for politicks, but I think every skater who participates should at least pay the price of being at risk of hearing that truth. And you know what?  There are some skaters who get trampled along the way, and maybe appreciate that someone notices that. You know what's not compassionate? The majority of the skating world gaslighting certain skaters, taking things they deserve and giving it to others that don't. For some of us, this is not and has never been about snark for snark's sake, but rather about fairness. Someone calling out an Olympic sport because they think it is corrupt has a lot more respect for the Olympics as a institution with the power to affect society positively than someone who just wants everything to be nice for nice's sake.

This tweet of mine from yesterday did not come out of nowhere. There has been a long history of skaters inappropriately admonishing fans for criticizing. Famous athletes are the ones in a position of power, they are not helpless victims without the ability to just focus on their jobs. The original idea for this post came after Gabriella Papadakis made a similar plea on Instagram at the beginning of the 2016-17 season. I tweeted about it and further defended my position, but it was part of an extremely troubling pattern and seemed worthy of further comment. After a year off the job here, however, my notes are rather disorganized, and I'll leave a detailed discussion of previous events for a later post.

(Feb 2/18 edited to add:)

PS: This exchange is pathetic. Again, these skaters were not tagged. Skating, the only sport in which the athletes harass the fans more than the other way around? STOP criticizing fans for having critical opinions. STOP shutting them down because you don't share their views. STOP seeking out fan discussion if you can't help confronting fans rather than acting with the maturity and class that should be expected from celebrities of your standing. Scimeca Knierim is certainly kinder here in a further reply, whereas Duhamel has a history as perhaps the most aggressive of all skaters in shaming fans for having opinions, but it's the same principle. Skaters are welcome to feel frustrated at the skating establishment if they feel they are being undervalued, and to appreciate encouragement from fans who wish to give it, but requesting that all fans keep their negative feelings to themselves, so that skaters never feel discouraged if they happen to read what's out there, is simply out of line.

Shame on Danny O'Shea, Ashley Cain and Kaitlin Hawayek for "liking" that Duhamel is intimidating a fan yet again.  And shame on Ice-Dance.com for doing the same, continuing a pattern of always backing up skaters when they pull this crap, yet again showing that they are not sports journalists, but merely the equivalent of talk show hosts.