The Skating Lesson

[VGThuy]

I never thought I'd see a 30 to 40 year-old adult man publicly tweet that he was crying in a bathroom stall at a figure skating competition in France because a coach and choreographer were sending him messages in order to gain sympathy and compliments and be "persuaded" to not leave the sport. Maybe he and Dave can be champions against bullying now like Melania Trump. Maybe Jonathan and Dave can now fully understand what the USFS was going for with its We Get Up campaign.

 

[triple_toe]

I'm not saying that TSL are in the right here, but showing private messages in public would just make the situation worse in my opinion... I'm actually surprised they didn't cross that particular line of indecency.

 

[allezfred]

I never thought I'd see a 30 to 40 year-old adult man publicly tweet that he was crying in a bathroom stall at a figure skating competition in France because a coach and choreographer were sending him messages in order to gain sympathy and compliments and be "persuaded" to not leave the sport.

Yeah, I had no idea who he was. I thought he was going to be a 19 year old twink and was quite surprised at err how mature he looked when I went to his Twitter bio.

I'm not saying that TSL are in the right here, but showing private messages in public would just make the situation worse in my opinion... I'm actually surprised they didn't cross that particular line of indecency.

If you are going to make serious accusations against people, I'm going to want to see proof. I am calling bullshit on them about the contents of the messages.

 

[VGThuy]

Why is it that people who spew the most venom and tell others to get thick skin have some of the thinnest skins themselves? Don't their ardent supporters see that? Did anyone point out the hypocrisy?

 

[Debbie S]

who's the skater in the video?

TJ Nyman, who won nat'l singles titles in Juv and Int and is now skating Junior Pairs with Sarah Feng. They won Pacifics over the weekend and will compete at Nats. The girl is Cailey Weaver (sp?), I think she is from FL - I remember her competing in Junior or Senior at Liberty and/or Regionals.

 

[Kultakissu]

Why is it that people who spew the most venom and tell others to get thick skin have some of the thinnest skins themselves? Don't their ardent supporters see that? Did anyone point out the hypocrisy?

Some people did and were promptly blocked

 

[VGThuy]

Some people did and were promptly blocked

Really? I thought they were all about “keeping it real”.

 

[skateboy]

Some people did and were promptly blocked

Yes, they were.

I wrote the following in the YouTube comments, which was quickly removed by TSL:

Sorry Jonathan, but you called Kori and Rohene "assholes" on social media, where the entire world could see it, claiming that they sent you 300 nasty messages (which I don't believe, they would have been messaging for 24 hours) and with zero proof of any of it. Totally unprofessional, and over what? You got called out on your comments? I am thoroughly disgusted. Grow a damn set and, while you're "crying in the bathroom" (your words, not mine), grow up.

 

[dailytg20]

Well that explains it. It seemed suspicious that fans of this particular show wouldn't at least laugh at the absurd drama of being "bullied" by Rohene, demand actual receipts or clock an obvious stunt when they see it. The comments were all weirdly coddling, which made me wonder if these people ever watched the show.

And "keepin' it real" = Also blocking dissenting opinions on Twitter apparently.

The thread above is pretty mild for the Twitter IMO, standard when you are openly acting a fool. If that's blockworthy, I could only imagine how little it took to trigger that social media blast of woe and Lifetime movie-style shower cry.

 

[Aerobicidal]

Yes, they were.

I wrote the following in the YouTube comments, which was quickly removed by TSL:

Sorry Jonathan, but you called Kori and Rohene "assholes" on social media, where the entire world could see it, claiming that they sent you 300 nasty messages (which I don't believe, they would have been messaging for 24 hours) and with zero proof of any of it. Totally unprofessional, and over what? You got called out on your comments? I am thoroughly disgusted. Grow a damn set and, while you're "crying in the bathroom" (your words, not mine), grow up.

Maybe the messages were really short, like "i h8 u" or "u a ho." Or they just sent poop emojis.

 

[dailytg20]

Now I just have an image of Jonathan sobbing in vibrato as a torrent of middle finger emojis cascade down on him.

 

[StitchMonkey]

@MamaL

(Also, why would Kori be drinking until 4AM and getting blackout drunk?

She has two young kids and a flight in the morning!

You answered your own question

 

[StitchMonkey]

I'm not saying that TSL are in the right here, but showing private messages in public would just make the situation worse in my opinion... I'm actually surprised they didn't cross that particular line of indecency.

Yeah... I'm a little disappointed in the reaction. Not that long ago it was deemed wrong to share Courtney Hick's private messages, but now they are getting harped at for not. It is a no win situation really.

Honestly it sounds like everyone actually involved has moved on and filed it away as a quirky thing in the past... it seems it never was that big a deal and still really is not.

 

[rhapsody]

Now I like watching TSL as it's mildly entertaining while cleaning my apartment or whatever chore; most of their bitchy comments anyway are right in line with what's posted on this forum. Unlike most commentary though, their observations have a face and a name to them which opens them up to criticism.

With that being said, it's so Ivanka Trump of them to whine about how unfair the skating world is when all they do is crap all over skaters. If Dave and Jonathan can dish out their douchebaggery, they should be able to take it. The blocking is expected though, easier to deflect than look inward and acknowledge mistakes or character flaws. On a pettier note, I have to admit that I giggled hard when I read Beyer's original Tweet about him crying in a bathroom stall. That is soooooo dramatic even for figure skating. I'd love to see the hate message receipts tho. And this circle jerk of mutual congratulations is just so egoistic and shows how far they have their heads up their asses. Meh.

Also the Jenny shade? I originally didn't interpret his tweets as knocking her but he doubled down on that when someone pointed it out and again during his video. Way to crap over the person who literally made your show matter. How shocking that she decided to jump ship.

TJ Nyman, who won nat'l singles titles in Juv and Int and is now skating Junior Pairs with Sarah Feng. They won Pacifics over the weekend and will compete at Nats. The girl is Cailey Weaver (sp?), I think she is from FL - I remember her competing in Junior or Senior at Liberty and/or Regionals.

Speaking of TSL and TJ: https://twitter.com/NymanTJ/status/854039732610899969

 

[overedge]

Yeah... I'm a little disappointed in the reaction. Not that long ago it was deemed wrong to share Courtney Hick's private messages, but now they are getting harped at for not. It is a no win situation really.

Courtney Hicks was sending social media messages to her haterz, some of whom posted them online. And yes, there were some people who thought that was wrong, because Hicks' messages were sent as DMs. But the haterz posted them as evidence that they had actually received these messages and weren't just making things up.

So here we have a somewhat similar situation where Jonathan is allegedly receiving hundreds of nastygrams from Kori and Rohene, and is criticizing them online for being mean to him. I don't think it's too unreasonable to expect him to provide some evidence that he actually did receive these messages, and that the messages were as horrible as he claims.

 

[StitchMonkey]

Courtney Hicks was sending social media messages to her haterz, some of whom posted them online. And yes, there were some people who thought that was wrong, because Hicks' messages were sent as DMs. But the haterz posted them as evidence that they had actually received these messages and weren't just making things up.

So here we have a somewhat similar situation where Jonathan is allegedly receiving hundreds of nastygrams from Kori and Rohene, and is criticizing them online for being mean to him. I don't think it's too unreasonable to expect him to provide some evidence that he actually did receive these messages, and that the messages were as horrible as he claims.

You are free to feel that way but many felt the same was wrong in Courtney's situation. As such I fully expect that many would have been less than kind to D&J if they had done the same.

Either it is tacky to repost private messages or it is not... i just want some consistency in life.

 

[VGThuy]

I think the only difference is how the situation came to being. I also think the fact that people are blindly believing Jonathan when he accused Kori and Rohene for sending abusive texts without being able to read such texts so people can gauge for themselves if Kori and Rohene were being abusive is what is irking people and causing this inconsistency. I think in both cases people took the people to task for making private things public (the posters who shared a private conversation with Courtney who she trusted and Jonathan who decided to accuse Kori and Rohene of being “assholes” who caused him to cry in a bathroom stall and contemplate quitting being a fan of this sport). I think had Jonathan not accused Kori and Rohene of sending abusive messages then they wouldn’t ask for proof because those are serious allegations. The Courtney thing seemed unprompted and was sort of done to shame her.

 

[overedge]

@StitchMonkey I don't think it's a question of tackiness, I think it's a question of backing up statements that you make in public. Especially when the statements suggest some unprofessional behaviour on the part of the people you are criticizing.

That's another difference - the people that Courtney Hicks was DMing were fans that had criticized her online, not judges or coaches or choreographers. But Jonathan is criticizing people who are involved in the sport as professionals, and what he is saying about their alleged behaviour could have negative consequences for them in their role as professionals. So for that reason alone he should provide some evidence.

 

[VGThuy]

I also wonder if he deleted it because his tweet could be considered libel if Kori and Rohene argue they never said the things he said they did nor did they send 300 messages.

 

[Mrs. P]

A few folks are also saying things like "I hope your students fail this season." and even Jason got a tweet from somebody saying that "as an Olympian you should do better." Thankfully there are only a few of these types of tweets, but the now deleted tweet has dragged in people who weren't involved in the situation at hand.

 

[bardtoob]

On a separate note, in their NHK recap, how can those two make comments about Adam acting too gay?

David commenting about someone else acting too gay

We'll leave poor Britney, I mean Jonathan, alone.*

* Special thanks to @Aerobicidal for bringing back fond memories from way back in yester-decade.

 

[Tavi]

I think the only difference is how the situation came to being. I also think the fact that people are blindly believing Jonathan when he accused Kori and Rohene for sending abusive texts without being able to read such texts so people can gauge for themselves if Kori and Rohene were being abusive is what is irking people and causing this inconsistency. I think in both cases people took the people to task for making private things public (the posters who shared a private conversation with Courtney who she trusted and Jonathan who decided to accuse Kori and Rohene of being “assholes” who caused him to cry in a bathroom stall and contemplate quitting being a fan of this sport). I think had Jonathan not accused Kori and Rohene of sending abusive messages then they wouldn’t ask for proof because those are serious allegations. The Courtney thing seemed unprompted and was sort of done to shame her.

I agree. By putting the accusations up on Twitter, he took public a personal or professional matter that should have been handled privately.

In addition, he put the accusations up there without any context, then deleted them, then danced around them vaguely in the video. All of these things made his claim less believable to me. You don’t have to post someone’s text messages to set forth a clear and detailed narrative of what happened. And if you choose not to and decide to handle it privately, I think an apology is in order, especially given what Mrs P just related.

 

[triple_toe]

@StitchMonkey I don't think it's a question of tackiness, I think it's a question of backing up statements that you make in public. Especially when the statements suggest some unprofessional behaviour on the part of the people you are criticizing.

That's another difference - the people that Courtney Hicks was DMing were fans that had criticized her online, not judges or coaches or choreographers. But Jonathan is criticizing people who are involved in the sport as professionals, and what he is saying about their alleged behaviour could have negative consequences for them in their role as professionals. So for that reason alone he should provide some evidence.

Well, Courtney Hicks is a professional in the sport in the same way, no? The fans weren't the ones receiving the criticism, she was, and the private dms were the "back up" to prove she was allegedly bigoted, right? It seems pretty similar to me. I got an uncomfortable feeling then, as did several others here, and I don't really see how it's all that different in this case, apart from TSL being easy to pick on because of the "they dish it out so they can take it" mentality. TSL did a crappy thing by making this public and it would have been made worse by further crossing the line and making private messages public. I'm sure they would have caught hell for it. Furthermore, if the criticism is that they're whining unnecessarily, surely the most reasonable way to mitigate that would be to quickly erase the heat-of-the-moment tweet in the rational light of day, rather than dragging the whole damn thing out by providing the receipts? What's done is done and demanding substantiation for the claim is just feeding the cycle of gossip. Whether there are professional ramifications for any of the parties involved is not our concern on FSU, unless our concern *is* just the gossipy aspect, in which case it's all a pile of hypocrisy.

Whatever, I get that Dave and co. are catty gossips and I'm not trying to defend their attitude, but I never got the notion that it's ok to shit on people who are portrayed as villains or bullies, all the while acting high and mighty about it. If everyone's going to criticize TSL for being bitchy and hateful, why is it ok to snigger about TSL in much the same way? I don't know, I find the whole thing depressing. TSL is tacky and offensive, but FSU's reaction to them often reads the same way, right down to mean-spirited comments about Dave's appearance and mental state.

I'm too bitter and jaded to realistically espouse a Kumbaya-like fantasy wherein we're all nice and empathetic, but what's the point in a 400-reply long hate fest? One poster mentioned reaching out to Courtney Hicks and having a very nice conversation, a productive reaction that wasn't just shading her for her political views. I get that that might not be possible with TSL, but like it or not, they're major disseminators of figure skating media and if you don't like the narrative, don't perpetuate it, or offer up alternatives if you're really passionate.

The Morozombie blogspot is the only alternative I've found that's funny and entertaining without being mean in an Aunt Joyce way. Ice network is often too twee and PR heavy for me, as are most other sources of skating news. Are there any others around? I'd love to hear a discussion of that so I don't waste any more of my life play devil's advocate for TSL of all things.

 

[Foolhardy Ham Lint]

Back in the day when Jenny was on board, and with her connections in the skating world, I got the impression she was shaping TSL as a stepping stone towards a career in serious broadcast journalism.

When it was starting out and was building its fan base, the show seemed to be testing the water to see what people responded to, and didn't. The interview with Caryn Kadavy is probably my favourite. They asked her some great questions, and allowed Kadavy to speak and give some interesting background in her time training with Carlo and Christa Fassi, as well as Jill Trenary.

I miss those days.

 

[Foolhardy Ham Lint]

Morozombie blogspot is the only alternative I've found that's funny and entertaining without being mean in an Aunt Joyce way. /QUOTE]

Thank you for the link. I'll have to check it out.

 

[topaz]

I never thought I'd see a 30 to 40 year-old adult man publicly tweet that he was crying in a bathroom stall at a figure skating competition in France because a coach and choreographer were sending him messages in order to gain sympathy and compliments and be "persuaded" to not leave the sport. Maybe he and Dave can be champions against bullying now like Melania Trump. Maybe Jonathan and Dave can now fully understand what the USFS was going for with its We Get Up campaign.

Girl, I watched the video yesterday and heard a little bit about this. Johnathan Beyer stated he was crying, for real?

 

[triple_toe]

This recent article was a nice bit of comic relief from Morozombie. I selfishly wish they'd post more often, but I understand the time something like this must take.

 

[overedge]

Well, Courtney Hicks is a professional in the sport in the same way, no? The fans weren't the ones receiving the criticism, she was, and the private dms were the "back up" to prove she was allegedly bigoted, right? It seems pretty similar to me. I got an uncomfortable feeling then, as did several others here, and I don't really see how it's all that different in this case, apart from TSL being easy to pick on because of the "they dish it out so they can take it" mentality. TSL did a crappy thing by making this public and it would have been made worse by further crossing the line and making private messages public. I'm sure they would have caught hell for it. Furthermore, if the criticism is that they're whining unnecessarily, surely the most reasonable way to mitigate that would be to quickly erase the heat-of-the-moment tweet in the rational light of day, rather than dragging the whole damn thing out by providing the receipts? What's done is done and demanding substantiation for the claim is just feeding the cycle of gossip. Whether there are professional ramifications for any of the parties involved is not our concern on FSU, unless our concern *is* just the gossipy aspect, in which case it's all a pile of hypocrisy.

Well, here's the difference. Courtney Hicks was actively contacting the haters herself - the messages I saw started with her DMing something to the effect of "why do you hate my skating so much". That probably wasn't an awesome idea to begin with, but whatever. However, Jonathan seems to be claiming that he received this truckload of harassing messages out of nowhere, i.e. he didn't initiate the exchange. So if he wants people to know how awful these messages were and why they upset him so much, it would be helpful to actually see some of them.

Also IIRC at least some of the messages, he said, were posted on his Facebook page, which isn't the same as a DM.

 

[topaz]

Dave has an intense dislike of Rohene Ward which appears to be jealousy.

 

[Foolhardy Ham Lint]

Dave has an intense dislike of Rohene Ward which appears to be jealousy.

As a fat, balding middle - aged man, I'm totally jealous of Rohene's form - fitting outfits, and fabulous hair.