The Skating Lesson 2018/2019

[CaliSteve]

He screen capped a public record. Christine wrote and article. Minors came forward. I have a problem with anyone who has a problem with that.

So do I.

 

[Amantide]

I think they blame Dave for writing about the allegations. That because it was brought to light that is what led JC to commit suicide. Its irrational behavior that went over the line.

Which is madness. He was reporting, that's his job. I haven't heard him calling for John's head or smth.
People need to calm down cause this mentality of taking "justice" into your own hands has gone way too far, for far too long. WT*?!

 

[Lovemyvike]

What a mess. This gets uglier by the day.

 

[CaliSteve]

People love to throw out death threats and awful comments to others under the anonymity of the internet. I hope it's found out who has done so and they get busted. This is unacceptable and we need to start charging people with crimes for such behavior--and I'm usually pretty hands off and free speech etc. Threatening people is not free speech. Hope he's doing okay. I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't really the skating community but keyboard warriors being asshole as they often are finding something to latch on to and laughing over it then going to find something new.

Its someone from the skating community.

 

[Lanie]

I wouldn't be surprised if some of them are, but I am sure lots of other people are hammering him as well, people do that. The internet enables people to be unfettered pieces of garbage. You send someone death threats, you should be prosecuted for a crime...

 

[Kameo]

While I can certainly Dave’s reaction to the threats, I hope he realizes that deleting his content would only be letting the sick trolls win.

 

[Polaris]

I'm not surprised Lease is getting death threats, given the vicious comments about him in this very thread.

 

[newbatgirl]

While I can certainly Dave’s reaction to the threats, I hope he realizes that deleting his content would only be letting the sick trolls win.

I agree, I hope he reported the threats to the various social platforms and screenshot everything.

I'm not a huge fan of TSL's content but no one deserves to receive threats.

 

[CaliSteve]

I think this is the reason for the death threats:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...cial-media-rumors-suspension-led-suicide.html

 

[MK's Winter]

I think this is the reason for the death threats:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...cial-media-rumors-suspension-led-suicide.html

Check out her Facebook....

 

[CaliSteve]

Check out her Facebook....

I saw it.

 

[tony]

Reading through some of the Twitter aftermath, and I'm glad that more organized message boards such as this one still exist, even if the younger generations go by the way of Tweet replies and Instagram comments. There's so much more information here on what we do and do not know regarding the Coughlin case, but you have people on Twitter literally equating the original TSL post that addressed it to proving that he is guilty. Many of them.

 

[newbatgirl]

Check out her Facebook....

So people think Dave deserves death threats for something someone else posted?

Once again, I'm not a huge fan of TSL and I feel that given the number of years he's been doing this, he's had time to better learn the responsibilities of running a platform like that HOWEVER: people were posting statements like that on Twitter and other places as well, not just on TSL.

Are they all to be met with death threats?

The internet is a very ugly place and it works both ways in situations like this. Just two weeks ago when the R. Kelly documentary aired, I watched as people doxxed his alleged underage victims in real time on Twitter, posting their full names and addresses.

The environment can become very toxic, which is why most people don't report this stuff at all.

 

[CaliSteve]

Reading through some of the Twitter aftermath, and I'm glad that more organized message boards such as this one still exist, even if the younger generations go by the way of Tweet replies and Instagram comments. There's so much more information here on what we do and do not know regarding the Coughlin case, but you have people on Twitter literally equating the original TSL post that addressed it to proving that he is guilty. Many of them.

Were those responses before or after his passing? Either way placing the blame on that tweet is wrong.

 

[MK's Winter]

Reading through some of the Twitter aftermath, and I'm glad that more organized message boards such as this one still exist, even if the younger generations go by the way of Tweet replies and Instagram comments. There's so much more information here on what we do and do not know regarding the Coughlin case, but you have people on Twitter literally equating the original TSL post that addressed it to proving that he is guilty. Many of them.

And that is not TSL’s fault. They did not assign guilt or innocence. Christine wrote an article. Same position. I cannot stress enough that 2 minors wound up coming forward. I do not understand why that is so lost on everyone. The media cannot control what the general public regurgitates. And if he was cleared- John obviously would have been taken back with open arms. Is Safe Sport perfect? No. Is it terrible? No.

I cannot continue to stress enough that John Coughlin’s suicide was tragic. I will say it looks like he had a major support system. I am sorry that my thoughts are with the 3 people who came forward with something to say. Who just watched a platform- that at least gave 2 of them courage- shut down over death threats and threats of violence. Dalilah’s Facebook basically declared him innocent. And she is a mandatory reporter. I know what that shows me.

 

[MK's Winter]

For those of you that are fans and want to watch TSL content- I saw on Twitter that their patron is still active: https://www.patreon.com/TheSkatingLesson

All of his content is up there ending with Canadian Nationals.

 

[rhapsody]

This has become quite fitting...

 

[kwanatic]

There's so much more information here on what we do and do not know regarding the Coughlin case, but you have people on Twitter literally equating the original TSL post that addressed it to proving that he is guilty. Many of them.

That's the sad thing about social media and the dumb-masses who consume it. Too many people believe what they read the instant they read it without bothering to research it or check its validity. Someone can state something in a tweet and people will take it at face value and begin repeating it as fact. That's how stupidity and ignorance spreads and thanks to social media, stupidity and ignorance are epidemics in the world nowadays.

 

[tony]

That's the sad thing about social media and the dumb-masses who consume it. Too many people believe what they read the instant they read it without bothering to research it or check its validity. Someone can state something in a tweet and people will take it at face value and begin repeating it as fact. That's how stupidity and ignorance spreads and thanks to social media, stupidity and ignorance are epidemics in the world nowadays.

Yes, and it's always going to exist. People don't take the extra 20 seconds to check on anything.

Reading today on Twitter, there is one thing that I disagree with. Many of TSL's followers (and I'm sure some non-followers that knew about the latest stories) are commenting that Dave addressed the skating culture and the problems within it, and he was the only one daring to do so.

I don't think that's necessarily it as much as he just wanted to point out the big stories and get the attention or the hit counts for them. In the past, he's made negative comments regarding the shape that skaters are in early in the season, the stories he and Jenny would continually gossip about in their earlier shows involving stupid drama she had with other skaters, the jokes they would throw out about skaters not eating or being told not to eat, and even the most recent snide comment about looking up Vincent Restencourt's record (I believe he said 'I'm just saying' and then pursed his lips together, or something of that nature-- doesn't exactly read as 'I really care about this' to me but YMMV).

If you want to be an investigative reporter, that's great. But it's hard for me to accept him as such when he was fluctuating so much between that and just being flat-out nasty or alluding to gossip he knew (typically with Jenny or other guests) without getting into exact details.

We know why he likely halted the train on the Coughlin story, but even the 'judges are mad' comment was only going to lead to more speculation and questions. If the point is to bring everything out into the open to address the culture, then adding more speculation doesn't make any sense.

 

[caitie]

I don’t think Dave really wanted to be seen as a legit skating journalist. I think Jenny was always more ambitious about what TSL could be. Once she left, Dave chose a cohost who was a non-skating fan and did the Young and Restless homage opening. If he had really wanted to keep the access and sponsorship Jenny seemed to want or that Jackie has, he wouldn’t have burnt bridges TSL built with, like, Kori and Tom Z and so on. Like lol it was a pretty different TSL visiting their rinks and doing long interviews with them and asking questions in press conferences.

Dave just seemed to have different goals. I think he likes sharing info USFS doesn’t want people to know necessarily, he likes to serve the tea~ if you will, but I don’t think he fancies himself a serious sports journalist, more like skating’s equivalent of a gossip columnist.

 

[Finsta]

Sound like some people in skating community are powerful and don’t want any truths out. Sorry for TSL. Imagine what those same people will do to the other victims of John and his supporters. So scary

 

[sharsk8s]

Not that I think he deserves death threats but I do understand completely why TSL is so controversial. They spill "tea" sometimes without revealing all the information. He has clear favorites and unfavorites in every discipline who he brings negative attention to. There is good reason why many skaters and coaches dislike him.

 

[WillyElliot]

Not the biggest fan of Dave either, but I've seen nothing wrong (so far) in their coverage of this story. Unless, I'm missing smth (please let me know), because I don't follow them on twitter and I haven't seen anything posted on FB from TSL for a long time.

I agree. I watched his interview with Christine Brennan and was impressed with how they handled this whole situation. It's a shame he's removed all his social media and is too afraid to go to Nationals. I suppose he's going to be even more of a pariah amongst the skating elite. Sad.

 

[tony]

I agree. I watched his interview with Christine Brennan and was impressed with how they handled this whole situation. It's a shame he's removed all his social media and is too afraid to go to Nationals. I suppose he's going to be even more of a pariah amongst the skating elite. Sad.

I've already shared that I don't feel the initial screenshot of the SafeSport website was a huge issue. Repeating myself- if it weren't Dave, it would've been someone else and then Dave would have likely talked about it anyways (along with Brennan).

The latest update today seems to be Jonathan going on the defensive and other 'fans' of TSL saying that the skaters couldn't deal with the criticisms that he and Dave (and other guests) gave over the years, saying that it happens all the time in other sports without the backlash that skaters have given Dave. There's a lot more- search Twitter for 'TSL' as a starter if you want to explore.

I don't know. I never watched a full episode aside from the Kwan interview, and I only ever skimmed over other episodes, and I remember I documented IIRC the first 10 or 15 minutes of the Autumn Classic review they put up last season, and it was all a bunch of whining about how awful everything was. Dave has shown time and time again to present his opinions in such a nasty, almost condescending way, often coming across as 'I can't believe I had to suffer through [fill in the blank] and have [fill in the blank] waste so much of my time', complete with constant eye rolls.

The body language he has in general makes me wonder how much he actually likes the sport as opposed to liking the drama behind everything in it. Then again, he does seem to have opened the rulebooks in the last year or two (or been told the basics by others) and tried to get a better understanding of the scoring system and skating fundamentals.

That said, with this possible new understanding/new way of watching, he could have approached everything, especially recently, with a much nicer tone and less of a condescending manner ('This whole thing was just awful, why are they still competing, why are they filling up my Instagram screen, why are they packaged so awfully, why do the commentators have to be so fake?' -- on and on.) He's tried to emulate the old show that IIRC was called Lutz Chat (?) since the days of Aunt Joyce, and he hasn't backed off on that approach. He and Jonathan cannot be that delusional as to why so many skaters have a dislike for the TSL brand when everything is delivered so dramatically and negatively all the time. Sometimes from listening to little bits of his videos, he even comes across like a non-fan trying to be a comedian, and constantly trying to find witty things to say.

In the end, I'm sure Jonathan's mentioning of the death threats (although I see he backed off on mentioning that in the latter replies to people regarding the disappearance of TSL) is only going to make people support them even more when Dave does decide to bring it back-- which I have no doubt won't be that long from now.

ETA- Jonathan says 'in the world of opera, you could never consider a review to be bullying. Regardless of how brutal.' But what if the review was about everything other than the actual singing itself? He's already crumbled under the pressure of people telling him to his face that they are not having any of TSL's antics.

 

[haribobo]

Agree with a lot of what was said upthread- TSL could be great but its just so damn sloppy. Dave knows a ton about technique and skating history and is often very entertaining. And to be honest, he and all content creators are allowed to do whatever they want- its their channel. If his goal is to be the greatest gossip column tea-spilling joint around, then he's really stepping in it all the time and this kind of stuff is going to keep happening, whether he/we like it or not. If he wants to do nice skating reviews and be respected and talk about technique and have longevity, well he is wildly distracted from his goal of that. So its at a crossroads where he has to figure this out. The John thing honestly isn't the problem or at least not the only one- it is that he jumps into every mud puddle he can, dishes on who is dating who, and basically spends 90 minutes of a 100 minute competition recap talking about things that aren't the competition at hand. The Canadian Nationals recap was painful- who has time for all those damn vignettes? They did mention Orzel briefly but didn't even manage to talk about that amazing SP he had, which was one of the highlights of the whole comp IMO. Yes, we know you know everyone and have such a fun time and are so much cooler than everyone. But its tiresome. And the thing is that Jonathan comes prepared to talk about the skating and Dave still has to pull the train off the track incessantly... that you really don't know what you are watching anymore. I do still find it sometimes watchable enough to click on and skip around, but I am often wildly disappointed. On the recent Chinese Nationals recap, they didn't even mention the ladies comp! I think if Dave were Jackie or someone else and mentioned the John thing, there wouldn't be this kind of backlash, but he has unfortunately been stirring the pot for years and it just finally is boiling over. Death threats are horrible and unwarranted, but I hope if he continues, he finds it to be a growing experience and decides to become more focused on the skating and chill out on the gossip.

 

[laviemn]

After the events of this week, more than ever I find value in having information and discussion provided by someone who doesn't care about pissing off the USFS or the skaters. Skating is covered by only two professional journalists in the US of which one is mostly retired, and at the other end of the spectrum there are a handful of amateur platforms that care too much about staying in everyone's good graces to tackle anything controversial. TSL occupied that gulf in between, and flawed as it was, there is literally no one else occupying that space.

 

[jmtfti]

I've already shared that I don't feel the initial screenshot of the SafeSport website was a huge issue. Repeating myself- if it weren't Dave, it would've been someone else and then Dave would have likely talked about it anyways (along with Brennan).

The latest update today seems to be Jonathan going on the defensive and other 'fans' of TSL saying that the skaters couldn't deal with the criticisms that he and Dave (and other guests) gave over the years, saying that it happens all the time in other sports without the backlash that skaters have given Dave. There's a lot more- search Twitter for 'TSL' as a starter if you want to explore.

There's also a screencap of a Facebook post by a friend of Coughlin's circulating on Twitter, being characterized as a report-worthy attack. And all I can say is if this is what's being labeled dangerous rhetoric, then 1) there are a lot of fans who are very naive about what #ProtectOurJournalists should mean, and the nature and severity of threats some journalists actually receive and 2) it makes me more curious about what TSL considers violent threats.

 

[caitie]

I saw that post — I think Jonathan commented on the tweet about it to clarify that Dave had banned her for posting harassment on their page since she complained about being censored in the post. I assume they’ve received some actual threats since Christine and SafeSport’s rep said they had as well.

I also think based on Jonathan’s tweets, it’s less of a situation where Dave is legitimately fearful and probably more of a situation where Dave feels like TSL is not his job, they aren’t making any money beyond donations to help cover expenses, it probably takes a lot of his free time, and he doesn’t want to deal with a bunch of angry ppl blaming him for John’s death and the anxiety of potentially facing some of them in person a week later. So I assume that’s the main reason he was like whatever I’m deleting everything and not setting foot in Nationals.

 

[GullyGirl84]

Yeah, Jonathan Beyer's focus on social media yesterday seemed to less emphasize the death threats than he did the day before (which I don't doubt they are receiving) and more of on liking posters who say that skaters are just pissed off because "US skaters are spoiled and they don't realize that the show is not for THEM" and "you guys are not mean spirited, you are irreverent", which seems like an entirely different issue at hand. Maybe they want more skaters to be sticking up for them? But that take from them always just comes across as a bit deluded and doesn't take into account that they DO say very personal things (not about skating but making all of these deconstructions of the skaters' psychologies and personalities in very nasty ways) on the show that didn't have anything to do with skating. And frankly, the fact that he was so thin skinned about it when confronted in person said a lot to me at the time.

But all of this is honestly besides the point, because I think this episode with TSL and SafeSport WAS one of the BETTER uses of TSL recently, definitely more of what I have liked about the show rather than disliked in the context of how the show was now compared to what is was like in the past. The fact that this was public on SafeSport and no one was talking about it/he was still doing seminars for skaters WAS an issue in my opinion that needed to be discussed. I remember a few years ago when Dave asked questions in the mixed zones at 2016 and 2017 nationals, and on the conference calls, and I thought his were honestly the best and most relevant questions. And I don't doubt that the USFS has been pissed off at them for very petty and juvenile reasons. I do think that the odds are that TSL will be back when things calm down, but who knows.

 

[arakwafan2006]

Question: why are all of you pretending like you don’t know the REAL reason he’s being threatened? To Dave’s own point, skating audiences are SO emotional and often NOT really practicing the concept of taking a step back. The reason why Dave is getting treated this way is that he’s paying the price for being known as an often malicious, callous and predatory person. This is the same jerk who is Aunt Joyce, printing cruel shit about people for years. It’s unfortunate because be honest, would most of us know about safe sport if it weren’t for him? Most of you had no effing clue how the scoring system worked, along comes Dave. The love and passion he has for figure skating is only paralleled by people like Tarasova, Button and Cranston. He’s a smart man but unfortunately, he wanted to be known as an internet bully and now, he’s paying for it.

Million dollars says when the dust settles, he will adjust his persona. This is real effing like bro. I just wish he would not have had this legacy of being a cruel asshole and there would have been no death threats. His bringing inappropriate relationships between coaches and pupils to life makes me at 37 re-evaluate mentors i had in the past. He better stop being so cruel though...ask Wendy Williams. So, it sucks that his reality check had to come this way but to me, he needed to learn a bit of self-awareness. When you are the guy that came to be due to publishing horrible things about people as a result of your own insecurity, pay the price.

I hope the honest journalism continues but be mindful of how you talk about people... not what you say but the way you say it and i would argue, when you're " Wendy Williams", you need to tread lightly. Reporting what he reported like it was motivated by keeping youth safe is very different than reporting something in a way that sounds predatory. Dave knows the difference. If he didn't, maybe this will cause him to learn. Keep it honest. KEEP IT RESPECTFUL IN GENERAL. Had he been nicer all these years, this fallout would NOT be occurring because people would respect him