Adam Rippon is one of TIME’s 💯 Most Influential

[kittyjake5]

That is so cool! Congrats to Adam

 

[Sylvia]

Longtime figure skating fans might remember Lorrie Kim. She attended the Stars on Ice show in Hershey last night and wrote the following 3 paragraphs in her blog before getting into the actual review (part 1 is linked in the U.S. SOI thread):

Twenty years ago, I ran the first website for LGBTQ issues in figure skating, Rainbow Ice. The archives remain online, partly for humor purposes; click to see state of the art HTML conventions for 1998. The purpose was serious, though; the figure skating world was generally conflicted about how to discuss LGBTQ issues, since figure skating was simultaneously the gayest and most closeted of Olympic sports. Rainbow Ice applied journalistic standards to the question: public discussion of an LGBTQ skater was fine if that person had made statements on the public record, in outlets such as interviews, books, and news articles.

The first U.S. skater to be out while Olympic eligible was Doug Mattis, in a 1995 interview of him that I wrote for the Philadelphia Gay News. Later that year, Rudy Galindo came out in Christine Brennan’s book Inside Edge, weeks before winning the 1996 U.S. national title and world bronze medal. Some homophobes within the skating world feared that this presaged a deluge of gay male skaters coming out, but it did not. I discussed a few of the reasons why in articles for Outsports and Newsweek. It was not until 2015, when Adam Rippon came out, that an eligible U.S. competitor came out while being a top contender for the Olympic team. As Time magazine noted, he went on to become one of the most influential voices to emerge from the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics.

And here we are, 20 years after I launched Rainbow Ice, with our first U.S. skater to be 100% out and loud while competing at the Olympics. The politics are fraught; there are many U.S. gay skaters, some of whom have come out after finishing their Olympic careers, who had complicated and involuntary reasons for remaining officially closeted against their will. Those stories are not mine to tell, but I know of many of them and these skaters are not less brave or revolutionary. When Adam Rippon brings tears of pride to our eyes, it’s not necessarily because he’s different from his peers for being out; it’s that we know what all of them have faced in this odd, gender-imbalanced, sometimes extremely conservative sport.

 

[Nikki Lee]

Influential how?

One way is by serving as a role model to young people who don't know where they are on the gender spectrum. Another way is by being himself; an example is when he didn't get sucked into a fight with Mike Pence. Mr. Rippon disagreed, respectfully and told us why in a way that brought us along on his thought process.

 

[Deleted member 53443]

Read through the list, I recognized maybe 10 or 15 of those names.

Prince Harry is more influential than Vladimir Putin? Alright.

I think it's weird that a super athlete and social activist like LeBron James is not on it. And many other names, such as scientists in medical research. So many names missing: Merdoch, Zuckerberg, Bannon etc.

This is not really a list of influential people, but mostly a list of pop culture people who are "in".

 

[Sylvia]

@Per, LeBron James was included in last year's TIME 100: http://time.com/collection/2017-time-100/4742755/lebron-james/
And 2013: http://time100.time.com/2013/04/18/time-100/slide/lebron-james/

TIME's Editor in Chief: How We Chose the 2018 TIME 100 List of the World's Most Influential People
Excerpt:

TIME’s annual list of the world’s most influential people is a designation of individuals whose time, in our estimation, is now. The TIME 100 isn’t a measure of power, though many on the list wield it. Nor is it a collection of milestones accumulated. As our staff considers candidates, we often find ourselves wowed by those with stunning lifetime achievements. But editorial director Dan Macsai, maestro of the TIME 100, brings us back to the key question: Was this their year?

Jennifer Lopez and Shawn Mendes will perform at the 2018 TIME 100 gala on April 24 in NYC: http://time.com/5246023/time-100-2018-jennifer-lopez-shawn-mendes/

 

[Deleted member 53443]

@Per, LeBron James was included in last year's TIME 100: http://time.com/collection/2017-time-100/4742755/lebron-james/
And 2013: http://time100.time.com/2013/04/18/time-100/slide/lebron-james/

TIME's Editor in Chief: How We Chose the 2018 TIME 100 List of the World's Most Influential People
Excerpt:

Aha, makes sense thanks. So, in a way I described it it was pretty close to how I described it

 

[Sylvia]

Thanks to @nimi for posting the link in Adam's Good News/fan thread to the video and transcript of his toast to his mom at the Time 100 gala in NYC last night:

TIME 100's Adam Rippon Praises 'All the Moms' Who Have Helped Their Kids 'Realize Their True Potential'

His opening line is on-brand!

Here's the link to Adam's Getty Images photos from the Time 100 Gala (Nicole Kidman towers over him in the photo with her hubby Keith Urban and Adam also got to meet RuPaul, among others).

ETA link to a Billboard article: Adam Rippon Kneeled Before His Queen RuPaul & Gave His Mom a Shout-Out at the Time 100 Gala

 

[aftershocks]

Cross-posting this discussion topic from DWTS thread:

...20 years ago the general public wasn't ready for the jelly of a battle of the openly gay Brians. More loss ours, as the top two skaters in the world were both privately out gays and the media didn't celebrate it at all. They were both true to themselves but not publicly out, and although not the personality of either, had they gone the witty and flirtatious route of Adam the backlash would have been harsh.

Adam is very likable but he's also somewhat of a basic 2018 gay boy, so the fact that he's a media darling and widely popular says more about the general public's acceptance of gay culture than it does about him being the Noel coward or Oscar Wilde of our era...

Thanks for your reflections. ITA that there are widespread cultural changes which have impacted greater LGBTQ acceptance in the general mainstream. There has been increasing acceptance over the past 8 years within skating and within the larger global community to a degree that didn't exist as much previously, even when Johnny Weir participated in the 2010 Olympics (and especially in the 2006 Olympics when there was some smirking and backlash over his The Swan sp, despite his second place scores). Even today, prejudice still exists in the minds of many in some church communities and especially among some older individuals with rigid beliefs, and among people of all ages who have closed minds.

I've always said that those who came before Adam and other gay skaters/ athletes/ individuals, and who struggled mightily and who faced untold anguish and impossible dilemmas -- those are the battle-scarred pioneers (many unsung) who largely paid the huge boundary-pushing price that helped lead to the current generally widespread acceptance of sexual orientation and gender differences. Adam and others of his generation are certainly aware of this reality.

OTOH, I personally don't see Adam as 'a basic 2018 gay boy.' I think Adam has a unique personality that is all his own. I also think the point is that Adam does not define himself by his sexual orientation. Others might be doing that, but he shed that limiting, culturally-indoctrinated self-definition a long time ago. And by realizing that he doesn't have to define himself and categorize himself by his sexual orientation, that's what has allowed Adam to soar and to express his uniqueness freely and fully. IOW, there's much more to gay people than their sexual orientation and all the usual limiting stereotypes:
Phillip Piccardi (of Teen Vogue) and Gus Kenworthy on 'Things You Should Never Say to Your Gay Friends'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgCzqlri_a0

IMO, Adam Rippon is a role model for everyone in every walk of life, not just for Cher and not just for gay youth. As Cher said about Adam: "He has humility, grace and an incredible sense of humor... He dares to be different in a world where being different always comes with a cost... Adam shows people that if you put blood, sweat and tears into what you're doing, you can achieve something that's special. You can be special [just as you are]. And that's very brave."

I would also hesitate to equate Adam with Oscar Wilde or Noel Coward. Wilde and Coward were definitely witty and notoriously gay, but their expertise was in the literary arts, theater (and also in Coward's case, music composition). Wilde and Coward each lived in two completely different eras, ones in which they were embattled survivors. Wilde's partly self-imposed misfortunes that he endured later in his life are quite tragic.

Adam Rippon is obviously still in the midst of pursuing his extraordinary life's journey, with sass, wit, humor, panache, and currently joie de vivre on the dance floor.