Say My Name, Say My Name

This video has little audio-visual merit, but was the most efficient way to look at some of Tessa and Scott's social media/legit media output concurrently, with a particular focus on their "now the truth can be told" book tour.

Ben Mulroney interview

And a piece of this interview:

Book interview

And this:

ETalk Canada

The video below obviously uses facebook photos. It also features cut-up audio segments of Ben Mulroney's interview with Tessa and Scott on E-Talk in December 2010:

(ETA - That's a lot of Jessica.

When Scott and Tessa did their book promotion blitz, the media made out like there was an internet fan frenzy wanting Scott and Tessa to be a couple. The clamor forced media outlets to ask Scott and Tessa about it at every stop.

Yet they somehow missed that, also on the internet, Scott was presenting himself as in a relationship with teammate and fellow Olympian Jessica Dube in an aggressive social media campaign discussed by these same frenzied fans on the same message boards. Shit, some fans wanted Scott and Tessa to be a couple so badly, they were claiming his relationship with Jessica was a big fake, and wars broke out. You'd think maybe this would be part of the discussion on how badly fans wanted them together. There are actually fans that refuse to accept reality from Scott and Jessica’s own facebooks! Ha ha – how do you handle that, Scott?* Is it crazy?

Scott was never asked about Jessica. The media heard all about wanting VM to be a couple, but ignored his longterm relationship with a very well known Canadian figure skater that he was parading all over facebook, inciting fan battles.

Where is a single question asking him about his pairs skater girlfriend?)

When I was putting this together and going over interviews, I was struck by how emphatic Scott and Tessa were when talking out of the many different sides of their mouths. And how they smile like cheese-eating monkeys. BOTH bat their eyes.

They really give sociopaths a run for their money.

For me, the most nauseating facet of their pr machine is the faux sincerity, the affect that they're a couple of kids who aren't wordly, are ga ga over everything that's happened, and who bow and scrape at the feet of Canadian fans.

They wrote this book as a treat for the fans. To give fans an opportunity.

Don't you know that normally - this is how the sport is - there is always that barrier between the fans and what's really going on, says Tessa. But they love the fans so much that they did this book as appreciation, and also to help fans understand the real them and their unique bond. For only $29.99, or whatever they were charging, they let down that barrier and showed us what's really going on, including, and most specifically, their relationship. Their platonic relationship. They did it for us.

What at last revealed, and that would cost only $29.99 to keep, was of course: 

• They're platonic

• Tessa and Scott did not so much as text message between the time of her first surgery and her return to Canton, and were estranged nearly a year afterwards. 

• Steve Milton, the author, has captured their relationship between the covers of that book "very accurately" per Scott. 

Except for the parts about them being estranged for a year over shins, and being platonic, and the part where "being genuine" means "lying our heads off", every word in these interviews is true.

Plenty of public people have lied their asses off about everything - career intentions, their histories, their relationships, their romantic status, their marital status, their parental status and their financial status. Very few have done so while making a public relations policy of bragging on their incredible sincerity and their humility in front of the folks they were scamming. Generally, even big fat liars have the decency to low ball the big fat lies, or dodge around, instead of running up to their target, prying open their mouths, lifting a funnel and force-feeding.

If Skate Canada is talking they're lying. If Scott and Tessa are talking while smiling - they're lying. When the smiles fade and the "be a clown" Scott disappears, we might be getting at more reality, if not in content, than in tone and attitude.

As a p.s., and something that I didn't use for this video - I know some people felt that on the book tour, Tessa was really kind of generally describing her shin pain during the Olympic year, and it was the media that got all histrionic about it.

Well, I was listening to one interview and while the "count the steps to the cafeteria" story got a lot of play, Tessa also mentions how she had to "count the steps to the refrigerator" and decide if it were worth taking those steps.

Tessa did have residual shin pain that was especially intense after the Farrucas OD but her emphasis on the shin pain is also very helpful to her in a one respect:

That being - gosh, what Tessa is describing is certainly not the body of a woman able to carry any extra - and completely unavoidable were certain life choices made  - weight for any period of time - is it? Impossible! Her shins would commit hari kari!

Yeah, she could do worlds, and tour, and fly around doing shows, and jump off Scott's thigh doing the goose, and wear high heels, all prior to when she said her surgery took place, but walking to that fridge - MAN. That smarts.

I also re-realized how many print and television and radio interviews scapegoated fans. How did they learn about the internet fan frenzy over Virtue Moir anyway? Especially since they only got the parts where fans insisted VM get together, and missed the talk about Jessica and Scott and facebook that was everywhere.  Nobody said to Scott "Now, you're dating Jessica Dube - another figure skater - does she ever get jealous?" Or - something right up entertainment media's alley - do fans ever get angry with Jessica or say things to her because they want you with Tessa? How does Jessica handle it?

What's a Jessica?

Of course, some of the media didn't independently learn about the fan frenzy over Virtue Moir on the internet at all. A lot of them got it straight from the interview talking points sheet they received from Virtue and Moir in advance of the book and tour plug.
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*And knowing how fans operate, it's a safe bet that more than a few of Scott's most ardent fans urgently pm'd him letting him know that a few trolls were insisting his relationship with Jessica is fake, and asking him to directly aver once and for all that Jessica was his girlfriend - to clear it up on the record or directly address fans from his facebook.