Can we no longer enjoy skating?

I thank the OP Alex D for this post, because all the great replies it received have reaffirmed the fact that we are a bunch of like-minded fanatics brought here by our love for figure skating. Now I feel even more grateful to have these forums to come to every day.

Alex D said:

non stop availability of their programs

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I am thankful every day for this. I am somewhere in the middle on the age side and the way internet works has reformed my skating experience, for the better. Earlier we were dependent on television and if they would deign to show everything, which was often not the case, or dependent on whether we could drag ourselves to a live event, which again had its limitations. Thanks to YT, dailymotion etc I've never watched more skating in my life. My chances of attending SC or CoR (for example) this year were/are zero so it is not like I am not getting a ticket due to livestreaming. But what is happening is that my interest is continuous which wasn't always the case before. I used to get so frustrated and it made me want to give up.

One other thing is that it allows people who wouldn't usually have access to watch the programs. We need a broader audience for skating and one of the ways is countries who aren't 'traditionally' skating nations to join in. Kids being interested in this is crucial. Do not underestimate the positive power of social media. Yes, there are a lot of negatives but there are a lot of positives too and information spreading through these is much faster. When they hear about it they have to be able to check it out. The impulse holds for a very short time and then YT comes in and everything they can discover.

Frankly, I'm very pleased it's not the old days!

I get annoyed when people downvote youtube videos... I've never downvoted a skating youtube video ever and when I see so many downvotes it usually causes me to have an opposite reaction where I mentally take the side of the skater in question.

Alex D said:

Today,
"Would any of that, still come up, if fans could see the skaters once, maybe twice, if there wouldn't be as much data available and if technology wouldn´t provide the tools to analyze each single second of a skaters program and life? Would people be more appreciative about the hard work, skaters and judges, but also officials put into the sport? Would our life in general, be much better if we wouldn't have access to everything, every day?"

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I have often wondered this about technology. With regard to skating, my fandom goes way back, before the internet, before DVRs. You could only see figure skating televised a few times a year, and only for the major comps. I lived for those few abc broadcasts and nothing would keep me away from the TV. I would run home from school every day looking for the next issue of Skating Magazine. I went to every one of those Landover competitions in the '80's. Then something happened when thy started televising those touring competitions all the time ?in the '90's? I would turn on the TV on a Sunday and there was skating.... again. Yawn. It wasn't special anymore because it seemed to be on every week. To me, it was overexposure and it led to me leaving skating behind for a couple of decades. And we're not even talking about internet technology, just TV. But it's an example.

Would our life in general, be much better if we wouldn't have access to everything, every day?

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I absolutely believe this, and I'm an information junkie.

Personally, I love how goldenskate helps me take my figure skating fandom to "the next level", so to speak. I've learned so much in the past two years just from reading and participating in the threads here, and this is from someone who's pretty heavily involved in skating as a parent, president of a club, and a skater. Things that you wouldn't really be able to learn as easily if social media and the internet didn't exist.

Its also wonderfully entertaining to post here during a competition livestream. Even when it's me making a ridiculous one liner about something superficial that happened in the moment, it's fun to be able to say these things and have other people know what you're talking about.

Rosa74 said:

I have often wondered this about technology. With regard to skating, my fandom goes way back, before the internet, before DVRs. You could only see figure skating televised a few times a year, and only for the major comps. I lived for those few abc broadcasts and nothing would keep me away from the TV. I would run home from school every day looking for the next issue of Skating Magazine. I went to every one of those Landover competitions in the '80's. Then something happened when thy started televising those touring competitions all the time ?in the '90's? I would turn on the TV on a Sunday and there was skating.... again. Yawn. It wasn't special anymore because it seemed to be on every week. To me, it was overexposure and it led to me leaving skating behind for a couple of decades. And we're not even talking about internet technology, just TV. But it's an example. .

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Ok, psst...

I LOATHED all those fake pro "competitions."

They were on every other hour. I was expecting to see GODZILLA AND MOTHRA VS TEAM OLYMPIC SKATERS any day then. They were just so fake. And the same programs week after week with nary a break in-between. And for every really beautiful program, we were subjected to some of the corniest schmaltz schlock imaginable.

And yes, like you, after Kimmie Meisner won Worlds, I took a few years off. Had to detox from sequined cornball overdose.

Now though, with a live stream, if you watch it the whole way through, you really get a sense of "being there in the moment." It's not edited or nearly as scripted as even the best Wide World of Sports shows were. And frankly the only way I could afford to see a skating competition is with freebie everything and travel by postage stamp. So, thanks to current technology, I'm a happy camper.

piona said:

tl;dr

was GENAU ist denn dein Problem?
(in einem Satz, bitte!)

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OP doesn't like that people are saying mean things about the figure skaters he likes.
He suggests taking figure skating away, because then people wouldn't say anything at all about figure skaters.

A relevant English expression: cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.

this is just a hobbie. My local soccer team get some tv shows exclusively to talk about the team and every little silly thing about it, and the team get criticized a lot, and believe me, people at my city LOVE the team, always full stadium, each weekend they got more public than Figure skating worlds :scowl:.

You must worry when figure skating forums are quiet. In fact this is nothing, you missed Mao vs Yuna wars? THAT was intense

NaVi said:

I get annoyed when people downvote youtube videos... I've never downvoted a skating youtube video ever and when I see so many downvotes it usually causes me to have an opposite reaction where I mentally take the side of the skater in question.

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I downvote my own YouTube videos :dance2:

Sam-Skwantch said:

I downvote my own YouTube videos :dance2:

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Ok, I'll ask: why?

There's always been lots of criticism about judging in figure skating and given the history it has often been justified. Today the criticism is more specific, but that's because the judging system is different.

I agree that social media has changed things a bit. Gossip that would have been left at the club level in days gone by can become international news and negative comments about appearance or performance that were once little more than silly remarks between friends while watching skating at the rink or in front of a TV are now posted for everyone, including the skaters, to see. It's easier to see such negativity and it's harder to shield skaters from that. But this change is not unique to figure skating and many of the mean things said are tame compared to other sports.

salchowx4 said:

There's always been lots of criticism about judging in figure skating and given the history it has often been justified. Today the criticism is more specific, but that's because the judging system is different.

I agree that social media has changed things a bit. Gossip that would have been left at the club level in days gone by can become international news and negative comments about appearance or performance that were once little more than silly remarks between friends while watching skating at the rink or in front of a TV are now posted for everyone, including the skaters, to see. It's easier to see such negativity and it's harder to shield skaters from that. But this change is not unique to figure skating and many of the mean things said are tame compared to other sports.

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But it also means that the positivity is also there for all to see.

Negativity might seem louder, but in fact, it isn't.

Lysambre said:

But it also means that the positivity is also there for all to see.

Negativity might seem louder, but in fact, it isn't.

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The challenge is that negative comments have more impact...

Whether as manager/supervisors or parents, we are advised by the psychological specialists that it takes many times more positive comments to equal the weight of a negative one.

But how a critique is delivered makes a big difference too...more specific, neutral and constructive means more likely to be heard and accepted...

What I find very destructive is the amount of put someone down to prop up someone I like type of commentary. ....But it's an all too common attitude and reaction to competition throughout society, and has been for some time.

One of of the things that I really like about moving to the IJS from the ordinal system is that it is designed to make us look at what each skater does, and then see how the ranking comes out, rather than concluding overall s person skater better than the other and then trying to justify it....

TGee said:

The challenge is that negative comments have more impact...

Whether as manager/supervisors or parents, we are advised by the psychological specialists that it takes many times more positive comments to equal the weight of a negative one.

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It's not that negative comments have more impact, it's that they often reflect our inner critic, which is the strongest of all critics. So we *think* they have more impact.

In reality, it doesn't take many positive comments to outweight a negative one. If you have low self-esteem, you could have a thousand positive comments, and they still wouldn't outweight the negative one.

What it takes is a healthy dose of self-esteem. When your self-esteem is healthy, then you will know that the person making negative comments is actually talking about themselves and about their own low self-esteem. And you will not be affected by their negative comments, you will just be sad for them (or alternatively, you'll just ignore them).

To bring back the topic to social media, I'd agree that if an athlete doesn't have a healthy self-esteem, then yes, it can hurt them and they should be careful about it.

Thank you!

I have just read all the comments and it was a very interesting read, with lot´s of very good viewpoints and most of the members, also understood where I was coming from and they also pointed out that there is something good with constant availability, like with the replies by Mrs. P or Lysambre.

So I want to thank everyone for the participation so far and yes, it is indeed good to open up the markets for figure skating and it might help to get some new blood into the sport and I would certainly like to read more about the history of GS, so if MM or Doris might want to share something, I would really appreciate this.

I also had to laugh a bit, when I saw this

Second, you're 'worries' about constant available content I have heard like thousand times, mostly from, forgive me, old people who have a general mistrust towards everything new, especially in technologies.

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I did not expect that my OP would come over as a post of an old man , as actually I am still quite young - but you have a point nonetheless and yes, I am indeed very critical with the whole social media hype, that kids go through these days.
What I see as an issue is the incredible loss of privacy and what these companies will do with our data. They know everything about us and they can and will use it against us. FB as for example or Google - it´s just a strange feeling and it makes people vulnerable to attacks, as we saw recently with that girl in the US that killed herself, after she was bullied in the web.

Lysambre said:

But it also means that the positivity is also there for all to see.

Negativity might seem louder, but in fact, it isn't.

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This is a very good point and I think one that I did not factor in before. If a skater has a terrible day, then she or he, might be sad and a nice comment at FB could change this. That being said...

TGee said:

The challenge is that negative comments have more impact...

Whether as manager/supervisors or parents, we are advised by the psychological specialists that it takes many times more positive comments to equal the weight of a negative one.

But how a critique is delivered makes a big difference too...more specific, neutral and constructive means more likely to be heard and accepted...

What I find very destructive is the amount of put someone down to prop up someone I like type of commentary. ....But it's an all too common attitude and reaction to competition throughout society, and has been for some time.

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this is also how I feel. The positive while there, can have a hard fight vs. toxicity as we saw at the last GP event. While Evgenia is loved by millions and people appreciate her efforts and programs, a few evil comments, were able to completely turn the tide and in the end, we only discussed those and not the positive words that were also present like of Mathman, who gave the perfect reply in my opinion. It seems like negative comments, have a very big weight and drag us down much more, than something positive.

brightphoton said:

OP doesn't like that people are saying mean things about the figure skaters he likes.
He suggests taking figure skating away, because then people wouldn't say anything at all about figure skaters.

A relevant English expression: cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.

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This user here, sadly did not understand my OP, which might be due the fact that I am not a native...

Anyways,

the point of my thread was, that the constant availability of things, impacts how we appreciate them. If something is always there, then it stops being special. Why are people unhappy who have 100 million dollars and why do they often suffer under depressions and might even commit suicide? A very common problem at Hollywood and the music industry.

Wouldn´t we think, that someone with so much money and success, would have the best life as he or she can buy everything and never has to worry about a place to sleep, food... Why do we throw good food away, even though we could still sell or eat it? At Africa, people die of hunger, they would appreciate each single one and we who have so much (speaking from EU), just throw it away, because the cucumbers did not grow straight or the tomatoes might be too big or small.

And this is also what I was referring to in FS. We have so much access, that we might forget at times to appreciate what we have, like with the constant discussions about skating missing this or that, while being over critical with everything skaters say, do or show.
I actually liked the comment of Mrs. P, where she noted that it actually helps her to appreciate skaters more, as she has time to really study their skates. It all has two sides and it was very good to see that other side, pointed out so well by many replies.

It was a pleasure reading and I agree with what "largeman" said, it gives back that community feeling, as it´s a heated topic, but people behaved and were friendly, expressing their thoughts, without being rude and the different viewpoints, were explained very well, so thanks everyone for that!


P.S.

No, I do not have a problem if someone "doesn´t like" my skaters, as I do not have a "my" skaters. At Worlds, I was happy for Ashley, Anna and Evgenia and would be so for each other medal contender, as it does not matter to me, who wins and the same it is with each GP event. I enjoy the skaters much more than the actual results, it is a great joy to see them grow up and perform (something another user also noted) and I just dislike bullies, who pick on skaters all the time to make them look bad.
It annoys me that people who never landed a triple Lutz, never actually competed in sports, always trash talk about athletes and this is not only a problem at FS, but in any sport. Couch potatoes should hold their horses, unless they can do better than those they criticize.

Alex D said:

Couch potatoes should hold their horses, unless they can do better than those they criticize.

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That sounds great. Will you use this standard for yourself, or will this only apply to other users at Golden Skate? (I'm betting on the second.)

You can have no non-negative opinions of movies, unless you yourself are a very competent and talented director, actor, cinematographer, or otherwise worked in the film industry.

You can have no non-negative opinions of music, unless you yourself are a very competent and talented musician, composer, sound editor, or otherwise worked in the music industry.

You can have no non-negative opinions of politics, unless you yourself are a very competent and talented politician, aide, government ---
anyway you get my point.

brightphoton said:

That sounds great. Will you use this standard for yourself, or will this only apply to other users at Golden Skate? (I'm betting on the second.)

You can have no non-negative opinions of movies, unless you yourself are a very competent and talented director, actor, cinematographer, or otherwise worked in the film industry.

You can have no non-negative opinions of music, unless you yourself are a very competent and talented musician, composer, sound editor, or otherwise worked in the music industry.

You can have no non-negative opinions of politics, unless you yourself are a very competent and talented politician, aide, government ---
anyway you get my point.

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Having a negative opinion about something is not a card blanche for trash talking about it. You keep attacking Alex D for statements he did not make. That's an old trolling tactic to publicly misportray someone and just the kind of trash talk you seem to prefer. Has it ever occurred to you to express your criticism in a civilized, constructive and truthful way?

brightphoton said:

That sounds great. Will you use this standard for yourself, or will this only apply to other users at Golden Skate? (I'm betting on the second.)

You can have no non-negative opinions of movies, unless you yourself are a very competent and talented director, actor, cinematographer, or otherwise worked in the film industry.

You can have no non-negative opinions of music, unless you yourself are a very competent and talented musician, composer, sound editor, or otherwise worked in the music industry.

You can have no non-negative opinions of politics, unless you yourself are a very competent and talented politician, aide, government ---
anyway you get my point.

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To have an opinion, positive or negative is never wrong. We all have those and I also have one about you The question is just, how do we express said opinion and how much do we value it.

Everyone can dislike a skaters program and yes, I also have some that I do not like that much. As for example,

I felt that the free dance by Tessa and Scott, lacked progression, something that I so liked about their SD. This is a comment and an opinion about what I saw last week. I actually post such reviews quite often at GS and yes, I am mostly positive, but I also bring out concerns, as with Elena and Ruslan, where I felt that the red dress was a bit too much, as she is already in the spotlight.

Of course,

said opinion could have been expressed differently, as I could have used words like trash, boring, stupid and so on.

This works the same in every aspect of life and I always say that you should never use words against another person, that you wouldn´t like her or him to use against you. To show those respect that you talk or write about, should always be remembered and that´s why you get such a friendly reply, even if you might not deserve it

EdgeCall said:

Having a negative opinion about something is not a card blanche for trash talking about it. You keep attacking Alex D for statements he did not make. That's an old trolling tactic to publicly misportray someone and just the kind of trash talk you seem to prefer. Has it ever occurred to you to express your criticism in a civilized, constructive and truthful way?

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I've seen his posts before complaining about people being mean or "trash talking." They were in threads in which people were talking about the skating defects of various skaters. He took personal offense on their behalf. Now I can see why, those skaters have a huge fan base, and perhaps he has a soft spot for them. Now he's making a thread like a white knight, accusing other people of not discussing figure skating the way he wants people to discuss it. But he, the hero, is going to fix all of that.

As someone who became a fan of skating in the late 90s, I find the system makes the sport less enjoyable to watch. Because the system breaks down a performance into parts, our whole viewing experience changes. Often a great performance gets a little dampened after I see the protocals afterwards. These changes certainly affect the fan discussion. I do agree that the internet has provided greater and easier access to viewing skating performances. I just wish we had a system that allowed us to better appreciate performances as a whole rather than parts.