Fans are really getting out of hand

[canbelto]

The dreaded, demented, demonic anjule?

Oh yes! I remember there was also a debate about whether Katia was going to hell. Consensus among the widows seemed to be that since she was not Christian, yes she was going to hell.
The sad thing was Ilia Kulik apparently used to communicate with fans a lot but after the widows went after him he shut down. So the widows said he was cold and unfeeling unlike their perfect Sergei. I wonder why Kulik kept his distance from fans? It couldn't possibly be because he had a bunch of crazed Sergei widows stalking him could it?

 

[VALuvsMKwan]

Oh yes! I remember there was also a debate about whether Katia was going to hell. Consensus among the widows seemed to be that since she was not Christian, yes she was going to hell.
The sad thing was Ilia Kulik apparently used to communicate with fans a lot but after the widows went after him he shut down. So the widows said he was cold and unfeeling unlike their perfect Sergei. I wonder why Kulik kept his distance from fans? It couldn't possibly be because he had a bunch of crazed Sergei widows stalking him could it?

I believe that there is at least one poster here who was or is involved with something called Kulik's Krew.

 

[canbelto]

Oh man I found some widows chatting in a google groups. Brings back memories.

eta: no links

Chana410​

Feb 20, 2003, 4:33:24 PM


to

Katia is
married to Ilia Kulik. They have a daughter, Liza.

It hasn't been confirmed that she is married. At any rate, their child was
conceived WELL before they married. Just to set the record straight.
Sadly, she has proven herself to be an unfit mother.
~~~~Chana~~~~

 

[canbelto]

eta: ok no links.

 

[Sylvia]

You seem pretty fixated on this old topic, @canbelto (wish this thread was in the Trash Can...).

 

[canbelto]

You seem pretty fixated on this old topic, @canbelto (wish this thread was in the Trash Can...).

I am. It is by far the most bizarre fanbase I have ever encountered. Anywhere.

 

[Wyliefan]

Links and quote deleted.

 

[canbelto]

@Wyliefan oops. I deleted the links. Could you delete the quote?

 

[Brenda_Bottems]

I made acquaintance with several 'widows' at Nationals in the late 90s. All were trapped in sexless marriages to paunchy and inattentive men afflicted with varying degrees of male-pattern baldness. Through the memory of Mr. Grinkov,these 'widows' were able to funnel their long-repressed and dormant urges of lust and sin to the memory of an attractive dead man with a full head of hair.

Gordeeva,while generally overrated,unfortunately was left to dealt with the resentment of many frumpy middle-aged women in this time period.

-Dr. BB

 

[Ananas Astra]

I remember reading about "fake Russian fans" in the Archives at some point. Does anyone bother to elaborate on this one? I thought it was pretty cringy and hilarious.

 

[Lemonade20]

This is really scary, poor Johnny.

 

[Winnipeg]

I cannot imagine why anyone would want to harm JW?! Glad to hear he is staying safe and I hope whomever is causing this fear gets caught.

 

[Simone411]

I remember reading about "fake Russian fans" in the Archives at some point. Does anyone bother to elaborate on this one? I thought it was pretty cringy and hilarious.

I don't remember that, but I remember something pretty unusual when I first joined the MKF forum. It was around February or the beginning of March in 2003. I didn't think about posting until now because I couldn't remember the name of the group. This group of people (and they were pseuding so I have no idea who they were) was trying to prevent others from finding out Michelle's program music. So they made up something to mislead everyone. I believe it was in regards to the 2003 Worlds. The name of that group of people was really unusual, too. I believe it was something like the Dogabytes or Dagabytes?? Does anyone remember this?

 

[VALuvsMKwan]

Dagobytes - talk about Freaks and Geeks.

 

[VGThuy]

What was the story of Dagobytes again? I forgot all about that episode.

 

[VALuvsMKwan]

What was the story of Dagobytes again? I forgot all about that episode.

More or less what @Simone411 mentioned above. I thought it was demented then and still think so (along with any other pseuding).

 

[Yazmeen]

More or less what @Simone411 mentioned above. I thought it was demented then and still think so (along with any other pseuding).

Oh, God, that was the season of the Atlanta nationals. Said fans were frantic to not have her program info get out (why, I'll never know - what did they think, Irina or Sasha were going to suddenly decide to steal her program music???).

Then these MKF fans all showed up at Nationals wearing purple, carrying purple pom-poms because Michelle's dress for the free skate early in the season was a lovely shade of lavender. Let's just say they were very "enthusiastic" and leave it there. The situation was not helped by the fact that a reporter caught on to them and published an article about the fans prior to the ladies competition. I still remember the one older woman interviewed showing off her purple manicure, and them all being so proud of wearing MK's "official" color and the attention they got.

And then Michelle showed up in the warmup wearing a coral-colored dress. They totally forgot that she had changed out her dresses more than once before Nationals...

For those unaware this is where the single statement "PURPLE!!!" in MK threads came from.

 

[canbelto]

Ok does this happen anymore, where American women figure skating fans adopt a Russian name and go to skating meets pretending to be Russian, fur coats and accents and all? I remember Johnny Weir had a few of those fans who pretended to be Russian at meets.

 

[VALuvsMKwan]

Oh, God, that was the season of the Atlanta nationals. Said fans were frantic to not have her program info get out (why, I'll never know - what did they think, Irina or Sasha were going to suddenly decide to steal her program music???).

Then these MKF fans all showed up at Nationals wearing purple, carrying purple pom-poms because Michelle's dress for the free skate early in the season was a lovely shade of lavender. Let's just say they were very "enthusiastic" and leave it there. The situation was not helped by the fact that a reporter caught on to them and published an article about the fans prior to the ladies competition. I still remember the one older woman interviewed showing off her purple manicure, and them all being so proud of wearing MK's "official" color and the attention they got.

And then Michelle showed up in the warmup wearing a coral-colored dress. They totally forgot that she had changed out her dresses more than once before Nationals...

For those unaware this is where the single statement "PURPLE!!!" in MK threads came from.

OMG Cyn and I were there and she had my cell phone reporting back during warmup and I believe we were the first to report the color as coral.

 

[mjb52]

Ok does this happen anymore, where American women figure skating fans adopt a Russian name and go to skating meets pretending to be Russian, fur coats and accents and all? I remember Johnny Weir had a few of those fans who pretended to be Russian at meets.

I want to do this now.

 

[Ananas Astra]

Obsessive fandom is really creepy. Back in my early twenties when I was a sucker for indie rock bands, especially from Scandinavia, I also got to meet a creep or two, some of them even highly educated people like doctors who would camp in front of a tiny German venue in fall just to be in the front row...whereas the rest of the crowd only arrived like 1 hour before the doors opened and still were able to end up in the front rows.

But these crazy figure skating fans surely are something else.
I had my share of Fanyus at 2013 TEB. I was hanging out with a few FSUers in the hotel lobby of the skaters' hotel and while I was having a nice chat with Jason Brown, some extremely drunk Japanese Fanyu literally FELL into our conversation and just took over.
On the day of the gala after the practice Hanyu was followed by like 3 tv teams and at least 50 adult fans, filming his back on their iPads and smartphones. I was sitting in the lobby with "Team Orange" (a group of Spanish girls who do interviews with skaters) and the lobby was OVERFLOWING with Fanyus as soon as he got in. He immediately went to the lift, never to be seen again in this lobby.
He was the only Japanese skater at this competition and more than half of the crowd consisted of Fanyus, some of them even wearing kimonos and doing the whole Geisha-do while it was super cold outside (end of November!!!!!). That was back in 2013, but nowadays the situation must be 10000x worse, so I am quite happy on the one hand, I didn't get to attend another competition of his again, but on the other hand I am sad I didn't get to see him skate live again because he is a genius.

 

[Yazmeen]

OMG Cyn and I were there and she had my cell phone reporting back during warmup and I believe we were the first to report the color as coral.

I remember Cyn, we got together when I had a conference in Atlanta.

 

[VALuvsMKwan]

I remember Cyn, we got together when I had a conference in Atlanta.

@meggonzo and I met at that Nationals as well!

 

[meggonzo]

I think the Dagobytes were late 90s. It was definitely before 2003 but it was about keeping Kwan's music a secret. And for some reason David55 who ran the Tara World board was really butthurt about the whole thing.

 

[Yazmeen]

I think the Dagobytes were late 90s. It was definitely before 2003 but it was about keeping Kwan's music a secret. And for some reason David55 who ran the Tara World board was really butthurt about the whole thing.

Let's not get started about the adult males/older men who were obsessed with Tara during her skating days...

 

[Simone411]

Let's not get started about the adult males/older men who were obsessed with Tara during her skating days...

I remember Tara World, and you're right about older men being obsessed. I was never a member of Tara World. However, I did join TaraFans.com. The main reason I joined was because of my young cousin that had a rare type of leukemia and was being treated at St. Jude Children's hospital. His mom and sister were staying at Target House, and received free tickets to attend SOI. That was in late December of 2001.

Tara had also visited with the children at St. Jude along with several of the other skaters from SOI. That's when my cousin met Tara, and he was very impressed with her. He also discovered TaraFans.com online. TaraFans had a contest where fans could share their personal stories about Tara.

My cousin had went out of remission during that time, and he only had about 2 or 3 months left to live. He asked me to share his story meeting Tara while she was at St. Jude. He didn't really wish to enter the contest. He just wanted to share his story. I did what he asked me to do, and I shared his story about how impressed he was with Tara. One of the TaraFans' founders asked me to please allow them to enter the story into their contest. I talked to my cousin, and he did consent to the story being entered into the contest. He even shared a photo of his mom and him at St. Jude.

It was hard because my cousin won the contest with his story, but he had already passed away by the time the story was shared on TaraFans. But this is how I became a member of TaraFans.

That's when I also discovered Tara World. I never joined that board, but I did read there. That's when I saw a lot David55's posts. Those members were sort of scary, and I had decided then not to join that board.

I'm trying to remember, too, whether it was one of those members or somewhere else that got the crazy notion that MLK Day was "Michelle Kwan Day", and that member wanted to know how Michelle got her own special holiday?

I could be wrong about the person being a member of Tara World. I just know that a lot of people were cracking up about it because the member didn't realize that MLK Day was Martin Luther King Day!

 

[VGThuy]

That's why every Martin Luther King day, I say "Happy Michelle L. Kwan Day!" and then post Anissina/Peizerat's 2002 Olympic FD. I didn't do it this year though.

 

[BaileyCatts]

Michelle Kwan Day. I remember that. I'm like 90% thinking it was some crazy old man on this very board who posted a rant about that?

 

[gkelly]

I think the Dagobytes were late 90s. It was definitely before 2003 but it was about keeping Kwan's music a secret.

I thought it was specifically in 2001 leading into the 2002 Olympic season.

 

[VGThuy]

I thought it was specifically in 2001 leading into the 2002 Olympic season.

That's what I thought too because we already knew what Kwan's programs were leading up to 2003 Worlds.