Fan vs Fanatic

Mrs. P said:

First of all, did you not see the sentence where I said, that I know that not all Korean fans are like this?

But I think it's important to call a spade a spade. And using your analogy, I think its worth noting there is a bushel of apples, ie a pesky contingent of Korean fans who, for whatever reason, are splashing the YouTube video full of cruel comments.

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Oh I am trying to agree with you. If you understood my (failed) attempt of wisdom and humour, it works both ways, multiple ways, Jackson Pollack ways. This sort of behavior does not apply only to Koreans, I see similar things done in Chinese, Japanese and certainly in English, not just on youtube. There are legitimate darkness to human nature beyond nationality which I can never understand nor care to venture into. These comments are likely to have nothing to do with figure skating, but unfortunately are at expense of it. It is easy to abuse the privilege of anonymity with negativity and hate when there can be so many conflicted and contrasting motivation beyond the obvious. As far as I am concerned, things are rarely in black and white where there are anonymity. It is really important to becareful to view them as isolated phenomenons (likely the work of a small minority) rather than any particular national traits.

I can never judge the whole of Japanese on the nationalist diatribe on 2CH, or Americans on certain population's obsession with TMZ or for Aniston's hair style for example. Just don't get it, moving along...

os168 said:

Oh I am trying to agree with you. If you understood my (failed) attempt of wisdom and humour, it works both ways, multiple ways, Jackson pollack ways. This sort of behavior does not apply only to Koreans, I see similar things done in Chinese, Japanese and certainly in English, not just on youtube. There are legitimate darkness to human nature beyond nationality which I can never understand nor care to venture into. These comments are likely to have nothing to do with figure skating, but unfortunately are at expense of it. It is easy to abuse the privilege of anonymity with negativity and hate when there can be so many conflicted and contrasting motivation beyond the obvious. As far as I am concerned, things are rarely in black and white where there are anonymity. It is really important to becareful to view them as isolated phenomenons (likely the work of a small minority) rather than any particular national traits.

I can never judge the whole of Japanese on the nationalist diatribe on 2CH, or Americans on certain populator's obsession with TMZ or for Aniston's hair style for example. Just don't get it, moving along...

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Sorry I didn't get the joke.

My original intent was to answer the OP's question was "Why the heck does Akiko have 796 dislikes?"

In the comment section there is contingent of fans with Korean surnames (but who knows it could be Japanese fans masking as Koreans...) who have posted nasty comments. It was not meant to be a commentary on the Korean people or Korean skating fans, just that it's likely those dislikes came from folks with Korean fans (or, again "fans") who made those dumb comments about how she looks or whatever.

Also, it was not meant to say that Japanese, American, and other types of people weren't engaging in the same nastiness.

This is truly the dumbest thread I've seen here.

Youtube has an option that let's you express your "dislike". There is absolutely nothing wrong with exercising that right. I, for one, find no joy watching Akiko skate. Rather than searching for her youtube video and wasting my time and pressing the "dislike" button, I simply choose not to watch her. But if someone else feels strongly enough to express their "dislike," for whatever personal reason, I see nothing wrong with that. Blame Youtube, not the users.

Yuna's SP has more than 700+ dislikes. Her LP has more than 800+ dislikes. So what?

Take a chill pill plz.

YunaBliss said:

This is truly the dumbest thread I've seen here.

Youtube has an option that let's you express your "dislike". There is absolutely nothing wrong with exercising that right. I, for one, find no joy watching Akiko skate. Rather than searching for her youtube video and wasting my time and pressing the "dislike" button, I simply choose not to watch her. But if someone else feels strongly enough to express their "dislike," for whatever personal reason, I see nothing wrong with that. Blame Youtube, not the users.

Yuna's SP has more than 700+ dislikes. Her LP has more than 800+ dislikes. So what?

Take a chill pill plz.

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Yuna lp of adiós nonino has 800 dislikes vs 6000 likes and it was not her best performance, is not the same, there are much more likes, the point is that is obvious that so many dislikes (700 likes vs 600 dislikes) for a really good performance, (you like it or not it was enough good or at least not bad), are not precisley because they doesn´t like it, they simply want to show that the skater is not enough valuable.

chapis said:

Yuna lp of adiós nonino has 800 dislikes vs 6000 likes and it was not her best performance, is not the same, there are much more likes, the point is that is obvious that so many dislikes (700 likes vs 600 dislikes) for a really good performance, (you like it or not it was enough good or at least not bad), are not precisley because they doesn´t like it, they simply want to show that the skater is not enough valuable.

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No, it just shows that Akiko has less "fans" or "fanatics" (whatever word you want to use) than Yuna, while they seem to have about same number of youtube haters.

brightphoton said:

There are a few scenarios in which YT videos get bad ratings. One of them is if a skater skaters horrifically badly at a major competition, like Czisny at 2012 Worlds, Kostner at 2008 Worlds, 2009 Worlds, 2010 Worlds and Olympics, Patrick Chan in any of his World wins. If fans suspect backdoor political shenanigans, the ratings are worse.

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Well, Caro didn't skate bad at 2008 Worlds AT ALL! She wasn't perfect, but she landed a clean and difficult 3-3 in both programs, didn't fall/pop and made only a couple of major mistakes
And, Patrick's gold in 2011 was obtained with two almost-perfect programs, with only one mistakes out of 11 jumps

YunaBliss said:

No, it just shows that Akiko has less "fans" or "fanatics" (whatever word you want to use) than Yuna, while they seem to have about same number of youtube haters.

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With all due respect I did watch Akiko's performance on Youtube and I know what Frenchie is getting at. Sometimes in any sport an athlete reaches that sweet spot that is rarely attained by anyone. I am not one of those enthralled by her; I guess you could say, I don't see the attraction with her, at all. As a non-fan though I had to admit she was "in the zone" with that performance and I too find it disheartening that people can't put aside their allegiances to acknowledge excellence when it happens.

YunaBliss said:

No, it just shows that Akiko has less "fans" or "fanatics" (whatever word you want to use) than Yuna, while they seem to have about same number of youtube haters.

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Well the potcentage of "haters" is much bigger in Akiko, you think it is logic???, she is really so bad????, she really deserves more "haters" than fans?, clearly Yuna has much more fans than haters like you said it.

chapis said:

Well the potcentage of "haters" is much bigger in Akiko, you think it is logic???, she is really so bad????, she really deserves more "haters" than fans?, clearly Yuna has much more fans than haters like you said it.

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You know, percentage doesn't really matter in this case.
Hypothetically, there are some 600+ people who hate both Yuna and Akiko, hence the 600+ dislikes. But Yuna has much bigger fanbase to make it up with much more likes, whereas Akiko doesn't.

I think this is very sad. I mean the things happen in Youtube.
Here is my experience. I became Yuna fan around 2007 summer, and at that time Youtube was the only source of Yuna related videos for me here in the US. So I searched videos, left replies to the videos I liked. They were mostly just normal fan comments such as 'This is so beautiful! Thanks for posting this!' sort of.
Then guess what? My comments got like 100 thumb downs and marked as spam. lol
It was especially bad before Vancouver Olympics and most of her videos got tons of dislikes, positive comments were marked as spam and gone, only negative comments were prevailing, eventually the videos were gone with mysterious copy right claims...
It was horrible. I was so shocked and angry, and I fought for a while with reporting racists comments and what not. Then I got tired. ^^;;; I don't go to Youtube that much now and I don't read comments, or pay attention to the 'like', 'dislike' things. It just exhausts you...
I guess it's now happening to Akiko as well. I feel very bad for her and her fans. But maybe it is previlege that comes with fame and just shows that she is now threat for podium! So, congratulations! And deal with it. Oh and be prepared for the disappearance of her videos. I MEAN IT.

Contrary to what my name implies, I've never been a fanatic...not even of the Kween.

To me a fanatic is a person who puts their skater on a pedestal. These are the people who viciously attack anyone who says anything remotely negative or uncomplimentary about their skater. They feel the need to constantly take jabs at skaters who are a threat to their favorite by putting them down, calling them names, insulting them, etc. Any time a skater who they don't like succeeds, rather than accept it, they find a way to diminish their success by giving an excuse, crying foul, etc. Fanatics rarely have anything complimentary to say about another skater and, if by chance they do, it's always a backhanded compliment. They are useless in a conversation that requires any kind of objectivity and they never have any constructive criticism to offer about other skaters. No skater is better than their favorite and God forbid someone make a comparison between their favorite and another skater...that's when all hell breaks loose.

I think "bot" is an appropriate name for fanatics. They are like robots, programmed to do nothing but praise their favorite and destroy all those who oppose.

The upside to fanatics is that they are often very entertaining in a "Wow, this person is absolutely bat **** crazy" kind of way. Their delusion gives way to some pretty amusing posts/conversations on the boards. I could do without the negativity fanatics tend to generate, but having them around do keep these boards interesting...if only in a point and laugh kind of way.

Yes, I admit it. I AM a fanatic.

A skating fanatic.

Trust me, I spent hours watching worlds on Latvian television at all hours of the day and night. If that isn't fanaticism, I don't what is.

What I am not is a particular skater's/team's fanatic. Even the best of them have off performances, programs that have faults in them, tacky costumes. Etc ad nausea.

My Mom, a very wise woman, once told me, If you have to tell me how great X is by disparaging Y, it doesn't say much for X does it?

I'll just add, or for those propping up X's 'greatness' by knocking every Y out there.

Yes. Like Vettel fanbots bashing Webber every chance they got. Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

I signed in and liked the video to balance out one hater. And I've never "liked" anything on youtube.

kwanatic said:

Contrary to what my name implies, I've never been a fanatic...not even of the Kween.

To me a fanatic is a person who puts their skater on a pedestal. These are the people who viciously attack anyone who says anything remotely negative or uncomplimentary about their skater. They feel the need to constantly take jabs at skaters who are a threat to their favorite by putting them down, calling them names, insulting them, etc. Any time a skater who they don't like succeeds, rather than accept it, they find a way to diminish their success by giving an excuse, crying foul, etc. Fanatics rarely have anything complimentary to say about another skater and, if by chance they do, it's always a backhanded compliment. They are useless in a conversation that requires any kind of objectivity and they never have any constructive criticism to offer about other skaters. No skater is better than their favorite and God forbid someone make a comparison between their favorite and another skater...that's when all hell breaks loose.

I think "bot" is an appropriate name for fanatics. They are like robots, programmed to do nothing but praise their favorite and destroy all those who oppose.

The upside to fanatics is that they are often very entertaining in a "Wow, this person is absolutely batsh*t crazy" kind of way. Their delusion gives way to some pretty amusing posts/conversations on the boards. I could do without the negativity fanatics tend to generate, but having them around do keep these boards interesting...if only in a point and laugh kind of way.

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They are also the ones who have over the top emotional reactions. I recall when one U.S. skater had a bad meltdown at Worlds a few years ago, someone on the forums kept posting about how s/he could not stop thinking about it and how it had ruined the entire spring, and the same poster turned up over a year later to talk about how the free skate in question had ruined an entire year for him/her and caused personal shame. That is a fanatic. They come in all shapes and sizes and in every sport. They are the people in my home state who can, without a drop of irony or sarcasm, declare that the local college football team losing a bowl game makes them depressed until the new season starts. If you are that emotionally invested in any sport, team or athlete, you need to get perspective.

Frenchie, it was a fair question. I chose to close my own thread which was not controversial, it was about overscoring, and if two overscored skaters said to be locks for gold really deserved the huge scores. Only one skater was of interest and her fans come out in force,always the ame people, always the same response.

There are a few possibilities. 1) I'd bet money they were troll fanatics who sign up under two or 3 or four names. I have no youtube account. I stopped reading mao/YuNa opinions years ago after an ugly pic of Mao was put up somewhere calling her a whale eating so and so. I don't read the comments or even notice much likes or dislikes. Because there are many trolls who do the multi sign up thing, it is not really reflective of "public opinion." Ignore them if it upsets you, thinking of Akiko being upset.

It could be fans of mao (fanatic fans) who are angry, or it could be fans of yuna
who see her as a threat. She should be. She is the most under rated skater of this past quad. She should be a podium threat. She is musical, she has it all, still, at her age. She is more consistent than Mao and Caro, and we have seen many good performances. I remember it took Christinaskater to beat her drum. We are often sheeple, here, repeating what we hear, and the hype.

Hearing that she has been attacked by? I don't care, I all the more hope there are skating miracles and a 29 year old, brave survivor who keeps smiling wins the gold. I love her skating. I think she has plenty of speed, good jumps, spins. But her musicality and joy put her in a class of two. Osmund and her are a joy to watch. No one else comes close to their love of skating. Not since Kwan have we seen a more joyous survivor who is up against the delicate beloved Mao. She had to be compared to Stunning Beauty (caps intended) Shizuka, who took many years to "make it," and even kanako gets points for being younger. Kanako is very fast and to me she is trying to imitate upper body movements of YuNa. If I had to watch one performance from this year ten times, it would be Akiko.

Wagner is slammed too. Julia is hyped. It goes on and on. It is subjective, but many are not fans, they are fanatics. If one wants to see the fan base of YuNa, one need only look here or FSU and do some research. Were her ubers posting when she took 20 months off? I don't know, but basic research will tell you. I am sure we will lose many if not most of the big time Yuna fans on this board. It is too bad because they embraced CoP as she is a CoP skater, know the scoring very well, and all the rules better than most. But without Yuna most will be gone in March, I guess. It will be felt, because they are legion plus Korea has internet speeds 4x faster than usa and they are one of the most internet saavy nations on earth.

I will miss many discussions but not the inevitable personal insults that happen if you make a criticism. YuNa is not perfect, but speed does not translate into Tv as well. It does no good and I notice some posters who love and prefer Mao constantly feel the need to add, and I love Yuna too.

I like her very much. Don't be surprised to get PMs about how people feel or from a yuNa uber when they have cut your throat. When they know they have gone overboard, they (the nicer posters) will apologize. The post is controversial...it brings up a subject most of us avoid, the fan wars on youtube that spill over to the boards. It will end in Feb when we lose these two great skaters and many others. We will all miss them terribly if truth be told, or I will. I REALLY HOPE YUnA HAS SEEDED SKATING FOR GOOD IN kOREA AND HER MONEY sorry cap stuck and I will be happy to see her protégés. 2018 should show us some pretty good Korean ladies, and who knows, some young guy who was inspired by her.

If anyone doubts the power of Korean internet block voting, how did YuNa Kim get voted 100 most important people in the Time pole. Someone pmed me about that. I never thought about it. S. Korea sounds like a place where the people are highly competitive, and they are on the map in many ways. I feel sad to see what is happening to my country as Asia takes over in every way. That is not racist. Our people have lost every job to be outsourced. Customer relations is a horror show as we attempt to understand many countries people in heavily accented English read from a book. So your gains in Asia are our losses.

Ashley Wagner is likely the biggest threat to Akkiko as you all say Gold and Silver are taken in Sochi and bronze is a huge fight between Ash, Akiko and maybe 4 others. I can assure you Wagner/Americans did not do all those dislikes. We don't care enough, we have huge problems and skating is nothing- Ashley who? Guess what, Tonya was just of evening news , ABC with Diane Sawyer!. 20 year old news is of interest!

So clearly, all that voting came from Japan or Korea. Maybe from a handful of nuts with multiple tags. They gotta be kids who have time to burn, right? or can use work computers.

It is laughable they did this as she skated great, and she might have been an olymedalist already had she not been anorexic. She is very loved on this board. I'l bet secret poll wishes her a medal more than any skater here outside of yuna. So lets be happy for this brave woman who has made many of us smile when she skates. 'O' will be a skate on everyone's watch list I'll bet for years.

So happy Akiko is on the map and some people are jealous of her!!!!! Go Akiko!

Everyone loves Suzuki. Those 600 folks must have hit the wrong key by mistake.

Absolutely Mathman. I beg the skate gods for a medal.

Took a look just out of curiosity. I immediately downloaded this video after my first viewing so had no idea it had that many dislikes. Wow, so many literally ulgy comments. I guess some people think being annonymous gives them the right to do whatever they want. I wonder if these trolls know that Akiko use to have anorexia? Some of the retorts were rather amusing though, which I won't repeat to avoid further flaming the fan and ethnicity wars. Anyway, I bet Akiko couldn't care less. She's fought hard to be where she is today - Japanese National Champion and one of the best skaters in the world! The haters and fanatics are nobodies.

jennyanydots said:

I wonder if these trolls know that Akiko use to have anorexia?

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I'm sure some of them actually find that amusing, which is utterly disgusting. I don't care who they are--surely most of their mommas have taught them better?

FlattFan said:

I signed in and liked the video to balance out one hater. And I've never "liked" anything on youtube.

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:thumbsup:

I've always enjoyed Akiko's skating but even if I didn't, how small do you have to be not be moved by her victory? Especially if you know a little of her backstory - her troubles and her long struggle to come back. I was overjoyed that it paid off for her in such an important day. Her sheer love of skating shone through like never before and, like, Frenchie, I would choose to rewatch the video for an emotional pick me up. Of course, I felt disappointed for Mao. But it's possible to have both feelings at the same time.