Eric Radford and Vanessa James to compete in pairs together for Canada

[nlloyd]

I was curious about what Vanessa said and then later deleted that some of you are clinging on to as an entire basis of judgment. When it was finally pulled back up a few pages ago, my thought was really? Just based on that quote? Some of you are going to have no one left to root for if you are deciding exactly what skaters should do, or even worse, say in these kinds of positions. You're not in that position personally, and of course it's easier to sit and write a playbook about what should have been done.

Context is everything. She was not speaking into a void. As the scandal broke, people were wondering what she had to say. She doesn't owe anyone an explanation, but since she chose to make that text available, of course people read it as a response to the situation.

I felt sorry for her being caught up in all of this, but that sympathy evaporated when I read the quote. Many of us have seen her royally pissed off with Cipres in K&Cs, but this was not one of those times.

And honestly, I think your sense that fans that object to her supporting Cipres may ultimately be left with no-one to root for, might be quite prescient. Rather than a threat, national skating bodies should view it as a prediction. With the recent Gauthier revelations, the Valieva doping, the Coughlin abuse etc. the sport seems increasingly unethical and abusive, and open to a loss of popularity. For me, if the realization of the abuse means forgoing my fanship, that is fine. I would rather do that than support the skating of the people like Cipres, Coughlin, and Gauthier as a coach etc. and their supporters.

 

[skatista098]

There's nothing "woke" about taking responsibility for your own actions.

Do you have something personal against Vanessa? I have noticed from reading the thread that if any person on here says something positive or supportive about Vanessa, you make it your agenda to throw something negative out about her. You try tooth and nail to shame her every chance you get and with very little evidence of anything. You even go as far as to say she should be ashamed for using the word "if" in her statement. I do not understand it. What did she do to you?

 

[Lemonade20]

Do you have something personal against Vanessa? I have noticed from reading the thread that if any person on here says something positive or supportive about Vanessa, you make it your agenda to throw something negative out about her. You try tooth and nail to shame her every chance you get and with very little evidence of anything. You even go as far as to say she should be ashamed for using the word "if" in her statement. I do not understand it. What did she do to you?

Hey Vanessa, shouldn't you be practicing now?

 

[Willin]

What is your angle here besides playing this constant 'I know everything and it has to be MY WAY' game, yet when people who do have actual insider information, you say things to the extent of "I don't listen to random posters on a message board"?

Vanessa does not have to respond in your way or anyone else's way. When Brennan pushes skaters to no end about how they 'should have replied' to political conflicts or other serious issues, we get a ton of towards her for telling people how it should have been. Everyone is different. She was thrown for a huge loop with her own career and ad nauseam, she had no part in the criminal actions. What actions are you mad at now besides her not giving the reply you personally want?

As has been said in other words, it really must be tiresome to be perpetually livid.

Honestly for me it's not the silence. I think it's fair to stay silent. Some will get mad, but it's better to stay silent than stick your foot in your mouth. Especially for something like this it's fair to take your time before talking. Even with the time she managed to make her statement less than perfect, but a lot of skaters say out of touch and stupid things.

What it's about for me is that she still posted pictures with him on her social media, followed him on social media, and did shows with him. To me, if she was really that concerned about the allegations she would've completely cut him off, at least publicly. Look, I get she likely needed the show money as much as him and there might have been contractual things with the shows - but I don't see how that forces her to keep posting pictures with him on social media or how that stops her from unfollowing him.

In this day and age your social media and affiliations are heavily scrutinized even if you aren't known, but if you are you can expect people will be tracking your follows and how they reflect on you. Her behavior is socially unacceptable - celebs, athletes, and influencers are expected to unfollow and scrub their accounts after an allegation against someone they are affiliated with and she should know that. Yet she didn't.

 

[tony]

What it's about for me is that she still posted pictures with him on her social media, followed him on social media, and did shows with him. To me, if she was really that concerned about the allegations she would've completely cut him off, at least publicly. Look, I get she likely needed the show money as much as him and there might have been contractual things with the shows - but I don't see how that forces her to keep posting pictures with him on social media or how that stops her from unfollowing him.

In this day and age your social media and affiliations are heavily scrutinized even if you aren't known, but if you are you can expect people will be tracking your follows and how they reflect on you. Her behavior is socially unacceptable - celebs, athletes, and influencers are expected to unfollow and scrub their accounts after an allegation against someone they are affiliated with and she should know that. Yet she didn't.

But again, that's your opinion of what someone should do. That's not the official rule of what must be done. A long while ago we went in this same circle and I pointed out that many skaters past and present still follow Cipres and still like just about every post he puts up. Do you want to turn into the Twitter brigade and police every single skater who didn't make the decision to unfollow/ignore him? This already happened with Rippon and then the laundry list of other skaters who should no longer be supported in regards to the Coughlin case.

You personally have every right to decide what makes you personally upset, but you can't expect everyone else to do the same as you would do. We have a board of people who still rave about Staviyski and then I'm given a list of excuses as to why his situation was different, including social media not being prevalent at the time, but guess what? That's ultimately each person's own decision to make. Yagudin has been an absolute terror lately to the LGBTQ community and when I called him out on a ridiculous IG remark a while back, he blocked me. But I can still watch his skating from 20 years ago and really enjoy the majority of his programs.

 

[canbelto]

Just saw that Nathan Chen still follows Cipres. Disappointing.

 

[tony]

Just saw that Nathan Chen still follows Cipres. Disappointing.

Twitter skating will gladly take you in.

 

[canbelto]

Twitter skating will gladly take you in.

I actually call it knowing right from wrong.

 

[tony]

I actually call it knowing right from wrong.

That's your opinion. Again. As I posted just prior to your revelation, there are many more skaters still following him. Want to make a list of people who don't do what you think they should do?

 

[canbelto]

That's your opinion. Again. As I posted just prior to your revelation, there are many more skaters still following him. Want to make a list of people who don't do what you think they should do?

This might come as a shock to you, but I don't need you to mansplain things for me.
Shae-Lynne Bourne also follows him. Gross.

 

[tony]

This might come as a shock to you, but I don't need you to mansplain things for me.
Shae-Lynne Bourne also follows him. Gross.

Here we go again with you not liking logical statements (ie. you stating your opinion as fact) and then throwing mansplain out. Please do better.

 

[Willin]

Okay, @tony but what about the pictures with him? Surely you'd agree it's pretty socially unacceptable now or in the past to associate with an abuser in such a direct way. Unless you're part of the problem where Hollywood protects it's abusers? Or that by doing shows with him she helped him earn money after the allegations? That's also pretty socially unacceptable - even if it means her losing money as well. You're so quick to dismiss it as "my opinion," but I know even older generations are hesitant to support people who associate with abusers.

So if you would like to be old fashioned, fine. But all it shows is you are old fashioned. This newer generation - and mine isn't nearly as radical about it as Gen Z - does not tolerate any sort of support for people with abuse allegations. If you look at the forums like reddit that are frequented by fans much younger than the ones on this forum you'll see that this sort of behavior is no longer tolerated and good. I felt angry and alienated when the boy that sexually harrassed me in high school was still given honors all over the local papers and yearbook for his athletic achievements - and then when he blamed me in front of the other AP kids, stating the resulting suspension stopped him from getting into an Ivy League, and as such some of our mutual friends hated me as well. I would imagine Cipres' victims, who likely looked up to Vanessa, would feel even more alienated and disappointed to see her still posting his pictures on social media and shared to thousands. And that's the point - you need to support the victims by not glorifying, celebrating, or promoting their abuser. A point the older generation doesn't seem to get.

 

[canbelto]

Okay, @tony but what about the pictures with him? Surely you'd agree it's pretty socially unacceptable now or in the past to associate with an abuser in such a direct way. Unless you're part of the problem where Hollywood protects it's abusers? Or that by doing shows with him she helped him earn money after the allegations? That's also pretty socially unacceptable - even if it means her losing money as well. You're so quick to dismiss it as "my opinion," but I know even older generations are hesitant to support people who associate with abusers.

So if you would like to be old fashioned, fine. But all it shows is you are old fashioned. This newer generation - and mine isn't nearly as radical about it as Gen Z - does not tolerate any sort of support for people with abuse allegations. If you look at the forums like reddit that are frequented by fans much younger than the ones on this forum you'll see that this sort of behavior is no longer tolerated and good. I felt angry and alienated when the boy that sexually harrassed me in high school was still given honors all over the local papers and yearbook for his athletic achievements - and then when he blamed me in front of the other AP kids, stating the resulting suspension stopped him from getting into an Ivy League, and as such some of our mutual friends hated me as well. I would imagine Cipres' victims, who likely looked up to Vanessa, would feel even more alienated and disappointed to see her still posting his pictures on social media and shared to thousands. And that's the point - you need to support the victims by not glorifying, celebrating, or promoting their abuser. A point the older generation doesn't seem to get.

Reddit and twitter actually cancel people with far less allegations than Cipres. For instance, a couple subreddits keeps track of any "likes" on social media and cancels people for those likes. Oksana Chusovitna recently got canceled for her social media likes. It's simply the way things are now on reddit and twitter.

 

[tony]

Okay, @tony but what about the pictures with him? Surely you'd agree it's pretty socially unacceptable now or in the past to associate with an abuser in such a direct way. Unless you're part of the problem where Hollywood protects it's abusers? Or that by doing shows with him she helped him earn money after the allegations? That's also pretty socially unacceptable - even if it means her losing money as well. You're so quick to dismiss it as "my opinion," but I know even older generations are hesitant to support people who associate with abusers.

So if you would like to be old fashioned, fine. But all it shows is you are old fashioned. This newer generation - and mine isn't nearly as radical about it as Gen Z - does not tolerate any sort of support for people with abuse allegations. If you look at the forums like reddit that are frequented by fans much younger than the ones on this forum you'll see that this sort of behavior is no longer tolerated and good. I felt angry and alienated when the boy that sexually harrassed me in high school was still given honors all over the local papers and yearbook for his athletic achievements - and then when he blamed me in front of the other AP kids, stating the resulting suspension stopped him from getting into an Ivy League, and as such some of our mutual friends hated me as well. I would imagine Cipres' victims, who likely looked up to Vanessa, would feel even more alienated and disappointed to see her still posting his pictures on social media and shared to thousands. And that's the point - you need to support the victims by not glorifying, celebrating, or promoting their abuser. A point the older generation doesn't seem to get.

I'm 6 years older than you for starters so what generation/old-fashionedness are we talking about? If you want to talk about those who are perpetually outraged behind a computer, okay. And I'm highly active on IG, by the way.

What I think is that people shouldn't be policing each and every move someone else makes, including whether they unfollowed someone or not and then running with judgment because of it. People whine so much about what skating Twitter does and a lot of this kind of behavior is along the lines of skating Twitter's 24/7 MO. No one should really have to give any explanation for anything they do, and if someone wants to keep good memories of someone, no matter how bad they were/what they did, then those memories are for each individual to keep.

Cipres' situation has something to do with what you personally experienced. Staviyski was drunk driving and killed someone, which is the same way my mother's brother died. But people still talk about how great Denkova/Staviyski were to this day, and I'm not going around saying that they must not care about any of these issues. I told Yagudin that his LGBTQ comments and making fun of kids who look up to him are all trash behavior, and he blocked me. I'm not telling everyone else that they need to hate him because he's super anti-trans and told Rippon to kill himself.

No matter what age or generation you're in, telling others how they must act is still an opinion.

 

[nlloyd]

What I think is that people shouldn't be policing each and every move someone else makes, including whether they unfollowed someone or not and then running with judgment because of it. People whine so much about what skating Twitter does and a lot of this kind of behavior is along the lines of skating Twitter's 24/7 MO. No one should really have to give any explanation for anything they do, and if someone wants to keep good memories of someone, no matter how bad they were/what they did, then those memories are for each individual to keep.

These generalities are confusing to me. Are you saying that there is no instance where fans or fellow skaters should censure a skater or expect an explanation from them for their actions? Do you mean even in cases where skaters are accused of abusive behavior? Or are you talking about those people around the abusive skater? Should we stop expecting an explanation of those who work with the accused abuser? If this is what you are saying, that seems like enabling behaviour to me and is not an approach that would address the abusive issues that are so pervasive in figure skating. Indeed, it is just this sort of laissez-faire, look-the-other-way-if-the-skater-is-successful approach, that has got skating to the dubious place in which it now finds itself.

 

[canbelto]

Also, Morgan Cipres didn't like a few shady IG posts or attend a ceremony where a Republican was present (all reasons reddit cancels people). It wasn't some twitter thread that canceled him. He had allegations that were proven by Safesport and his behavior was predatory and abusive.

 

[tony]

These generalities are confusing to me. Are you saying that there is no instance where fans or fellow skaters should censure a skater or expect an explanation from them for their actions? Do you mean even in cases where skaters are accused of abusive behavior? Or are you talking about those people around the abusive skater? Should we stop expecting an explanation of those who work with the accused abuser? If this is what you are saying, that seems like enabling behaviour to me and is not an approach that would address the abusive issues that are so pervasive in figure skating. Indeed, it is just this sort of laissez-faire, look-the-other-way-if-the-skater-is-successful approach, that has got skating to the dubious place in which it now finds itself.

The people around the skater. If you really think it's beneficial to monitor everything they do, and whether or not they went and clicked the unfollow button, then have at it. But it's never, ever applied equally and no one can tell me that it is. If people want to go hate Nathan Chen and half of the rest of the US team for continuing to follow him, then they can have at it on Twitter with other like-minded people.

And all I'm going to say is that it's still pick and choose regarding who gets 'canceled' and who gets overlooked. I'm super left, but no one can tell me for one minute that the majority of this vocal 'LET'S CANCEL EVERYONE' crowd didn't look the entire other way when Biden's accusations first came out... because election. Apply this to other situations where someone is just first 'accused', and no, no one is going to argue with me that it's always the same reaction.

 

[overedge]

Also, Morgan Cipres didn't like a few shady IG posts or attend a ceremony where a Republican was present (all reasons reddit cancels people). It wasn't some twitter thread that canceled him. He had allegations that were proven by Safesport and his behavior was predatory and abusive.

Not only proven by SafeSport - he acknowledged them himself. As in, when he texted the girl's parents to apologize for the "stupid things" he did, and to ask them to "try to forget bad things" because "this season is really stressful and hard" (source https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...r-accused-sexual-abuse-apologized/2773347001/)

 

[tony]

Not only proven by SafeSport - he acknowledged them himself. As in, when he texted the girl's parents to apologize for the "stupid things" he did, and to ask them to "try to forget bad things" because "this season is really stressful and hard" (source https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...r-accused-sexual-abuse-apologized/2773347001/)

What I want to know, if I may after asking several times and getting radio silence from you, is what the quote in the Karen! thread meant:

I think they're becoming more prominent now because of restrictions around the v*r*s - which of course they're resisting if it interferes with the services they expect - and because of the racial protests, which also threaten them because they've worked hard for everything they've gotten and everyone else should do the same. Also because there's cellphones and social media to document and share their nasty behaviour.

Asking out of curiosity because this is a thread having to do with Vanessa James.

 

[canbelto]

I sort of want to start a "trash skaters" thread on twitter about skaters who follow Cipres just to see how many retweets it gets.

 

[nlloyd]

The people around the skater. If you really think it's beneficial to monitor everything they do, and whether or not they went and clicked the unfollow button, then have at it. But it's never, ever applied equally and no one can tell me that it is. If people want to go hate Nathan Chen and half of the rest of the US team for continuing to follow him, then they can have at it on Twitter with other like-minded people.

And all I'm going to say is that it's still pick and choose regarding who gets 'canceled' and who gets overlooked. I'm super left, but no one can tell me for one minute that the majority of this vocal 'LET'S CANCEL EVERYONE' crowd didn't look the entire other way when Biden's accusations first came out... because election. Apply this to other situations where someone is just first 'accused', and no, no one is going to argue with me that it's always the same reaction.

For me, skaters who like posts made by those who have behaved in abusive ways have questionable judgment. I felt the same way about Nyman. I am usually puzzled by them and am less likely to support them as skaters. I am not going to advocate "cancelling" them, however, as many of them are quite young, lead insular lifestyles, and are ill-informed. However, in the case of James, she was actually physically present in the situation and even if she didn't know about it (highly unlikely IMO), she did support Cipres after the fact - in the poem she posted IMO, her likes of his twitter, her skating with him in shows etc. If she had withdrawn from him, not supported him, not made obliquely supportive comments on his behaviour etc., that would be different.

 

[skatfan]

I wonder if these skaters even remember they are following Cipres.

we’ve gone far off talking about James and Redford.

 

[Lemonade20]

I don't judge by passive action (ie still following someone). People are busy, and don't always run to unfollow people on social media. But Vanessa did show support. No question about it.

 

[skatfan]

I don't judge by passive action (ie still following someone). People are busy, and don't always run to unfollow people on social media. But Vanessa did show support. No question about it.

Like we’ve missed that point being made.

 

[Rukia]

I sort of want to start a "trash skaters" thread on twitter about skaters who follow Cipres just to see how many retweets it gets.

I doubt half of them even remember they followed him in the first place.

I just don't understand why we're continuously rehashing this. If you don't want to support her, then don't. I'm not exactly cheering them on because I find them eh as a pair, and I do have some questions about what Vanessa knew when, but it's whatever. In the end Cipres is the one who is responsible for his actions. We have proof of that.

But also it's super questionable when a new person comes on here just to defend Vanessa. That's not even the first time it's happened I think hahaha. You don't need to come on here to defend her honor. She'll be fine.

 

[skatista098]

But also it's super questionable when a new person comes on here just to defend Vanessa. That's not even the first time it's happened I think hahaha. You don't need to come on here to defend her honor. She'll be fine.

What exactly is questionable? If people feel compelled to join and add their views (like me) then so be it. I wish Vanessa and Eric the absolute best this week!

 

[Bouffantrex]

I sort of want to start a "trash skaters" thread on twitter about skaters who follow Cipres just to see how many retweets it gets.

Surely you can find something better to do with your time?

I was never a fan of James/Cipres and found them overrated and European in all the wrong ways, but reading through this inane discussion makes me want to root for them to excel at Worlds.

 

[antmanb]

Surely you can find something better to do with your time?

I was never a fan of James/Cipres and found them overrated and European in all the wrong ways, but reading through this inane discussion makes me want to root for them to excel at Worlds.

That might be tough since they aren't competing

 

[Excidra]

Those same people who are being critical of how Vanessa handled the Cipre situation, would most likely not know what to do if a close friend or family member was alleged to have acted inappropriately with another person. So to that I say, save your preaching for someone who cares.

 

[tony]

Edited out to get the thread back on track.