This can basically be skipped, but I wrote nearly two posts worth of comments in several post sections below and will just make them an actual post by compiling them here and probably a couple of other posts as there's a lot. At times obviously I'm answering somebody, but I think the question can be inferred from what I'm saying. I'm also going to clean up the typo and sentence construction mess.
Thanks for the question. When I first mentioned it, I think cancel culture. But now that you bring it up I believe in their circles too. My feeling isn't based on specific stuff I can identify. Right now it feel more like the "thin slicing" Malcolm Gladwell discusses in his book "Blink" - how the subconscious processes info much faster than the conscious mind, producing a feeling, such as "We've got to get out of here!" My feeling has to do with cancel culture, the impact COVID has had on figure skating and the careers of skaters, and wondering about just how sick many people have become over how Scott and Tessa played this. The righteous streak particularly from Tessa is not a good look, but I also think she insulates herself from info she doesn't like, so she's behind the times. Based on a few things, I believe Scott has definitely seen this blog, and Skate Canada used to have its ISP parked here 24/7. But Tessa I think prefers to "curate" (influencer word) her information. In the past, if they'd have come clean, they had an in-place CYA with everyone in media and fellow celebrities on board. For years their PR teams had hammered home that legions of fans across the world were obsessed with them, had a boundary breaching fixation on them, and obviously they needed to "protect" themselves and their family and friends by erecting a zone of privacy. The blame would have landed on intrusive fans and the "delicate balance" VM needed to maintain between keeping up that wall and showing appreciation to their fans as elite figure skaters/touring professionals/brand ambassadors. Tessa spoke to this right as they were prepping their fan fictionalized reality show, which tells the mentality.
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Cont'd: Now the mainstream media lacks ability to control the narrative. I agree with you that there is a trend to denounce what is immoral. VM observers can't be bullied into compliance with: "They had to protect themselves from stalker fans!" or other tactics that project responsibility externally. And I do think there is a chance a public figure will spill too. When that happens, others will come in to verify and amplify.
For those who are newer to this couple and think this is all some massive secret they have to maintain in their real lives, I'd refer to their rift story from their book "From childhood dream to gold". or whatever it was called. Published 2010...? The story went that when Tessa was operated on and recovering from chronic exertional compartment syndrome, she and Scott failed to keep in touch while she was recovering in London and he was training in Detroit, and they didn't speak for months. Or see each other. So that when she returned to the ice, the vibe between them stayed off and was not righted again until close to the Olympics.
While claiming they were awkwardly estranged in the run-up to Vancouver, the reality is they got married directly after the first Grand Prix (TEB) in fall 2009. Every skater knew, every skating reporter knew or got up to speed in due course, and certainly Skate Canada knew. And many fans knew. Nobody came forward and contradicted this rift thing.
That Scott and Tessa were often together after her surgery was in the public record. Their appearance in the broadcast booth at Skate America interviewed by Kurt Browning about Tessa's progress. Numerous joint appearances in London. Marianne Strong doing color commentary on a skating competition (the French couple who were using the same music from Pink Floyd as VM), discussing how Scott and Tessa spent her recovery in her apartment practicing facial expressions and everything they could to be prepped when she was ready to return to training (they were living together in London, obviously). The blog covered it, produced the youtubes, the articles, the interviews. Everybody just carried on pretending there had been a rift. To this day fans still talk about the "rift" and Scott and Tessa's tendency to not communicate, so there is willful self-deception here, which does not excuse VM.
VM lie.They lie unnecessarily. I think what they're doing has now intersected with the wrong moment in the culture, the Mascarin thing was a blunder, and I think the tendency to find bros for Tessa to "date" is also short-sighted. I don't have a timeline (obviously), but I don't think it's going to be pretty when it does come out. For me, personally, I also think the several interviews Tessa has given where the article's slant is her fame is 100% organic and obsession with her has been tidal waving over them and you can see the strain on her face doesn't particularly sit well on a woman who signed onto the W network's "Tessa and Scott" that aired just weeks before Sochi.
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That's what I think, and I also think their "bullshit" in general that may have been flagged as unimportant before (it's only fans and fans are sort of infantile, wrongly entitled and trigger happy) is getting a second look and people might be thinking there's actually a real issue here.
Fans are like worms to most of the media (the media is very thin-skinned on any pushback from the likes of fans). With the Moir family overall - their style and demeanor when it comes to fans speaks for itself.
Figure skating fans are a self-selecting group of women, the core of which is middle-aged. That demo has been bullied and shamed for years in general, and IMO that attitude has been internalized and makes that demographic sensitive, and prone to self-policing.
Then there's the other skating demo which might skew to international, younger shippers who talk to each other and love to share theories. Because of gender bias and honestly class bias, the ham handed manipulation of fans may have been viewed as just what fans were asking for. I don't think that flies with how culture is currently trending. People are taking a second look at punching bag female-centered demographics, people are taking a second look at "You act that way so I was entitled to exploit it." and as you say, people have the time now.
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There's a cultural status gap and VM milk the hell out of it. The status gap lies in fans living vicariously through Virtue and Moir and projecting their romantic wish fulfillment upon them (or so goes the spin) so the label is they're sex starved females, they're living in a fantasy world, they prefer their fantasy world to reality, it's all very sympathetic yet for the real world Tessa and Scott, who are very busy, very famous, have money, are very important and connected, this interest in them from needy fans is a burden even as they appreciate and empathize. Or so goes the media slant (Promoted and disseminated by VM's pr.) Aren't they patient! Isn't it a lot!
VM are kneading and working and stirring this crap up seventeen ways from Sunday and have done so since time. Every shot at their fan base was free because their fan base is at the bottom of the status totem pole. I have never seen any other fan group self-recriminate the way skating fans beat themselves up when Virtue and Moir set them up and then detonate their hopes to hell.
At this point I want Scott to enact a marriage to Jackie Mascarin the way he enacted vacations with Jessica Dube, Kaitlyn Lawes and Cassandra Hilborn. DO it dude. If Ilderton won't throw open the doors of the community center, if your family clout won't get anyone to sign off on that photo shoot (although I feel a photo shoot has already been done and everybody is just waiting for the timing), get married on "the farm". Get married in Florida. Get those pictures. Make Jackie wear an appropriate second wedding dress with a doily looking veil. Get Morgan Reilly and his newly revived public profile to pose with Tessa on the sun parched field. Do it. Lay down your cards.
