For example.
By Olympics 2010, Jessica and Scott had been boyfriend and girlfriend for 3 years, as extensively displayed on facebook. More to the point I'm about to make, Scott had attended a Dube family wedding in 2008 (a cousin) and vacationed in the Dominican in 2009 with not just Jessica, but her siblings. Jessica spent Xmas 2010! with Scott and the Moirs. She got a Tiffany key pendant, and Alma captioned the photo with "The key to?..."
Why weren't the Dube parents in the stands watching Scott and Tessa compete at the Olympics? Why weren't any Moirs (nor Scott) sitting in the stands with the families watching Dube Davison the way Jessica was planted next to Cara to watch Virtue Moir? Scott's close to the Dubes according to facebook. So are the Moirs, according to that terribly convincing Paris album of Jessica's. Same with Canadians, actually. When Virtue/Moir skated, Jessica was dead center between the Moir and Virtue families, next to Cynthia Phaneuf.* When Dube/Davison skated, the Moirs were nowhere to be seen, nor was Scott, but the Dubes and Davisons were glued together in the stands.
Come to think of it, although the Virtue/Moir families were in adjoining seating at Canadians, at the Olympics, they separated. That's okay. After better than a decade working together for this moment, sit apart. Prioritize the sham - even if only in your half-brained way of thinking would the families being seated separately support the sham. Tessa and Scott are so platonic their families don't even sit together at the Olympic games!
Why didn't any national broadcast - not in Canada, not in the US, mention Jessica Dube in the stands with the Moirs, even with the camera focused on the family and the commentators identifying other family members?
How to be a dick:
When asked when your webpage might be updated, say "Soon!" even if you have no fucking idea. Even if you habitually ignore most questions. Just toss out that chum and disappear. If it's a year later, well, language is flexible.
You want to restrict your facebook, which has previously been open to nearly 5,000 people, because the current privacy settings have become inconvenient.You figure you can launch a fan page and move all the people you intend to restrict (actually delete) as friends over to your fan page, and they'll feel acknowledged and taken care of.
Here's the best way to do it. Announce on your original facebook that you are "shutting this one down" because you don't want to "leave anyone out." Go ahead and launch your fan page with only the most purposefully unengaging photographs in your file. (Scott at a crafts service table from yards away. Scott mock smooching Marina from 2008. Scott sitting like a lump in the WTT Canada condo. Like that.)
Then, don't shut actually shut your original facebook down. Instead, switch out your profile picture on your original facebook to one with your fake girlfriend (for the first time ever. Although you've deleted so many people from your facebook, you don't want to lose them as your stooges. They can see your profile picture despite you deleting them, so make that profile pic sham). Now, delete a few thousand fans while keeping your original facebook active where everyone you've just deleted can see it, and retain a select number of fans who go around rubbing it in the faces of the rejected. Neglect your new fan page, while those left on your original page boast and hint as to its exclusive content.
Next, after being largely unresponsive to fan comments on your fan page, surface on your "fan" page to acknowledge dozens of birthday wishes, for the first time in your facebook history.
It's a set-up.
In the same time frame, appear on your facebook to solicit suggestions for a profile picture when you already know what you're going to put up as your profile picture. Watch as fans fall over themselves trying not to scare you away, trying to appease you, while still asking earnestly, as politely as they can, for a photo of you and your ice dance partner. Watch as these suggestions accumulate. Show up to acknowledge the great ideas. After a beat, post a photo of Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn. Watch as fans choke down their disappointment and fall over themselves telling you it's a great photo.
Call out fans who make friend requests to "Tessa Virtue" on facebook, because that facebook is fake. Announce it's just not cool to support a fake facebook account.
Continue to set fans up and bash fans over the head on facebook with your fake relationship with Jessica Dube. When you're called out, go whack-a-mole.
Skate a summer exhibition that's a full house when you and your partner skate. Ignore the fan congratulations on your fan facebook. Another birthday passes and ignore all of the well wishes. Show up to announce you are closing down your fan facebook, and direct fans to your webpage for new updates. Remind fans the new season is just around the corner (implication - updates will correspond to new season).
Withdraw from the new season's first competition.
Ignore withdrawal on webpage.
In October 2012, webpage is up-to-date as of August.
That's how it's done.
ETA - there were so many conspicuous, "personal" conversations conducted on a public wall visible to thousands of figure skating fans, but Alma's with Jay Loosley remains a favorite. Loosley is a local, a neighbor of the Moirs, involved in figure skating, with a brother who is a figure skater. I suspect Alma has Jay's phone number and email. After all, he attended Leanne Moir's wedding and I didn't see any invitation on Jay's facebook wall.
One day in August 2010, Alma posts on Jay's wall (this is the style/gist but I'm not digging up original for exact details).
"Hey Jay! I have that picture! How about lunch on Sunday!"
"Sounds good, I have to [blah blah blah] but am free after 11:00!"
"Scott has to work out in the morning so how does 1:00pm sound at SHOELESS JOES!"
"Good! Casen [baby] is excited!"
"It's a date! Joe, me, [name], Scott [name] and will be there with bells on!"
Goes the fandom: Gulp - Jessica!
Before the day is out Jay Loosley uploads on his own public wall. "Casen's lunch with Scott and Jessica!" You know, because unless he'd put Jessica in the title, the total strangers (fans, stooges) this is aimed towards might neglect to click on the link to receive their scheduled dose of propaganda.
Shoeless Joes was empty. Jessica was posed to the side of the family Loosley, apart from Scott, and she posed solo with Casen. Cara Moir posted that she was sorry she had to "miss this photo shoot."
They somehow thought it worthwhile to recruit a neighbor to pose with, and to buffer, Jessica and Scott in the middle of what appeared to be a completely empty early afternoon, two people who appeared to be in that restaurant purely for the purpose of being photographed, as it doesn't seem food was consumed. A short time later, Jessica and Scott posed for one photo at Leanne Moir's wedding, so why bother with this "lunch"?
These people (Moirs, Virtues) enjoyed fucking with the common folk. They enjoyed it.
Still - weird that a woman such as Alma, who so prefers arranging lunch dates with neighbors on facebook, has not the time to update Scott's facebook fan page for him.
And another thing. If I recall correctly, the original edit of Menage a Trois Sur La Glace was released in early 2009. Also in early 2009 was the World Team Trophy. In Menage, Bryce faces the camera and volunteers that it is difficult to see Jessica with her boyfriend (unnamed by him but which the voice-over tells us is Scott Moir). Bryce and the boyfriend had been friends since childhood, shares Bryce, but "We're not anymore."
Remember, this is Jessica and Bryce's show. They speak directly to the camera. They volunteer stuff nobody had known about til the two of them apparently decided to bellow out some truly tacky information directly to us. Jessica is for definitely dating Scott Moir, so just because you don't see the two of them around each other at competitions doesn't mean they're not dating, cause they so are. It's even wrecked Bryce's friendship with Scott!
That's exactly the sort of information privacy-seeking figure skaters are apt to share. If nobody is super sure you're dating someone (as they hadn't held open house on facebook yet) - just broadcast it on Tellement Sport for internet fans, as these are the people figure skaters are most eager to keep posted about their intimate lives. Be explicit on the web broadcast that even though you and Scott Moir are so private nobody sees you together when you're at the same event, you are totally dating. I hope we're clear.
Then along comes World Team Trophy and Scott completely ignores Jessica while he and his ex-friend Bryce fall over each other making jokes and kidding around together, right under the camera's nose. This is like, seconds after Bryce tells us all about how he and Scott aren't friends no more.
It would be one thing if Bryce and Jessica had attempted to keep the sad rift with Scott a secret, and Bryce and Scott were attempting to spin/deny the story after some expose'. But, that's not what happened. It was Bryce who broke this news. Then he and Scott display bromance all over the cameras in Japan.
FF a bit less than a year later when Bryce and Jessica make the Olympic team, Scott grabs Bryce arm and hugs it. Jessica, on the other side of Bryce, may as well have been stuffed.
I don't think these people understood that people who read facebook also read interviews. People who watch Tellement Sports also watch WTT.
_____________________________________
*Cynthia. We remember Jerome (Jay) LaRochelle, who co-starred with Jessica and Scott as Cynthia's boyfriend during Worlds 2009. There was an entire facebook album of Jessica's dedicated to the sightseeing tour the two couples took of Los Angeles highlights. The foursome even shared a hotel room. The following year, Jay was still Cynthia's beloved, surfacing in Catherine Miller's "Ete 2010" album as Cynthia's date to Sophie Richards' wedding (where all the sham couples were seated at the same table).
Cynthia has announced her retirement. No longer is her boyfriend Jay LaRochelle, but a hockey player, and she intends to relocate to Pennsylvania, USA, to be with him. Boy, that is some whirlwind romance. When she was with Jay, she trained with Annie Barabe. Between then and now, she changed training centers, split with Jay, found a new bf, was injured, and the relationship with the new bf (a very busy, professional hockey player) developed to where she's moving to the US to be with him. She traded a very metrosexual sort of guy for a more rough and ready sort of guy. Ah, figure skating romance.
Yeah, when you specifically spell it out he sounds like even more of a d---. There are ways to not hurt peoples feelings THIS bad, like deleting the original profile, making a secret new one where your name isn't searchable or doing it under a fake name. He should not be doing jerk things like asking what photo to put up when he has no intention of listening to any fan. He is like dangling a piece of meat in front of the hungry and then eating it himself while laughing at their desperation. Cruel.
ReplyDeleteI used to think - God, stop being so careless! when I thought about Scott's fitful presence on facebook and how maladroitly his facebook purge was handled.
DeleteBut the reality is that when they purged the original facebook of thousands of fans-friends, they couldn't do it the way you've outlined, because their aim was to have it both ways. As usual. That is a perogative they've been reluctant to relinquish. They wanted to protect the original facebook because God forbid anyone not a besotted sucker would scrutinize the contents and the history. And who among thousands of fans/friends IS that person - or persons? Best to jettison everyone (among fans) who has not aggressively declared themselves a sham-believing, fan-policing sham uber.
At the same time - OMG, to lose an audience of Scott/Tessa ubers who are credulous sitting ducks begging to be manipulated!
Oh the Sophie's choice of it all. So, they purged pretty much all fans/friends but the most trusted or aggressive sham defenders, but kept the profile photo up and, for the first time, switched it to sham.
The "any suggestions" about the profile picture was horrible. Horrible. I suspect Scott was just following Barb's idea, because it feels like something that idiot would do. Even if I try to excuse him with that, though, where the FUCK is his and Tessa's judgment? How empty IS that bubble they live in of any kind of empathy? That's when you say "seriously Barb, I can't do that. Fans have waited forever for me to post a profile of Tessa and me, I can't do a gotcha."
It's cruel.
It went right over their head. Yes, they're busy. Yes, their life might be considered complicated (although the secrecy is the main complication - other skaters have functioned in his situation of partner/wife and new child).
Anyone with a heart would have read the careful suggestions for a photo of him and Tessa, picked up on the excitement the fans were trying to discipline in an attempt to appear reasonable, and understood that these aren't people you sting, because that would be cruel. Fans were so sincere, so careful. And oops - Audrey and Fred! A stock photo, yet.
At some point, you have to own what you're doing. At some point, choosing to live in a bubble is bullshit. Ignoring what's outside the bubble, choosing not to know, living in denial - pretty much becomes corruption. I know that what they care about is their skating. The reality is that figure skating, like all professional sports, is entertainment (Olympic and elite sports are entertainment in that it's commercial, has sponsors, and is geared towards the public. It's not some high school health initiative). If not for the public, elite level figure skating wouldn't exist. It's entertainment, not medical research. I believe that the two of them are super focused on a limited range of things. Their lives together (including their child) - which includes their relationship. Their skating. Their families.
The end. But the reality is, the public is a component. You can't - ethically at east - be kind of a public person. You have to acknowledge that it's part of your life, and decide how to handle it professionally. They've refused. All the unpleasant stuff, they've simply ignored. They do crappy things, and then tune it out. I don't think that's terribly admirable. I don't think that's how "Canadian role models" should be acting. That's how spoiled brats act. When you can do something and run from it, leaving other people to handle it, that's spoiled.
This would explain a lot. It's hard to believe that in today's internet world where anyone can be a celebrity, that actual celebrities/OGM's would have not an iota of ego that needs to be expressed through twitter etc, involving their real life. They're just people whose "real" lives are so fulfilling (in their opinion) that they have absolutely no interest in having any kind of online presence, so now that the sham is crumbling, their lack of interest in being online is obvious. This normally wouldn't be such a big deal, but combined with the sham chain-jerking creates an even more callous image.
DeleteTwo separate posts for my thoughts on that.
DeleteFirst, we have a group of people so preoccupied with controlling what fans knew, they involved the large family, extensive social network, miscellaneous well-wishers, and the skating federation. One aim - make fans believe in a hoax. Encourage fans to actually dig into their wallets and shell out for lies sold as behind-the scenes. Scott explained their book had never before told stuff, like the story of their rift that they completely made up.
But when it comes to the most elementary information - using the web page to address the withdrawal from Finlandia. Keeping the schedule updated. Rotating a photo that THEY promised would be updated once a month. There's nothin. There's not a person able to take care of any of it. This isn't neglect or inattention. It's not careless. It's intent. There's been a decision made to do nothing. I just wish there hadn't also been a decision made to suck up to fans to their face and then make fools of fans when fans believe you.
They were interested in that barrier. The barrier was all that mattered to them with fans. Then pair that with their incessant talk about wonderful Canadian fans. Something doesn't add up.
Everybody likes to keep their private life private and how strange that so many figure skaters actually manage to do that, even skaters teamed together, without going to these lengths. I don't think Canadian skaters skating for Canada for the first Canadian gold at Canadian Olympics for Canadian fans right here at home in Canada really accounts for any extremes they took. That's in their heads. It's only their histrionic streak, their non-reality based preoccupation with how public awareness might impact their lives. That's on them, not their actual circumstances. Their circumstances were manageable. Their choices were ridiculous.
Still, part of me thought they were so focused on keeping their private life private because of all the big things going on in their private life at a time they were in what they considered a big spotlight (nobody made them 'write' a book, though). I wondered if once things settled down - the Olympics were won, the other big privacy milestones were done - they might stableize their engagement with fans.
I do find it really objectionable that even recently, their reach outs are lies. So Scott wanted to beat a retreat from facebook. He jumps on his fan page, cribs a few lines from his web page, then directs fans to that webpage? Why bother? Why didn't he leave it at 'unable to maintain the web page as I'd like and you deserve" or however he put it? Why add that extra about the webpage and the new season around the corner? It's like somebody who wants to avoid an awkward moment in the presence of somebody else so words just come out ("let's have lunch!") and the second they're out of sight they avoid whoever it was for the rest of their existence. Why couldn't he have been a big boy, sucked up what he knows are his and Tessa's intentions, left it at I'm unable to maintain this as you deserve, and sign off with see you at an arena near you? Why not just shut it down? How does it make it better to say - this is going - but watch our web page! Then ignore the webpage? Who is that for? It's for Scott. It's not for the fans. It's to make his little typing moment easier. That's so puny.
The other angle. These are unusually privileged figure skaters. Most figure skaters are tapping out their family's finances. Even gold medalists are more than "interested in business" - they're super interested in somehow branding themselves so as to BE a business and earn enough money in their prime so they're not scrambling in mid-life, or scrambling for coaching students - or coaching, if they don't want to do that.
DeleteBut. If money has never been a concern and is even less so now. Then things become very important that are pretty minor to talented figure skaters who do worry about their post-eligible opportunities, because those opportunities are the key to their security and they don't really have the time, nor can they afford, to crawl up their own ass and think the entire world and immediate environment is judging them.
Scott and Tessa pretty much stomp all over and spit on public support that most figure skaters would kill to have. They must be the nicest teammates around because otherwise I think people would be burned up at how dismissive they are of interest they enjoy that other skaters would kill to have. Tessa and Scott don't need it to have a secure financial future. They'd have had a secure financial future without the gold medal. They're in fortunate circumstances.
And because they have the luxury of dismissing the main reason other figure skaters do fan outreach, they are able to fetishize the existence of fans, inflate it into some unmanageable problem requiring a Municipal Opera season's worth of stagecraft, and basically navel gaze and be all Hamlet.
That's a luxury. It's a made-up problem, a champagne problem, and the sort of thing privileged (financially) people preoccupy themselves about. If Scott and Tessa had money problems, the entire fan issue would go away SO fast. It would be no problem at all.
I have a third comment, also about privilege. It's about the way Scott and Tessa's families sometimes talk. You'd think Scott and Tessa had been in the military theatre in Afghanistan, risked their lives, and after all the angst, crawled home with the Medal of Honor.
DeleteA gold medal is a rare, outstanding accomplishment. Everyone who knows them and contributed should be proud. They should be and of course are proud of themselves.
But, Canada and the US are teeming with elite athlete wannabes. The ones who succeed have had a fortunate combination of talent, timing, opportunity - and support from somewhere - family, other. There is no elite athlete out there who has what we'd consider a "normal" teen-age life. Oh the sacrifice! Well, yes, and the gun to the heads of these kids came from where? You don't put yourself on the Olympic gold medal track while having the average Canadian or American middle and high school experience. Families and athletes do a cost/benefit analysis and often go for the athletic track because the benefits are enormous.
Many families would have to pull their athlete from that life kicking and screaming. There are others who were prematurely returned to a "normal" life because things didn't work out, and they have regrets.
The athletic track is a privilege. The athletes are fulfilled and challenged by having their talent meet opportunity, are extremely focused, and aware of their good fortune.
Furthermore, there are many people who were denied "normal" childhoods, "normal" high school experiences, due to circumstances beyond their control, and came through as healthy adults who can be proud of themselves and make those around them proud. The idealized "normal" life doesn't exist - most young people have challenges of one kind or another. It's not - oh, sacrifice my youth for my nation's athletic program OR opt for an idyllic Norman Rockwell youth. People should ask some of Scott's friends how ideal their non-skating high school and present day is.
Everybody in this world balances choices and opportunities.
Doing it for your sport and having it pay off doesn't translate to entitlement that excuses years of treating the public like crap. How many skaters have made a gazillion sacrifices without pay-off? How many athletes? They have to suck it up and deal with the real world. Oh the humanity.
Scott and Tessa's families sometimes come off as if their kids have been through unreasonable ordeals just to drag that gold medal home for Canada. Give me a break. They wanted it. They weren't doing it for anyone else. Skate Canada wanted it, their families wanted it, but nobody wanted it like Scott and Tessa. They had plenty of money, support, love and they loved each other. The drama they make out of some of their experiences is ridiculous (Tessa's shins aside because the pressure with the Olympics near was great)
Love this entry. Thank you for once again rationally showing a string of events that demonstrates how bizarre are the actions of the Virtues & Moirs regarding Scott's "relationship" with Dube and the PR of Team V/M.
ReplyDeleteOnce in a while this blog gets a mention on social media and inevitably some people rush in to declare the blogger is crazy and nothing here is logical. Those people are either lying about what they really think or they haven't bothered reading. I'd like to know, which part of this entry is considered a product of mental illness? They don't have the guts to come and discuss it in here.
I'd suggest checking the logic history of those who question the logic of the blog.
DeleteTo the blogger: Are you Canadian?
ReplyDelete[[I suspect Alma has Jay's phone number and email. After all, he attended Leanne Moir's wedding and I didn't see any invitation on Jay's facebook wall]]
ReplyDeleteLol. This is hilarious. I had forgotten about this particular incident; this entry is reminding me of many more. So transparently aimed at the fans, as if these people couldn't call or text like normal folk. It was only for carefully selected posts that they suddenly had an urge to communicate via the public facebook walls, and oh yeah, 5000+ strangers could see their "private" business.
Anon 4:54
Just out of curiosity, do you think it would make a difference in the blog's content?
I think my favorite part is they're hiding the truth from the people they're lying to but at the same time they make sure to promote Shoeless Joes.
DeleteWell I asked it just 'out of curiosity' if you're so interested.
ReplyDelete"Goes the fandom: Gulp - Jessica!"
ReplyDeleteSuch an accurate portrayal of the general sentiment toward any mention of Scott-with-Jessica during the years they were supposedly boyfriend-and-girlfriend.
The Jessica-dislike has been so virulent. I tend to agree with you that it's about Jessica more than about Scott having a girlfriend that wasn't Tessa. I'm sure part of the reason for all the facebook excesses was the sham-makers trying hard to convince the public that Scott really did love this person more than Tessa. With a different girl it very well might have been more accepted.
In the end, I think it's all backfired. The more stuff they put out the more fake it all looks, especially in retrospect as we can see through the chronicling you've been doing. And of course the more stupid they look also. They really were idiots not to just pull the plug right away when it became obvious how problematic it was to actually sell the idea that Scott could be enamored with someone like Jessica. Instead they decided to be more insistent, be more disgusting with it, and Jessica just kept benefiting from it and celebrating her part in it, which added to all the WTH. All of it has been such a turn-off.
What I would like to know is how big a part Skate Canada has played, not only in giving them the initial idea but in deciding to keep it in place so long and with so much overkill.
Skate Canada clearly played a major role; it's difficult to even do a cursory list of how they hoaxed the public.
DeleteDebbi Wilkes asked Jessica and Bryce if they were a couple - she knew what the answer would be.
In 2009 Skatebug kept Canadians attendees up to date on Scott and Jessica's ongoing dating status.
The Rick Mercer feature, facilitated by Skate Canada, featured Jessica positioned next to Scott in one shot, with Tessa and Bryce hiding in the back.
At gala practice, Alma and Debbi were overseeing as Bryce and Tessa scootched down the boards so Jessica could plunk it down next to Scott for the benefit of fans attending practice.
Skate Canada helped stage and set up all the Jessica-watching-VM-compete photo calls at the Olympics.
William Thompson, at TEB, tweeted that Scott had shown up to support "Jess and Bryce."
Debbi Wilkes oversaw the complete fraud of the Scott/Jessica "Hug" after the fan cameras were still whirring but the national broadcasts had gone off air. She was supervising.
Barb kept planting Scott and Jessica mentions in Above the Crowd.
Skate Canada facilitated Jessica's autograph-seeking walkabout at the Grand Prix Final ice dance practice.
And none of this addresses the various considerations Jessica received, how concertedly her dumping Bryce was spun, as Skate Canada bent over backwards to undo the damage Jessica did with her initial press conference (and how idiotic they were to provide that venue without, it seems, having any idea how self-absorbed and callous Jessica would seem). How many times did they insist Bryce "retired" even when Bryce himself was not ready to say he'd retired?
DeleteI'm not sure what's up with Jessica right now. Her current profile picture shows her seated on the sofa in her parents' house (a sofa made famous by her Xmas 2010! sham photo spam). Is she, at 25 (in 2 weeks) living at home? Is the uncertain state of her skating career and her future responsible for her eagerness to remind onlookers that her life and experience has included "Monaco!" ? It does seem as if Maxim Coa is co-coaching at Contre Coeur, a slot that it appears, would have been Jessica's best non-skating hope to escape an un-enabled life - at least a little bit longer.
6:55
DeleteIsn't this what we would call corruption?
It's one thing for some people, as private citizens, to be dumb and run with a stupid idea (shamming). It's a whole different ball game when it's a sports' federation facilitating a hoax on the public, plus practically bribing one of their skaters (isn't that essentially what they did, bribe Jessica. And she more than gladly accepted). SC does NOT get a pass on this.
It's funny how now that something's hinky going on in Jessica's figure skating career, they pulled the plug on the relationship. Once it's no longer convenient to slot her in as an agenda item in a larger event - poof.
DeleteAlso, looking at Jessica's pinterest/facebook and the mysterious status of her figure skating, I'm curious if Skate Canada and, especially, Team Virtue Moir ever receives requests from her needing a favor or two that they didn't expect.