Joshua Farris | Page 28 | Golden Skate

Joshua Farris

Something I noticed is his Lutz and Flip jumps used to be much larger than they are now - think JGP and Jr Worlds in the 2012-13 seasons, and even in 2011-2012. Does anyone know if his ankle injury has affected his ability to jump "big" on those jumps? This could help him squeeze a few more points out of his programs by gaining +2 instead of +1.

Hmm, I'll have to go back and study this one, because from memory the flip and Lutz have always been sizeable jumps for him. It wouldn't surprise me if his ankle problems have affected that aspect of the jump, but he might just have to wear this one, because from what I understand, the ankle is always going to be a concern, even when it's not actively hurting him.
 
I recall Josh's jumps at Nationals and 4CC were actually quite good. Not monstrous (except for 3A of course), but decent airtime and quite effortless. For some reason, they were really tight at Worlds. I don't know if it's the boots, nerves, or what, but I suspect we'll see bigger jumps in the future.
 
A page on Josh's FigureSkatersOnline site has information for anyone interested in helping with his (considerable) skating expenses.
[What I'm thinking is that if his skating expenses are eased a bit, maybe it would be more manageable for him to save up for the microphone.]

I had some time yesterday, so I went looking for his page on FSO. I couldn't find it at first but figured out how to get there by typing in his name in the URL. Is this a volunteer run website because it shows. They need a sitemap or at least a listing of all the Figure Skaters they support. (I do digital marketing as my day job - I look for this kind of stuff, lol)

His page doesn't look like it's been updated since early 2014 and it doesn't even list playing guitar as one of his hobbies. At least they have Johanna Bear writing for them - she should be in charge of updating his page.

There is a Paypal link on his donation page to one of the non-profits that supports him but it doesn't even work. The site says the expenses are around $70K a year - yikes! I'm sure it may be even higher now.
 
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I had some time yesterday, so I went looking for his page on FSO. I couldn't find it at first but figured out how to get there by typing in his name in the URL. Is this a volunteer run website because it shows. They need a sitemap or at least a listing of all the Figure Skaters they support. (I do digital marketing as my day job - I look for this kind of stuff, lol)

His page doesn't look like it's been updated since early 2014 and it doesn't even list playing guitar as one of his hobbies. At least they have Johanna Bear writing for them - she should be in charge of updating his page.

There is a Paypal link on his donation page to one of the non-profits that supports him but it doesn't even work. The site says the expenses are around $70K a year - yikes! I'm sure it may be even higher now.

He could probably close the website and just run a facebook page--more useful these days than a website. </social media director>
 
He could start by tweeting more. :D

When it comes to social media, Jason beats him hands down in that rivalry. :laugh: In fact, I think Jason promotes Josh more on social media than Josh promotes himself on social media.
 
On the other hand, it's quite refreshing these days to see a young person not to be addicted to social media)
He does have a fan page on Facebook (not sure who runs it) but it's updated unfrequently. I think a devoted fan (who has time) needs to take over or create a new one. If the page is well-promoted, it will have lots of subscribers, Josh successfully charmed a lot of people already)
 
I had some time yesterday, so I went looking for his page on FSO. I couldn't find it at first but figured out how to get there by typing in his name in the URL. Is this a volunteer run website because it shows. They need a sitemap or at least a listing of all the Figure Skaters they support. (I do digital marketing as my day job - I look for this kind of stuff, lol)

His page doesn't look like it's been updated since early 2014 and it doesn't even list playing guitar as one of his hobbies. At least they have Johanna Bear writing for them - she should be in charge of updating his page.

There is a Paypal link on his donation page to one of the non-profits that supports him but it doesn't even work. The site says the expenses are around $70K a year - yikes! I'm sure it may be even higher now.

Not arguing with you -- but a small FYI that FSO does have a page that lists all of its skaters:
The listing of skaters is one click away from the home page, which has a "skaters" button in the horizontal menu at the top.
I think that FSO considers itself first and foremost as a site covering figure skating in general -- and secondarily (but as a close second) as a home to the skater pages.

But I take your point that the site is underwhelming to a professional like you.
From some of the wording on the site, I too get the impression that it depends on volunteers. OTOH, that doesn't mean that the volunteers are in over their heads. Our own GS mods are volunteers, and I believe that they bring a lot of professionalism to their GS responsibilities.

Some of the skater pages are kept much more current than others -- maybe b/c certain skaters (or their surrogates) choose to be more actively involved in overseeing their pages??
For example, Jason's and Gracie's FSO pages usually do have their latest news. I wonder whether their respective agents are the reason??
BTW, seems that Jason has a new agent. Hadn't heard anything on that front since Shep Goldberg died, but I see that someone else is listed on Jason's FSO contact page.​

He could start by tweeting more. :D

When it comes to social media, Jason beats him hands down in that rivalry. :laugh: In fact, I think Jason promotes Josh more on social media than Josh promotes himself on social media.

:agree: A reflection of Josh's and Jason's very different personalities in real life :yes:.
LOl, not gonna hold my breath for the reserved Josh to tweet more often. By all accounts, Max is very gregarious in real life, but his tweeting is sporadic. Different strokes ...

BTW, as a #ThrowbackThursday offering, here is a sweet IN blog that Josh co-authored with Angela Wang :) re JGP Lake Placid 2012:
(ETA, in which Josh is appreciative of a good bargain, and in which Christy and Damon use fake mustaches to help Angela stay relaxed before her FS!)​

He could probably close the website and just run a facebook page--more useful these days than a website. </social media director>

Side comment: OTOH, since joining Twitter and Instagram (and becoming a super-communicator on both), Jason seems to have let his Facebook page fall by the wayside.

... I wonder if his sudden popularity after Greensboro has helped him come out of his shell a bit. ...

Yes, I think the interplay of Josh's skating and singing is fascinating -- how the confidence gained from one talent carries over to the other.
I hope that it is a two-way street. Josh's skater friends obviously love his singing, and I hope that he is aware that skating fans do too. And I hope that the overwhelmingly positive response to his singing will add to his confidence on the ice as well.

... Or I could just do production work for Josh's show. :biggrin:

Actually, we should totally make this happen. Make the Broadmore skating area skater boys get their own Youtube channel. Josh can sing, Jason can be hyper, Max can be sexy, Chase Belmontes can bring his cats. . . you get the idea. ....

Max Settlage would be another stellar presence for the Broadmoor YouTube channel.
 
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Side comment: OTOH, since joining Twitter and Instagram (and becoming a super-communicator on both), Jason seems to have let his Facebook page fall by the wayside.
.

Side response to side comment. Are we talking about his "page" or a Facebook profile? I'm not friends with Jason on FB, but in the off chance I look at it, I notice that I can see basically re-posts of tweets and instagrams.

I'm thinking that maybe he restricts access of his wall and other postings to a close group of friends and family (something that you can do on FB).
 
From some of the wording on the site, I too get the impression that it depends on volunteers. OTOH, that doesn't mean that the volunteers are in over their heads. Our own GS mods are volunteers, and I believe that they bring a lot of professionalism to their GS responsibilities.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction - re: the skaters list. The site UX is not very intuitive, IMO. And I think they need to fix their Paypal link - I'm going to email them to let them know.

I'm sure if the GS mods were running FSO, they'd do a much better job! I just find it annoying when people put up websites just to have some kind of presence but then don't update them or provide relevant information. Web content gets stale quickly.

Perhaps we should have a skaters and social media thread (if it hasn't been started already). I think overall that having a strong social media presence is a good idea for skaters. YMMV, but I liked when Ashley thanked her Twitter fans during Worlds. And Jason proved that he is good at providing content to the fans.

I just think if Josh was more engaged with this kind of stuff and gets comfortable with promoting himself a bit more, it can only help his career.
 
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He could start by tweeting more. :D

When it comes to social media, Jason beats him hands down in that rivalry. :laugh: In fact, I think Jason promotes Josh more on social media than Josh promotes himself on social media.

:agree: A reflection of Josh's and Jason's very different personalities in real life :yes:.
LOl, not gonna hold my breath for the reserved Josh to tweet more often. By all accounts, Max is very gregarious in real life, but his tweeting is sporadic. Different strokes ...

It would be wise for him to start being more of a presence, and it can be a reflection. Thing like "look at this sunset/sunrise" or "found a cute black squirrel today" (yes the Broadmore area gets black squirrels, always heard it had to do with elevation) or "view of the ice" are all non-personal things that he does not even have to be in, but would still mean the fans are getting some connection. I think it would be a good idea to encourage it.


Max Settlage would be another stellar presence for the Broadmoor YouTube channel.

Ok so can be in charge of art - good addition!
 
Side response to side comment. Are we talking about his "page" or a Facebook profile? I'm not friends with Jason on FB, but in the off chance I look at it, I notice that I can see basically re-posts of tweets and instagrams.

I'm thinking that maybe he restricts access of his wall and other postings to a close group of friends and family (something that you can do on FB).

What I can tell you is:
When I first friended Jason (a couple of yrs ago, IIRC?), he had not yet joined Twitter and Instagram. (I sent a friend request, which he accepted -- it was not a matter of "liking" a FB profile.)
And IIRC, Jason was much more active on FB then (long before his silver in Boston and the viral Riverdance video).

Or ... as you suggest, perhaps he eventually changed his FB privacy settings (and I of course have no objection to that). And/or I suppose it is possible that now he has a second private FB page for a very small circle. (Again, no objection from me.)

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction - re: the skaters list. The site UX is not very intuitive, IMO. And I think they need to fix their Paypal link - I'm going to email them to let them know.

I'm sure if the GS mods were running FSO, they'd do a much better job! I just find it annoying when people put up websites just to have some kind of presence but then don't update them or provide relevant information. Web content gets stale quickly.

Perhaps we should have a skaters and social media thread (if it hasn't been started already). I think overall that having a strong social media presence is a good idea for skaters. YMMV, but I liked when Ashley thanked her Twitter fans during Worlds. And Jason proved that he is good at providing content to the fans.

I just think if Josh was more engaged with this kind of stuff and get comfortable with promoting himself a bit more, it can only help his career.

It would be wise for him to start being more of a presence, and it can be a reflection. Thing like "look at this sunset/sunrise" or "found a cute black squirrel today" (yes the Broadmore area gets black squirrels, always heard it had to do with elevation) or "view of the ice" are all non-personal things that he does not even have to be in, but would still mean the fans are getting some connection. I think it would be a good idea to encourage it. ...

BTW, Josh does occasionally post on Instagram without publishing a companion post on Twitter.
ETA, recent scenic posts from Josh similar to Stitch's examples:
https://instagram.com/p/zBkQpjQUHm/ cool shot of Seoul with his caption referencing his successful Four Continents SP
https://instagram.com/p/za4CzPwUJt/ snowy day in Colorado with tongue-in-cheek comment about his dairy allergy​

And his FSO news page has links to articles about his Four Continents silver.
But I agree that other Josh subpages could use some updating.

I neglected to mention earlier that Josh has the same agent as the Shibutanis and as Gracie, so it will be interesting to see whether Josh's social media presence ramps up.

But maybe it will not. Again, I think Josh has a different (not in a bad way) personality from some of the other skaters.

As a contrast to the Ashleys and Jasons (and I am a fan of Ashley and Jason :)):
Virtue/Moir chose to stay away from social media until after Sochi. Never had Twitter accounts. Never had Instagram.
The one exception was that Scott had a public FB page for a while, but many months before Sochi, he politely announced that he was closing it. (He made the announcement a couple of weeks in advance, and he sent a very friendly reply to the "thx/best to you and Tessa" message I sent him. He also had sent a warm response when I had sent him a link to an unusual fan photo that I had found of a V/M program.) [Scott apparently did/does have a private FB page of the kind Mrs. P mentioned.]
V/M had two successive versions of a website during their competitive heyday (with a long gap of nothing in between). The updating was unpredictable at best.
Lo and behold: After Sochi, Tessa joined and embraced Twitter and Instagram, and her tweets and photos have been a delight. Lots of personality and wit and mischievousness; lots of great throwback stuff; etc. To a lesser extent, Scott also has been tweeting; he loves to show his sense of humor, but some of his tweets are just plain sweet.
In the cases of Tessa and Scott, I think they are very sociable by nature, but it was a matter of preference for them to keep a distance from social media when training intensively and competing.
They -- like everyone else -- unfortunately have not been immune to abuse from others on social media. An example that I happened to notice is that someone whose Twitter ID was something akin to "VMfan" repeatedly berated Tessa for not tweeting anything about Scott's birthday in Sep 2014. Once it was obvious that the "fan" was out of control, Tessa wisely did not respond a second time (in general, she does tweet a lot of replies to fans). It was a reminder (to me) why it was understandable that V/M waited until after their competitive years to participate in social media. (If they do return to competition, will be interesting to see whether or not they take a hiatus from social media.)​

Getting back to the subject of FSO:
Yesterday, I did send a friendly e-mail to the webmaster about a couple of typos I saw on one of Josh's subpages. No response yet. I'm not complaining -- just sayin' that it reinforces my assumption that the site depends on volunteers.​
 
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I was 21 when I became an aunt! Congrats to Josh's brother --yet another member of the 2015 year of babies club! :)
 
Wow I just realized that my dad's younger brother became a uncle when he was 13 or 14.....when my aunt gave birth to my oldest cousin (Who's 17 years older than me).

Anyways, congrats to Josh! I bet we're all going to melt when see pics of him with his new niece or nephew.
 
Wow I just realized that my dad's younger brother became a uncle when he was 13 or 14.....when my aunt gave birth to my oldest cousin (Who's 17 years older than me).

Anyways, congrats to Josh! I bet we're all going to melt when see pics of him with his new niece or nephew.

Oh no... I hadn't thought that far ahead... :drama:
 
I saw in an interview that Lipnitskaia listed Josh as one of her favorite male skaters, along with Yuzuru and Javier. It makes me think of a SL collaboration...
 
Anyways, congrats to Josh! I bet we're all going to melt when see pics of him with his new niece or nephew.

Yep. Proud Uncle Josh is going to be totally adorable.

Oh no... I hadn't thought that far ahead... :drama:

I had. From the moment I saw the tweet it was "right, melting reinforcements required!" :laugh:

I saw in an interview that Lipnitskaia listed Josh as one of her favorite male skaters, along with Yuzuru and Javier. It makes me think of a SL collaboration...

It would be a little lopsided, don't you think?
 
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