Fans are really getting out of hand

[VALuvsMKwan]

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!

OldGoat (@meggonzo posted this before I caught up on the thread additions).

And the keeper of Tara's skates (good lord, remember keeperships???) was the one and only Dave Sato, whom I stood a few rows behind in the lofts of the DC arena during the Ladies' Free Skate at 2003 Worlds. He was wearing a red, white and blue hockey jersey with "Lipinski" on the back - but he was still cheering the Kween's free skate.

 

[VALuvsMKwan]

Still Lee-King day in Alabama and Mississippi. Arkansas changed it to MLK day in 2017 and Virginia in 2020.

Originally Lee-Jackson Day (for Marse Robert and the martyr Stonewall) in VA, then (bizarrely enough) Lee-Jackson-King Day for awhile.

That situation brought out an equally bizarre-on-purpose illustration of MLK looking puzzled wearing full Confederate regalia on a rearing horse statue, for the winner of a contest by a local tabloid to complete the phrase "You are very Richmond if..." with the response "if you understand what Lee-Jackson-King Day means".

 

[VGThuy]

All these memories make me VERY thankful that EZboard went down the tubes because some of my old teenaged posts would be incredibly embarrassing to me now.

 

[canbelto]

Originally Lee-Jackson Day (for Marse Robert and the martyr Stonewall) in VA, then (bizarrely enough) Lee-Jackson-King Day for awhile.

That situation brought out an equally bizarre-on-purpose illustration of MLK looking puzzled wearing full Confederate regalia on a rearing horse statue, for the winner of a contest by a local tabloid to complete the phrase "You are very Richmond if..." with the response "if you understand what Lee-Jackson-King Day means".

Omg.
Speaking of fanbases there was like this really rabid Marina Zueva fan on FSU. DOn't know where she went but she would go apeshit if anyone said that her choreography could be boring and predictable.
I always knew figure skaters had stans but now some coaches have stans too (Eteri ...).

 

[Erin]

I thought that was fake news manufactured to distract from the fact that was Scheherezade, by choosing another familiar piece by another Russian composer from the same period.

I remember reading a post at MKF in which a poster was impersonating a less-knowledgeable fan who had attended/spied on a practice session at Kwan's rink and described the music as being by some Russian composer named "Borden" (or maybe "Bordeen").

I think the poster on skatefans was in earnest, but was probably fooled by the fake news reports being put out there. A number of people seemed to cling to that belief until Michelle skated her first performance.

 

[Brenda_Bottems]

All these memories make me VERY thankful that EZboard went down the tubes because some of my old teenaged posts would be incredibly embarrassing to me now.

I found the clientele on EZboards to be classless,vulgar and young. On the contrary Skatefans was elitist. My stomping grounds (RSSIF) was much more worldly and measured.

(good lord, remember keeperships???)

Most assuredly. In the spring and summer of 2000,I was Keeper of Todd Eldredge's Firm Athletic Buttocks.

One question I wish Michelle would be asked is if she actually did plan to skate a program to Tango de Roxanne circa 2004 as her short. I believe that was the year. I had some good sources that were saying she had the choreography to it (wouldn't see why it wouldn't be a short) but then ditched it - presumably to go back to The Feeling Begins if I'm remembering the right season.

Perhaps I will pose this question on Twitter. I have had recent success on that platform,as none other than Mr. Todd Eldredge recently liked one of my posts.

-BB

 

[Yuri]

OMG I haven't thought about Adrian Chew in years! I was banned temporarily and eventually permanently from FSW during the Pasha Wars after Evgeny broke up with her to skate with Maya. And several classic Pasha trolls bit the dust with me as well...

Life does work in mysterious ways!

 

[Simone411]

And the worst thing I ever did was when I decided to post a short story I had written for my niece at FSW. There was a thread where pseuds were posting stories and crazy stuff. So I decided to post a short story using my pseud, Looney Tunes Fairy.

During that time, Barb (barbnf) had been banned from FSW. All she could do was read there. She would respond to people's posts at FSW by posting at her message board, The Think Tank.

If I had realized that Barb would nearly have a heart attack after reading my short story, I would have never posted it. She freaked out thinking I was "bigmkfan", and said that I (Looney Tunes Fairy) should be ashamed of myself. I know she accused everyone of being "bigmkfan", but she was totally convinced that I (LTF) was the one and only "bigmkfan. She said that I had written that story about her because she was banned from MKF after 'bigmkfan" had dogged her there.

Nothing worked, and I finally went to her board and told her that I was LTF. I told her I had written the short story for my niece. She never believed me and told me I should be ashamed of myself for trying to say that I was "bigmkfan"!

I want to share the short story here. I had included it in my book that was published and dedicated it to my niece. I wrote the short story in February of 1982.

The Wise Old Owl

The wise old Owl had been flying through some woods for many hours. She spotted a big beautiful oak tree that had many wide branches, and selected one to perch on.

With no other place to go, the wise old Owl decided she would make the big beautiful oak tree her home.

The wise old Owl sat perched alone watching all the other birds fly by. Then, one day, the Mockingbird stopped by for a visit. The Mockingbird began singing her beautiful songs and sharing where all the other birds could hear, too.

The wise old Owl did not like this, and became jealous. The wise old Owl wanted the Mockingbird to sing only to her. Suddenly, the wise old Owl started screeching at the Mockingbird. The wise old Owl screeched so loud that the Mockingbird could not understand what she was saying.

The wise old Owl continued to screech until all the birds could not hear the Mockingbird's beautiful songs. The screeching scared all the birds away. The Mockingbird sang her beautiful song one last time, and told the wise old Owl goodbye.

The wise old Owl sits perched once again, all alone, at the big beautiful oak tree. The wise old Owl still screeches with no birds to listen, and the Mockingbird sings her beautiful songs to the other birds where they're appreciated.

And because of this short story, Barb remained upset with me believing I (Looney Tunes Fairy) really was bigmkfan. Now I've heard the story of why Barb was banned at MKF, and it was after this bigmkfan person dissed her. I learned it had to do with a medal that was made for Michelle, and she tried to take it over or something like that. I missed everything about what actually happened because I didn't join MKF until March of 2003.

 

[canbelto]

Wtf? I knew MK had fans. I never knew about these civil wars BETWEEN fans. Omg.

 

[Karen-W]

Wtf? I knew MK had fans. I never knew about these civil wars BETWEEN fans. Omg.

These stories are totally taking me back to the good old days of the early internet skating fandom. I still remember Adrian banning Sharpie and all the other rude Euros who had invaded his precious FSW.

 

[VGThuy]

These stories are totally taking me back to the good old days of the early internet skating fandom. I still remember Adrian banning Sharpie and all the other rude Euros who had invaded his precious FSW.

And like everybody, he ended up posting here anyway.

 

[canbelto]

Ok anyone remember a woman named twizzlesticks who used to get really angry when skaters were pregnant? She called them "crotch fruit" and thought it was a betrayal to the sport or something.

 

[tony]

And like everybody, he ended up posting here anyway.

I remember I was on FSW for several years, but don't remember any specifics about it except when it became iskater and they had live screen stills from 2001 Worlds and membership-only attempts/ads all over the boards at 2000 Skate Canada. I know I was on message groups via AOL's platform from sometime in 1996, when I was 9 or 10 -- that is just hilarious to me for some reason.

But I do recall Adrian showing up on FSU and getting extremely defensive whenever anyone critiqued anything having to do with Sasha.

 

[VGThuy]

Ok anyone remember a woman named twizzlesticks who used to get really angry when skaters were pregnant? She called them "crotch fruit" and thought it was a betrayal to the sport or something.

She had a real issue about children. It seemed deep-seated.

 

[VGThuy]

I remember I was on FSW for several years, but don't remember any specifics about it except when it became iskater and they had live screen stills from 2001 Worlds and membership-only attempts/ads all over the boards at 2000 Skate Canada. I know I was on message groups via AOL's platform from sometime in 1996, when I was 9 or 10 -- that is just hilarious to me for some reason.

But I do recall Adrian showing up on FSU and getting extremely defensive whenever anyone critiqued anything having to do with Sasha.

I was on FSW after 2001 Worlds and leading up to 2002 Olympics. I forgot when FSW became F$W but charging to use a message board ended up destroying that business model. I remember they made such a big deal about how the money was paying for exclusive content with real skaters. Of course the first exclusive content was an interview with Paul Martini, who bought FSW and turned it into F$W.

 

[Dave of the North]

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.

Maybe those were the ones that David Forberg called "Russian Sob Sisters"; though that might have been referring to earlier times on rssif and skatefans.

There was one woman I knew who posted under a Russian last name but never dressed up - I met her a couple of times at skating events.

 

[VGThuy]

I thought the Russian Sob Sisters were huge fans of Alexander Abt who were always sad because he competed the way that he did.

 

[overedge]

I was on FSW after 2001 Worlds and leading up to 2002 Olympics. I forgot when FSW became F$W but charging to use a message board ended up destroying that business model. I remember they made such a big deal about how the money was paying for exclusive content with real skaters. Of course the first exclusive content was an interview with Paul Martini, who bought FSW and turned it into F$W.

And because F$W wasn't allowed to run video of skating events, their business model was to post real-time commentary during competitions that many people could watch in real time on TV

 

[canbelto]

Omg remember the Todd Eldredge fan who called Todd "Toddybear"???

 

[Erin]

I thought the Russian Sob Sisters were huge fans of Alexander Abt who were always sad because he competed the way that he did.

I think that was a subset of them, but I viewed a Russian Sob Sister as basically any non-Russian Russophile.

 

[Eeyora1]

One of my favorite fake news tidbits was that Kwan was skating to The Lion King and ended her program with a circular spiral sequence to "The Circle of Life". It was just so cheesy, and yet it still got people talking about a possible Lion King program.

I remember that... Didn’t he go by JoeBoKwanAddict or was that another incident?

 

[MacMadame]

I know I was on message groups via AOL's platform from sometime in 1996, when I was 9 or 10 -- that is just hilarious to me for some reason.

I went on to the "interwebs" in 1994 after The Whack figuring that somewhere people were talking about skating and maybe some of them were skating insiders -- people who belonged to clubs and competed locally -- and might have some insight into what was going on. I had a CompuServe account so I tried CompuServe.

CompuServe did not have a Figure Skating sub-board in the Sports section. So we talked about it figure skating in "Other Sports" and there were knowledgeable fans. But there were also these guys who were only there because of The Whack, knew nothing about figure skating, but tried to dominate the conversation as if they did know. So the actual figure skating fans called ourselves the True Fans. Which pissed some people off but we had fun and didn't care. I am still FB friends with one of them. She's an adult figure skater.

I also met people IRL who had I first met on CompuServe to go skating and to go to competitions. We eventually migrated to AOL and rssif and then a mailing list called SkateFans where we organized a protest at 2003 Worlds and that's where I first met @Louis and @PRlady and a few other people who are now on FSU.

At 2003 Worlds, our seats were 3 rows up from Louis and Adrian, btw. I can report that Adrian is a normal person IRL and does not have horns. I didn't actually talk to Adrian because his online persona made me nervous and I didn't want to get sucked into drama.

At some point, I gave up CompuServe and then AOL and eventually unsubed from SkateFans mailing list (or maybe I stayed until it died?) and I had nowhere to discuss skating. I had tried FSW right before it went to a F$W but didn't like it and wasn't about to pay for it. I didn't know about the other forums like MKF or GoldenSkate. I did eventually find FSU and here I am 16 years later.

 

[Erin]

At some point, I gave up CompuServe and then AOL and eventually unsubed from SkateFans mailing list (or maybe I stayed until it died?)

I don’t believe skatefans technically died until yahoo groups shut down in 2019, so I am guessing you unsubscribed. I unsubscribed a very long time ago, but I came across posts from there a couple of years ago when I was on a research mission and was surprised to see it was still in existence.

 

[MacMadame]

I don’t believe skatefans technically died until yahoo groups shut down in 2019, so I am guessing you unsubscribed. I unsubscribed a very long time ago, but I came across posts from there a couple of years ago when I was on a research mission and was surprised to see it was still in existence.

Maybe I didn't follow it when it changed listservs as it did that periodically? I probably just unsubbed though. Mailing lists are harder to consume efficiently IMO. You can't block threads or people, for example.

 

[Yazmeen]

And because of this short story, Barb remained upset with me believing I (Looney Tunes Fairy) really was bigmkfan. Now I've heard the story of why Barb was banned at MKF, and it was after this bigmkfan person dissed her. I learned it had to do with a medal that was made for Michelle, and she tried to take it over or something like that. I missed everything about what actually happened because I didn't join MKF until March of 2003.

The whole platinum medal thing, as I said earlier, was a lovely idea that went off the rails more than a bit. IIRC, barbnf was either an accountant or in public relations and was extremely hot to take over the plan AND the money, but the board moderator and owner and those putting it together understandably said no. However, Barb wouldn't take no for an answer. Then "bigmkfan" (a pseud) came into it, and for the life of me I don't remember at all what this poster said to barbnf, but it made her furious, and she was later removed from the board for just generally being difficult and creating drama after that.

The platinum medal was actually a medal coated with platinum; I wasn't wild about the medal idea, but they took in way more than they needed to pay for it and decided to also donate to, I believe, Children's Miracle Network in Michelle's honor- that was the part I actually donated to. And then the REAL fun started - WHO should present the medal to Michelle and how???? There were arguments on who should get to go with the MKF board owner to present it, and that got more than a little testy. To give you an idea of how far off the rails it went, some fans were suggesting that Jay Leno should be contacted and it should be presented to her on "The Tonight Show" (with plenty of MKF members in attendance, of course) because "Jay loves Michelle" based on a couple of his interviews with her. Yes, I'm serious - the egos involved honestly thought they had the power to set this up on a national TV show. After much discussion and disagreement and strum and drang, it turned out that board owner (whom Michelle knew personally) ended up presenting it to Michelle backstage during a COI stop without a bunch of other MKFers there. IIRC, Michelle was lovely about it but seemed to appreciate the donation WAY more than the medal.

The banning from MKF led many of us to then now defunct Pain in the Ice (PITI) board where we could gripe and post among other outcasts. barbnf kept "The Think Tank" going for years until it was really just her and one or two other posters, and she never let go of the search for "bigmkfan."

As for "bigmkfan," I have my theories on who it was (among two candidates) even though both always always denied it. Which was likely smart for their sanity and safety considering how one angry person blew up a very minor thing into damn near WWIII.

 

[VGThuy]

Despite all the drama, I’m glad it happened. Kwan was very appreciative and it felt good for a lot of fans show their gratitude to a skater who meant a lot to them.

 

[UGG]

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?

Wasn’t his name Old Goat

 

[UGG]

I had a different user name on MKF and used to get stalked by this person named Amidala who posted on Sasha fans but I think she also had a bunch of other accounts. I changed my name to UGG in like 2005 and stayed away in ever engaging in fan wars

 

[canbelto]

Remember a few years ago a bunch of V/M ubers got on Tessa's case for not wishing Scott a happy birthday on twitter? They messaged her throughout the day and she blocked a few of them.

 

[meggonzo]

Ok anyone remember a woman named twizzlesticks who used to get really angry when skaters were pregnant? She called them "crotch fruit" and thought it was a betrayal to the sport or something.

Twizzlestick was Peach on ezboard and the admin of PITI (Pain in the Ice). She seemed to thrive on creating drama with other boards, and eventually her own board. And then somehow ezboard imploded.