- Joined
- Aug 8, 2023
Recently in another thread the discussion came up about how to revive skating in western countries. It was off topic for that thread so I think its best so start a new thread specifically about this.
There were 4 big points of differing consensus and acceptance, firstly:
1. Skating is not popularized enough on social media for the younger generations in western countries ( Seemingly a split level of consensus/agreement about this idea)
2. The lack of an artistic and personal disposition to programs/athletes in skating-popularity-barren regions opposed to those with thriving skating communities. (Also split consensus)
3. Lack of western champions. / The lack of appreciation for men and masculinity in skating. (Overwhelming agreement)
4. Lack of convenient access to skating competitions. (Overwhelming agreement)
1st point:
TikTok is already flooded with skating content with millions of likes in western communities. It may garner the active interest but not prolonged engagement or care. Especially with the nature of such modern entertainment sites (TikTok, Instagram etc...) focusing on instant gratification and the superficial rather than cultivating long-term passions. This leads into the 2nd point which I proposed: in regions with thriving communities, there is an artistic and even revering culture to skating and the result is a more personal disposition to the athletes and programs. The point is that no matter how much trivial marketing you do, the natural disposition of the viewer isnt primed to care deeply about what theyre watching, even if they find it "interesting" or "cool". Pair this with point 4 and there is little reason given to the viewer to actually dedicate themselves to this sport.
"Perhaps we have differing views of sophistication or artistry, but thankfully for the point here we dont need to debate it. Perhaps instead of sophistication we will say instead emotional/personal concern to something more than a reductionist and purely spectacular purpose of that thing.
To explain my point I will bring attention to a thread in which there was a large debate happening on whether skating is an art or not, the merit of either side I wont discuss here but I will give my observation on what I think the outcome of those sides are on the skating scenes of the regions correlated to either side.
All those, and yes, all, who argued skating is not an art and proposed the existence of an intrinsic gap in lets say "sophistication" or "validity" between traditional arts like music to skating, with the implication that skating is inferior, were users from the west in which skating is self-admittedly struggling.
Those users from other areas where skating is prospering seemed to be unanimously shocked that someone can even hold this idea.
The result is what matters, not the essence of the arguments themselves: art consequents personal involvement, something to relate to and some way to receive or express emotion; this leads to dedicated fans who are willing to search out replays, streams, and follow skaters developing emotional attachment. Meanwhile TikTok, which by the way is flooded with skating content with millions of likes in western communities, may garner the active interest but not prolonged engagement or care. Especially with the nature of such entertainment sites focusing on instant gratification and the superficial rather than cultivating long-term passions.
Beware that I am not implying western skating itself to be less artistic in its programming or what not, but moreso I am drawing the parallel between the societal disposition to sports and perhaps things in general. Therefore I consider the issue of western skating popularity to be a societal consequence and not an issue of marketing, packaging or any linear system by which people seem to imply might fix things. What would be required is an entire philosophical overhaul of the society to be open for a new way to interpret sports and art - I think so. I hope I shared this opinion in a digestible, objective and non-pretentious way as much as possible."
Note that I was careful not to state any specific nations here, because the point is that when you consider any nation with thriving or dying skating scenes, and apply it to this idea, the correlation is not ignorable.
To expand on the effect:
This is my own subjective interpretation of things but here what I observe: in western skating discussions, on this forum and outside, the discussion typically follows the path of a general overview of tournaments, athletes, and programs as one collective unit and strictly in a competitive and athletic way. What I mean by this is that western viewers come to watch skating competition to see who wins, who does well, without much emotional investment on who that actually might be. Meanwhile in the thriving countries people come to watch *their* athlete(s), and *the* program(s) that they relate to as it were a piece of music or literature. I believe this results in a culture of significantly higher engagement and longevity.
This means that American skating is competing in what we call a "red ocean"; a niche in which there is already a mass of competition all doing the same things, trying to simply fine-tune the same strategy as everyone else to take a small edge. Point is that skating, competing in this read ocean of raw athleticism, will never beat the already established juggernauts of raw sport we know in the west. The thriving nations however compete in a blue ocean, which is a niche open to innovation and has more tolerance of ambiguity. Art intrinsically is far more open to value innovation, meaning Russia and Japan, for instance, can both create their own blue ocean of art with unique ice shows, programs, skaters, themes, culture, etc... whiteout having a blood bath clawing for the same viewer base as some competitive field like American skating seems to be.
Further, people proposed athletes like Malinin as potential marketing subjects due to their athletic feats, however, I also disagree with this for the following reason I earlier explained:
Malinin's quad axel can garner interest from someone like you because you already have reference on what it means, but people who arent already in the sport wont care. I could try to explain to you that I recently saw an athlete do pullups with a total of 300kg on his body but this wont make you interested in calisthenics because you didnt ever have a reason to care in the first place. Its just numbers, maybe impressive numbers even to you but it doesnt give something to relate to long term. You have seen many impressive numbers and statistics on many things in your life that you still dont care about.
Basically, if people want to watch raw athleticism in the west, they are going to watch LeBron or Biles because thats what they already have been fed since being a kid, Malinin does not interest them.
The 3rd point:
"On one hand I agree that successful athletes can garner interest, especially in the USA, but at the same time Chen is reigning OGM and absolute record holder. Even when Russia wasnt winning much before the last decade skating was still considered an intrinsic sport to the culture, girls were still interested in learning because the discipline is considered perhaps even equal to ballet in its sophistication. Again, I'm not saying it is or isnt, im just saying thats how people there judge it and thats important to their interest. As such we eventually achieved the level we are at. So again I think the root issue lies in what I was saying earlier."
"I think this all goes back to what someone else said, that male skating is unlikely to be appreciated in the west for many reasons. There is a more narrow minded and superficial understanding of masculinity in those areas of the world, at least thats how I see it. There are many reasons and consequences to that but whats relevant here is that it means a male champion isnt enough.
The most realistic solution to our problem then I think would be an American/Canadian women's champion. This would really motivate girls there to pick up skating as opposed to something like gymnastics. I think also a problem is that those who do become champions are not just from any country but specifically from a historical rival country. As such subconsciously perhaps for this reason in the society it is written off even further as something they arent supposed to be doing according to their culture. They dont even question the presupposition: "we have gymnastics, they have skating; all is fair and everyone stays in their lane".
I realize now that aside from the artistic disposition to skating being correlated with popularity, the disposition towards masculinity is also correlated. For example Japan and surprisingly even hyper-conservative Russia seem to appreciate masculinity in a more abstract and subjective way. This might also be a big reason as to why the sports thrive there. For example when Russia had no strong women they still appreciated Plushenko, or when Japan wasnt really looking to beat the Russian women they still appreciated Yuzuru, and as such the resilience of the sport is way higher because theres much more opportunity to have a relevant champion. Nathan Chen unfortunately didnt get such love outside of the obligatory, immediate praise for just bringing in a medal to USA."
I want to expand on that by adding that it isnt necessarily that Russia and the USA have the same sort of male skaters who are interpreted differently by their country, more specifically it is that the culture around skating is already set up in such a way that, in Russia, normal guys who would also be considered masculine by American standards, are actually accepted to become skaters, meanwhile in America that same kind of man is not expected to become skater. You see many Russian skaters who play hockey, soccer, wear their cross and are completely normal men who happen to skate. From what I understand this isnt really the case in the west. Even the Japanese Yuzuru is a normal guy even if not necessarily "macho".
Point 4 does not need to really be discussed. I think we all agree on that point. When I watched some international GP I had to check like 3 different sites before I could find a good stream, I also had to sign up for an account on the service and the only way I even managed to find that site was by sifting through comments of many different suggestions for streams, some of which didnt even work for me based on region.
There were 4 big points of differing consensus and acceptance, firstly:
1. Skating is not popularized enough on social media for the younger generations in western countries ( Seemingly a split level of consensus/agreement about this idea)
2. The lack of an artistic and personal disposition to programs/athletes in skating-popularity-barren regions opposed to those with thriving skating communities. (Also split consensus)
3. Lack of western champions. / The lack of appreciation for men and masculinity in skating. (Overwhelming agreement)
4. Lack of convenient access to skating competitions. (Overwhelming agreement)
1st point:
TikTok is already flooded with skating content with millions of likes in western communities. It may garner the active interest but not prolonged engagement or care. Especially with the nature of such modern entertainment sites (TikTok, Instagram etc...) focusing on instant gratification and the superficial rather than cultivating long-term passions. This leads into the 2nd point which I proposed: in regions with thriving communities, there is an artistic and even revering culture to skating and the result is a more personal disposition to the athletes and programs. The point is that no matter how much trivial marketing you do, the natural disposition of the viewer isnt primed to care deeply about what theyre watching, even if they find it "interesting" or "cool". Pair this with point 4 and there is little reason given to the viewer to actually dedicate themselves to this sport.
"Perhaps we have differing views of sophistication or artistry, but thankfully for the point here we dont need to debate it. Perhaps instead of sophistication we will say instead emotional/personal concern to something more than a reductionist and purely spectacular purpose of that thing.
To explain my point I will bring attention to a thread in which there was a large debate happening on whether skating is an art or not, the merit of either side I wont discuss here but I will give my observation on what I think the outcome of those sides are on the skating scenes of the regions correlated to either side.
All those, and yes, all, who argued skating is not an art and proposed the existence of an intrinsic gap in lets say "sophistication" or "validity" between traditional arts like music to skating, with the implication that skating is inferior, were users from the west in which skating is self-admittedly struggling.
Those users from other areas where skating is prospering seemed to be unanimously shocked that someone can even hold this idea.
The result is what matters, not the essence of the arguments themselves: art consequents personal involvement, something to relate to and some way to receive or express emotion; this leads to dedicated fans who are willing to search out replays, streams, and follow skaters developing emotional attachment. Meanwhile TikTok, which by the way is flooded with skating content with millions of likes in western communities, may garner the active interest but not prolonged engagement or care. Especially with the nature of such entertainment sites focusing on instant gratification and the superficial rather than cultivating long-term passions.
Beware that I am not implying western skating itself to be less artistic in its programming or what not, but moreso I am drawing the parallel between the societal disposition to sports and perhaps things in general. Therefore I consider the issue of western skating popularity to be a societal consequence and not an issue of marketing, packaging or any linear system by which people seem to imply might fix things. What would be required is an entire philosophical overhaul of the society to be open for a new way to interpret sports and art - I think so. I hope I shared this opinion in a digestible, objective and non-pretentious way as much as possible."
Note that I was careful not to state any specific nations here, because the point is that when you consider any nation with thriving or dying skating scenes, and apply it to this idea, the correlation is not ignorable.
To expand on the effect:
This is my own subjective interpretation of things but here what I observe: in western skating discussions, on this forum and outside, the discussion typically follows the path of a general overview of tournaments, athletes, and programs as one collective unit and strictly in a competitive and athletic way. What I mean by this is that western viewers come to watch skating competition to see who wins, who does well, without much emotional investment on who that actually might be. Meanwhile in the thriving countries people come to watch *their* athlete(s), and *the* program(s) that they relate to as it were a piece of music or literature. I believe this results in a culture of significantly higher engagement and longevity.
This means that American skating is competing in what we call a "red ocean"; a niche in which there is already a mass of competition all doing the same things, trying to simply fine-tune the same strategy as everyone else to take a small edge. Point is that skating, competing in this read ocean of raw athleticism, will never beat the already established juggernauts of raw sport we know in the west. The thriving nations however compete in a blue ocean, which is a niche open to innovation and has more tolerance of ambiguity. Art intrinsically is far more open to value innovation, meaning Russia and Japan, for instance, can both create their own blue ocean of art with unique ice shows, programs, skaters, themes, culture, etc... whiteout having a blood bath clawing for the same viewer base as some competitive field like American skating seems to be.
Further, people proposed athletes like Malinin as potential marketing subjects due to their athletic feats, however, I also disagree with this for the following reason I earlier explained:
Malinin's quad axel can garner interest from someone like you because you already have reference on what it means, but people who arent already in the sport wont care. I could try to explain to you that I recently saw an athlete do pullups with a total of 300kg on his body but this wont make you interested in calisthenics because you didnt ever have a reason to care in the first place. Its just numbers, maybe impressive numbers even to you but it doesnt give something to relate to long term. You have seen many impressive numbers and statistics on many things in your life that you still dont care about.
Basically, if people want to watch raw athleticism in the west, they are going to watch LeBron or Biles because thats what they already have been fed since being a kid, Malinin does not interest them.
The 3rd point:
"On one hand I agree that successful athletes can garner interest, especially in the USA, but at the same time Chen is reigning OGM and absolute record holder. Even when Russia wasnt winning much before the last decade skating was still considered an intrinsic sport to the culture, girls were still interested in learning because the discipline is considered perhaps even equal to ballet in its sophistication. Again, I'm not saying it is or isnt, im just saying thats how people there judge it and thats important to their interest. As such we eventually achieved the level we are at. So again I think the root issue lies in what I was saying earlier."
"I think this all goes back to what someone else said, that male skating is unlikely to be appreciated in the west for many reasons. There is a more narrow minded and superficial understanding of masculinity in those areas of the world, at least thats how I see it. There are many reasons and consequences to that but whats relevant here is that it means a male champion isnt enough.
The most realistic solution to our problem then I think would be an American/Canadian women's champion. This would really motivate girls there to pick up skating as opposed to something like gymnastics. I think also a problem is that those who do become champions are not just from any country but specifically from a historical rival country. As such subconsciously perhaps for this reason in the society it is written off even further as something they arent supposed to be doing according to their culture. They dont even question the presupposition: "we have gymnastics, they have skating; all is fair and everyone stays in their lane".
I realize now that aside from the artistic disposition to skating being correlated with popularity, the disposition towards masculinity is also correlated. For example Japan and surprisingly even hyper-conservative Russia seem to appreciate masculinity in a more abstract and subjective way. This might also be a big reason as to why the sports thrive there. For example when Russia had no strong women they still appreciated Plushenko, or when Japan wasnt really looking to beat the Russian women they still appreciated Yuzuru, and as such the resilience of the sport is way higher because theres much more opportunity to have a relevant champion. Nathan Chen unfortunately didnt get such love outside of the obligatory, immediate praise for just bringing in a medal to USA."
I want to expand on that by adding that it isnt necessarily that Russia and the USA have the same sort of male skaters who are interpreted differently by their country, more specifically it is that the culture around skating is already set up in such a way that, in Russia, normal guys who would also be considered masculine by American standards, are actually accepted to become skaters, meanwhile in America that same kind of man is not expected to become skater. You see many Russian skaters who play hockey, soccer, wear their cross and are completely normal men who happen to skate. From what I understand this isnt really the case in the west. Even the Japanese Yuzuru is a normal guy even if not necessarily "macho".
Point 4 does not need to really be discussed. I think we all agree on that point. When I watched some international GP I had to check like 3 different sites before I could find a good stream, I also had to sign up for an account on the service and the only way I even managed to find that site was by sifting through comments of many different suggestions for streams, some of which didnt even work for me based on region.
But for more grist to the mill I checked out Google Trends for the last 12 months and even though she retired in 2018 I think? Tessa's name is still being searched more than nearly anyone, both worldwide and combined North America, and that includes the two US male stars.
