Nathan Chen issues apology for interview

[florin]

Over the past decades, the United States has become an extremely polite nation. Apologies, nothing but apologies.

 

[kolyadafan2002]

Nathan definitely used the wrong choice of language, but there was nothing inherently wrong with what he was trying to say (this coming from a gay man btw). I think people reacted to what he said rather than thought and understood what he said, misinterpreting to a high level (it was quite easy to misinterpreted tbf).

Anyways, his apology shows a lot of class. As others have said, he had every right to say he was misunderstood, and explain the situation - but instead he apologised and said he would do better. Truly shown he is the bigger man.

I think fans of a certain skater will never be satisfied unless he quit skating and threw toys for this skater. Many fans of a certain 2/3 skaters have hated Nathan, and are probably delighted to finally have an excuse to.

 

[el henry]

Over the past decades, the United States has become an extremely polite nation. Apologies, nothing but apologies.

I live in the US of A and from my point of view, I say far too few folks are courageous enough to apologize

Any toddler can dig in their heels and go, Waaah you didn’t understand me, Waaah you can’t make me change. But an adult will say, yes, I can see where I hurt you. A strong adult can say simply, I hurt you, and I will do better.

Nathan acted like a strong adult rather than a toddler. Good for him.

 

[LutzDance]

If you go to “Following” on Nathan’s IG, you’ll see he recently started following The Trevor Project, Outsports, and other such accounts on social justice. Knowing Nathan, I’m sure he is taking his apology seriously and doing more than he lets on.

 

[surimi]

I frankly cannot see anything offensive in his words. Maybe the wording could have been a bit better.

It would also be nice if certain posters here could be as classy as Nathan, and kindly stopped dragging their beefs with 'certain other skater's fanbase' into this totally unrelated thread. It's tiresome.

 

[Clairecz]

I frankly cannot see anything offensive in his words. Maybe the wording could have been a bit better.

It would also be nice if certain posters here could be as classy as Nathan, and kindly stopped dragging their beefs with 'certain other skater's fanbase' into this totally unrelated thread. It's tiresome.

I would say that I also don't see anything offensive but I'm not a native speaker, I don't know the situation in the US, maybe I don't know that much about the whole theme...

Maybe it would be deemed at least an unfortunate wording by the majority in US. I don't know. I do know however that the interview was on YT and nobody said anything until Twitter started a war.
And if you'd see the loudest accounts you would quickly see that noone is "dragging their beef" here but simply stating a fact.

 

[surimi]

And if you'd see the loudest accounts you would quickly see that noone is "dragging their beef" here but simply stating a fact.

Wrong. Some trolls doesn't equal a fanbase, yet somehow two people are already making generalizing comments here. Again. I am frankly tired of it.

 

[lariko]

How could anyone dislike Nathan?

Beats me…

honestly, all figure skaters should take lessons from Mozalev and say absolutely nothing in any interview other than, ‘I skate. I fell. Not sure why.’

 

[el henry]

Wrong. Some trolls doesn't equal a fanbase ....Again. I am frankly tired of it.

I agree. Equating a skater’s most outrageous fans to their entire fan base, most of their fan base, or even “some” <wink wink nudge nudge say no more> of their fan base is tiresome and unfair.

Believe it or not, all skaters have such fans. I have seen cruel and crude comments on social media about Jason from people who have Nathan’s photo in their avatar and claim to be his fan. They no more represent Nathan‘s fanbase than I can jump a quint axel.

And I wouldn’t kid myself that the “fuss” was raised was only or mainly from “fans of a certain skater”. Plenty of people on SM expressed how they were hurt who were not inspired by that and had nothing to do with that.

We could all learn from Nathan‘s example. His words did hurt, whether or not fans understand why. He was a stand up guy, he acknowledged it, he apologized for it, he didn’t look for excuses or blame, and IMO did himself, and all his fans, proud.

Be like Nathan

 

[Flying Feijoa]

Just a FYI for people who are reading this thread for the first time: to contextualise, the first 3 pages of posts were directly transferred by mods from Nathan Chen's fan fest.
As mentioned elsewhere, some posters are uncomfortable with this move. I understand their point, since we weren't given advance warning and some posts do not make sense out of FF context (e.g. when we were speculating on his future programmes, or waxing lyrical about his skating). I personally will leave my posts here, since the gist of my meaning still stands.

I just wanted to explain this, because newcomers to this topic may wonder why parts of the discussion look OT (for a Edge thread) and might ironically think Nathan's fans are inappropriately posting here instead of in his FF.

 

[skatesofgold]

The tumblr community is outright demonizing him. They don't even think his apology is genuine.

 

[el henry]

The tumblr community is outright demonizing him. They don't even think his apology is genuine.

Which Tumblr community? Which posters? How many?

And if someone on Tumblr doesn't like what Nathan said, wouldn't it be better to engage on Tumblr? As I said, I can find people talking trash about Jason on social media, but what good does it do to talk about it here? And it certainly does no good to generalize to an entire "community".

If there is someone on GS who thinks his apology was not good enough or genuine, (ETA: and I have not seen such a post, but I don't see them all ) then here is the place to engage them.

 

[skatesofgold]

Which Tumblr community? Which posters? How many?

And if someone on Tumblr doesn't like what Nathan said, wouldn't it be better to engage on Tumblr? As I said, I can find people talking trash about Jason on social media. It does no good to generalize to an entire "community".

Almost the whole tag for Nathen Chen. It got so bad I had to leave. I may have to block some tumblr users if I go back to reblog Nathan gifsets. They demonized Mariah Bell, too, over what happened with Lim Eun-soo.

 

[el henry]

Almost the whole tag for Nathen Chen. It got so bad I had to leave. I may have to block some tumblr users if I go back to reblog Nathan gifsets. They demonized Mariah Bell, too, over what happened with Lim Eun-soo.

Yes, I find social media to be the land of a thousand hot takes, and best to ignore some of it, particularly the hot takes part. As I said, I wouldn't generalize to an entire fanbase from any one, ten or twenty posts on social media.

Better for my blood pressure.

 

[shine]

Yeah, it’s not ten or twenty posts. I don’t think you are aware of the extend of this, at all. Also I don’t know if you know, but it’s impossible to expect people to not be impacted by social media in this day and age, especially for Nathan and many of his followers’ age group. It’s not just some fringe online community. It’s an integral part of everyday life. Real life bullying has led to many tragedies, but in today’s world online bullying can be just as detrimental and could be even more vicious, since no one can be held accountable.

 

[Clairecz]

First, I'd say yes, I recognize that some of Nathan's fans may have been offended by his words, he genuinly apologized, case closed. But there are other people still criticising him, demonizing him as was said...
"It's just Twitter." "It's just tumblr, ignore it." "It's just twenty hot takes, ignore it." - That's easier said than done. I may be laughing at the twitter teens with too much time at their hands but they are screaming and they are loud. This really could have grown into such a PR disaster. The screamers on Twitter have been tagging Yale (!!!) and demanding they do something with their student. Other screamers were letting Nathan know that they can contact the New York Times and Washington Post so that America knows that their medal contender is a homophobe etc. etc.
The problem is that the majority of figure skating twitter demands perfection from the "idols". We all are humans, we make mistake, as long as we apologize it should be ok. But in the eyes of FS Twitter you have to be perfect or else you are cancelled. Because you are skater, you are a known person which means you can't do mistakes. And again I can just shrug my shoulders that I don't agree with their logic and it has nothing to do with me, but it's these people who are the loudest. Let's remember the No quarantine no worlds thing, it was everywhere. Whenever I was in a vicinity of a figure skating related theme on Twitter, IG, tumblr - they were there and they were loud.
And in these times even when you have a crazy idea, it's sometimes enough to be loud about it, you get the attention and get what you want.
Everyone is quickly forgetting the media propelled witch hunt on Javi before Sochi Olympics. And at that time social media wasn't even that powerful...

 

[el henry]

I was on Twitter when this originally "blew up". My only point was that it was *not* one fan base and I think it is unfair to say that. The loudest people I see now that I have gone back, again, are not one fan base.

That was my only point, and remains my point.

Nathan is a grown man and Nathan did what he thought he was best. To "blame" his apology, as though there were something wrong with it, on some social media activity is to deny his agency and that I will not do. I remain very impressed by his reaction to those who were truly hurt.

(and just as an aside, I only wish the NYTimes, Washington Post, and Yale cared that much about skating Twitter. In my dreams)

 

[shine]

It’s okay to be offended by his original comments and personally confront him about it, but it’s not okay to have an opposing view towards his apology. Seems like double standards to me.

 

[Apple1078]

I may be laughing at the twitter teens with too much time at their hands but they are screaming and they are loud. This really could have grown into such a PR disaster. The screamers on Twitter have been tagging Yale (!!!) and demanding they do something with their student. Other screamers were letting Nathan know that they can contact the New York Times and Washington Post so that America knows that their medal contender is a homophobe etc. etc.
The problem is that the majority of figure skating twitter demands perfection from the "idols". We all are humans, we make mistake, as long as we apologize it should be ok. But in the eyes of FS Twitter you have to be perfect or else you are cancelled. Because you are skater, you are a known person which means you can't do mistakes.

I haven't seen this kind of vitriol in a while. It was shocking. They were tagging his sponsors, too. I think "Nathan Chen homophobic" and "Nathan Chen apology" are still trending after a week. I even saw Nick McCarvel shaming him which pissed me off.

ETA: I definitely think people are in their right to be offended by his words but I'd hoped that those who know him would reach out privately and have that conversation with him instead of shaming him publicly on Twitter.

 

[el henry]

It’s okay to be offended by his original comments and personally contact him about it, but it’s not okay to have an opposing view towards his apology. Seems like double standards to me.

I would agree with that. As I said, I have seen no one on GoldenSkate who has said that, and I don't want to engage in specific Twitter wars here on GS. If I wanted to engage in Twitter wars, I would post more than my once every three months on Twitter

I admit seeing hot takes on Twitter is upsetting. After Jason came out, I had to stop reading some of the takes. And it is part of our world now.

But fans are more upset (as they should be) than others. Tagging sponsors, Yale, every paper in the US of A, the ISU, the Olympics and my great aunt Hilda is not going to affect Nathan's relationships with any of those entities. Because they know what social media is like too (well, maybe not my great aunt Hilda)