Kaitlyn Lawes twitter!

Great exchange! Figure skating challenge up next! #Trillium2014 #crossfit #guesswho

Did u know Kaitlyn Lawes is the 3d most followed lady curler on twitter! #16.2k

Hey Kaitlyn Lawes lost all other punctuation on her keyboard/phone! #somanyexclamationpoints

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I don't know which is worse - this or Jessica's winks and hearts.

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All of the questions in this post are rhetorical. I haven't done enough research to have the answers.

Part of this blog and blog comments section has been looking at social media marketing, including its standards of integrity. I'm curious about how come what Tessa and Scott do, which is to combine deceiving the public on twitter with promoting their sponsors on twitter, is okay. Lawes does the same thing. Mostly I wonder if we must then assume that Lindt and pb chocolate milk can be considered participants in the manipulation and hoaxing of the public about Scott and Tessa's relationship.

Most people inside Scott and Tessa's network know they're married and have a daughter; this network can be described as enormous. Scott and Tessa must be getting feedback that their tactics are fine. It seems to me they've been innovators in using social media to not just actively promote a hoax, but in actively gaslighting the supporters of their skating, and those who follow figure skating. They're not reactive. There's no pressure from the media. Scott and Tessa instigate.

That last, the "it's not us - it's you" (actually it's "it's not us - it's them (fans)) is the "unique" component of all this - to actively and repeatedly report to the people you're lying to that you're being nothing but truthful, and, taking it a step further, to assert that the people you're lying to are confusing fantasy/performance with reality. You present yourselves as constantly needing to get out there and set people straight. (Which is another lie - they lie about their supporters. Apart from the blog, Scott and Tessa's false version of their status isn't questioned online.).

Until the reality show, one might argue that the people who partner with Scott and Tessa - other athletes, sponsors, representatives - aren't aware of Scott and Tessa's tactics. Figure skating doesn't get much coverage, nor do the personalities in the sport get coverage unless they're actively seeking it out. People in entertainment, talent management, other sports, event production, and sponsorship might be under the impression Scott and Tessa function like a lot of couples who maintain a platonic facade for privacy reasons, although even before the reality show, Scott and Tessa went into way more detail about how platonic they are than other couples have ever done. They repeatedly did entire interviews in print and video where that was all that was discussed. With Scott and Tessa, it's a little difficult for anyone to pretend to believe they're just working from a defensive position, but if you're not keeping track, that assumption can be made. But once they did the reality show, nobody could pretend that anymore.

This type of situation hasn't been addressed by the FTC (or, in Canada, the Canadian Competition Bureau, the FTC equivalent), or made it into any social media best practices guidelines. I imagine nobody at the FTC/Canadian Competition Bureau is even aware this sort of thing exists - Scott and Tessa are unique, after all. With the internet, rules and guidelines evolve in response to issues as they come up.

FTC/Canadian Competition Bureau

The linked article discusses the FTC's ability to govern Canadian advertising and sales practices (I imagine what Scott and Tessa do isn't sales/advertising, but marketing and promotion).

Here's the combination of factors that I question, wondering mostly if this is okay, and will become common practice:

1. Scott and Tessa publicly insist they are single and dating other people.
2. Scott and Tessa are married to each other, and have a daughter.
3. Their extensively promoted reality show, "Tessa and Scott," which aired on the commercially broadcast W network geared towards "women's programming", told us Tessa and Scott are each unmarried, are platonic, are not a couple, and told us Cassandra Hilborn was Scott Moir's girlfriend.The actual facts are Tessa was his wife, he was a married man, they have a daughter, live together as a family, and he was not dating Cassandra Hilborn.
4. W is an "entertainment" network, not a news channel; but their marketing of  "Tessa and Scott" stressed that we'd be seeing Tessa and Scott's actual life, the real them.This promotional angle was specifically built around Scott and Tessa's honesty, transparency, sincerity, and genuine character. Scott even took to insisting it was a documentary. (I don't know if describing your personalities as genuine, sincere, etc., rather than using the words "honest" or "the truth" to describe the content of the show you're promoting, constitutes a technical out, but marketing guidelines are ALL about those semantics.)
5. Scott and Tessa repeatedly portray the public as self-deceived in wishing or wrongly suspecting that Scott and Tessa would ever be or are together as a couple.
6. Any review of fan discussion outside this one blog will demonstrate, going back years, that fans do not and did not challenge Scott and Tessa's version of their relationship, and Scott and Tessa were not and are not responding to persistent or vocal skepticism from fans.
7.Scott and Tessa are proactive. They frequently introduce the subject of their relationship, using every social media, legit media and reality television manipulation and flat out lie under the sun.
8. Scott and Tessa use the same platforms they use to lie to the public to promote their sponsors. Do the sponsors know?

Does this mean a public figure can basically tell any lie they want about their personal circumstances on social media, market it, and have it be validated by legitimate media, sponsors, other public figures?

The meanest person is always the smartest person

From Dictionary.com

Role Model

noun

1. a person whose behavior, example, or success is or can be emulated by others, especially by younger people.

This post is a continuation of the post section below that talks about #ALSicebucket challenge. It revisits past behaviors that have been discussed here before, with the understanding that these behaviors reflect patterns that continue to surface in Virtue and Moir's interviews, in the reality show, and on social media. It's organized around the idea that, while many of Scott and Tessa's choices in public relations and marketing appear to be calculated based upon what they believe will work on the absolute lowest common denominator (a/k/a "skating fans"), as well as what they believe will most effectively exploit and disparage that segment of the public, these choices are more telling about Scott and Tessa.

I believe Virtue and Moir are role models for other elite skaters when it comes to skating and training.They’re role models for how to be polite, low maintenance, considerate and gracious while the center of attention in public.They’re role models for how to be well put together and poised when rubbing elbows with notables.

The thing with Virtue and Moir as role models beyond those areas is they never appear to grasp any larger picture.Tessa, in particular, appears susceptible to imposing thought systems on everything beyond her personal framework. God forbid she take in what's actually out there. She's the original forest for the trees archtype.The woman is always looking for a state of the art filter, the best life edit app.

All of their lives, they’ve been at the center of the frame. It’s been about them.Tessa, in her social media presence, comes across like the stereotype of a sorority girl every parent wishes their daughter would be. Why can’t you be more like that nice Tessa Virtue. As skaters and athletes, they’re role models. Beyond that, there are skaters who are douchier, but also plenty of skaters who do a better job as role models a regular person could look up to. What Patrick Chan, Jeremy Abbott and Paul/Islam did with the #ALSicebucket challenge is absolutely effortless, but you never see Scott and Tessa thinking of it. Everything outside a universe that has the two of them as its focal point is just a metric.

It’s a bit ironic that the post below looks at the merits of raising “awareness”, when Scott and Tessa’s apparent lack of awareness around some basic issues of empathy, common sense and how "A" connects to "B" has been so marked during their time in the public eye.There are few supposedly intelligent public figures who are more obtuse.

I guess what they do works, if the goal was to turn many of their fans into eager, panting puppies, desperate to appease and please.What it looks like to me is a lot of fans are behaving that way in order to encourage Virtue and Moir to stick around. Fan dynamics tend to be the same no matter what fandom we’re talking about, but as far as I’m aware, this particular aspect seems particular to Scott and Tessa fans.This worry that if fans do something wrong, Scott and Tessa will cut off the supply of Scott and Tessa. I don’t see other fans worrying like that. Even Meryl Davis fans who respond angrily when her looks or skating are criticized don’t appear to worry that criticism will drive Meryl out of the public eye.

IMO there’s a failure on Scott and Tessa’s part to ever really consider what’s outside the frame. What’s outside is other people. Fans have another existence apart from their fandom.They’re human beings. In their public behavior, Scott and Tessa only consider fans as fans.That’s fine most of the time, but there are times it’s helpful to remember, before you open your mouth, that they’re also people. The beaten puppy syndrome described in the above paragraph is a consequence of Scott and Tessa’s manipulations over the past seven years. Fans know there's something elusive and shifty about Scott and Tessa's public personas, and many fans seem to believe that if they modulate their behavior, and control the behavior of other fans, Scott and Tessa will allow themselves to come more clearly into focus.That's the game. Scott and Tessa's appearance on twitter and instagram is just the most current iteration of this dynamic, a dynamic driven by Scott and Tessa's constant public relations mind fuckery.

Scott and Tessa don’t appear to make very obvious connections, of the sort that require empathy and a grasp of basic context. As many blog participants know, a few years ago Scott made a rare appearance on his facebook page, requesting suggestions for a profile picture. Until that point, his profile pictures had been of him alone, all of them as interesting as if someone had pressed the shutter by mistake.The only thing missing was a blurred thumb across the lens.* His request made it appear as if he were finally willing to have a "real" profile picture. As he's not an utter moron, he knew fans would suggest an appropriate photo of himself and his skating partner.

After entertaining earnest suggestions from fans over the course of a few days, his request turned out to be a fake-out. He left all of those fans with egg on their faces. Imagine the fans who took some time and thought, fans who sat at their computer looking at a few pictures before deciding on the one to suggest to Scott.Their suggestions and links were posted on his fan facebook wall for everyone to see. Some fans spent time trying to choose not just a picture they liked, but one they hoped might appeal to Scott. Everyone was trying to respond in a way that would encourage Scott to interact more on facebook.There’s a vulnerability in that.They trusted his request. How the hell does he miss that? If you’re only thinking about yourself and your clever gimmick, if you’re not considering that the other side are people with feelings and lives apart from the fact that they’re “fans”, that’s how you miss it. If you lack respect, you miss it.

If you’re unusually stupid, you miss it.There’s that, too. It’s not the fake-out itself that’s problematic, but Scott’s failure to make the basic connections that would let him know that what he planned was mean before he even did it.That’s why I say they’re up their own ass. Sure, he hadn’t shown up on his facebook in forever and day. Of course, when he does at last pay a visit, requesting input from fans to boot, fans are going to be extra excited – but also extra polite and cautious, so he’ll be encouraged to reach out more. Naturally, when it turns out to be a “gotcha”, he’ll look like a dick.

Think of those fans realizing he probably never even looked at their suggestions.Then falling over themselves to excuse him.

I’m pretty comfortable saying that just about nobody but Scott Moir, Tessa Virtue, some of Skate Canada's directors, and Moirville would do something like that in the context Scott did it.The mean of it would be obvious. No matter how douchey people are in private, most people don’t want to show their ass in public.

Flew right over Scott’s head.That’s the kindest, most benefit-of-the-doubt interpretation.

That’s them all over.Virtue and Moir have information.The public/internet fans, officially at least, don’t.The person who knows stuff someone else doesn’t is the person with power. Scott and Tessa use that power to humiliate fans all the time. But does it count if fans don’t realize they’re being humiliated? I think what possibly embarrassed Scott about the facebook trick was he was caught. Fans saw what he did. I don’t think the actual concept of humiliating fans bothers him much, as long as it can’t officially be traced back to him.  

A large component of the sham is creating and repeating a narrative that will later be deployed to leave the fans to blame for all the lying and manipulation Scott and Tessa have done.The general lack of decency in this agenda isn’t a consideration. For Scott and Tessa, it’s all about appearances, all about lack of accountability. It’s all narrative. Actual decency, actual integrity, actual empathy is irrelevant. It really is exactly the mirror of the Davis White trajectory to the gold medal.The exact same damn thing. Both things occurred within North American figure skating culture, a culture which is a piece of fucking work, going by the two teams at the top.

The failure to connect "A" and "B" also showed up in Scott's infamous “I’d trade places with my brother because then I’d have a beautiful daughter” remark.What human being would think of something like that and not hear alarm bells before putting it out to the world? Scott. He was too distracted by the triple twist, back somersault clever of it all. Up his own ass.

So many other skaters would make those connections automatically. Geez, I haven’t been on facebook in a long time, if I show up and pretend to care about their opinion and it turns out joke’s on them, I’ll be a dick. Automatically, they’d know it. Scott and Tessa don’t. They’re used to being the best on the ice; somehow that appears to have convinced them they’re also the smartest two people in any room. But it doesn’t look like smart. It looks like mean. I wonder if they think there's any difference.

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*Facebook is free, so it stands to reason.

New Tweets From Tessa

Tessa Virtue has been in a sharing mood. Almost an oversharing mood. Who'd have guessed that she'd jump into twitter at all, let alone that she'd launch with the swimsuit issue:

Do you think Scott's seen this picture? For
years he's paraded himself in his swim trunks
on social media, while Tessa not so much.
She won't even attend the same events
Scott attends if the event is near a beach.
Turns out we're all allowed to see it; it's only Scott
who's not. Good thing Scott's not on twitter. 

She looks great in what is no doubt a current photograph, considering she also tells us that for a straight month, this has been her diet:

I don't know why she tweeted about going into the gym, suggesting she needs to compensate for the booze and sweet tooth. Look at Tessa in that swimsuit. Our assumption must be that the swimsuit photo is current, and we know the "I've been pigging out all month so I'm glad to get back to the gym!" tweet is also current, but how can the sleek photo AND the pigging-out-get-back-in-shape thing both be current? She's magic.

Well, even if she is a bit out of shape, super high heels are slimming:

$295 CAD. I think she and Piper Gilles are
fated for a beautiful online friendship.

A lot of ladies eschew heels when they're pregnant. And until the very end, a whole bunch of pregnant ladies wear heels straight into the delivery room.

Posh could manage heels while
pregnant, but Tessa is no Posh.
(Or Kate Middleton, who also
wore heels when pregnant)

Tessa started off the summer drinking wine and pigging out on French pastries while posing in a bikini in a way that appears to contradict all the wine and pastries she claimed to have scarfed down, but hey, she's young and an Olympian. I certainly don't think that photo is older or anything.

The real point of this post is a few of Tessa's upcoming tweets came my way, and I thought I'd share them here:

I'm going to put out something else I think: 1) I don't think Tessa's midsection up there is actually on the same plane as her swimsuit bottoms; 2) where is her belly button ring - is it dim because of the filter used on the photo or is it gone; 3) the actual naval is a different size than previous shots we've seen of Tessa.

Why would you ADD people?

As it defies common sense to bring even more people into the sham circus, that is naturally what Moirville is busy doing.

I'm bringing a comments section discussion from the previous post into this post.

As noted by a participant in the comments section below, this girl:

was a skating student of Alma's. She also tweets to the girl whose twitter screen cap is below, a girl who who calls Alma's attention to a fan she wants them both to sneer at.

They are all such assholes and I guess before Toddler Moir is even three she's being trained to be an asshole herself or else have tremendously thick skin. Otherwise I can't imagine anything more fun to find on someone's public twitter than my daddy being seen out with his girlfriend.

OTOH twitter has to be a dream come true for Scott in some ways. Obviously, Moirville has an unending supply of skating community members eager to get involved in Scott and Tessa's business, and with tweets like this Scott doesn't even have to pose for a photo. Someone can just tweet that they saw him. It's totally hands off. With Sochi less then a year away, let's make this as messy and dickish as we can, shall we?

That's asinine, but this, though, sucks:

Umm*, you know who else exists, you asshole, Alexandra Vaiay? The fan who made that playlist. This is an actual person, not some abstract group of "fans".

Why NOT humiliate her on your public twitter. Why NOT call Scott's MOTHER's attention to this fan on the assumption it's crazy and embarrassing. Let's mortify someone who hasn't done one fucking thing to you, you fucking sack of stupid. Yes, if I were that type of fan, there would be nothing more hurtful than having my innocent online fan activities called to the attention of my favorite's mom so she could endorse how ridiculous I'm being.  What Alexandra Vaiay is doing on her twitter is a hell of a lot more fan-like, bitchy and overinvested than a figure skating fan enjoying the sport enough and respecting her favorite's music choices enough to make a playlist.

OTOH, the playlist fan can take under advisement that she's targeted by people who can barely turn on their computers, so they probably imagine the playlist fan has spent hours working with  IT professionals to string that thing together, and to them, that's #crazy. But if they were the sorts of people who knew where the on button is, on their computer and in their brains, they'd realize online applications/software streamline the process.

What's not crazy is living through your kid and his wife, your brother and his wife, your neighbor and his wife, your coach's youngest son and his wife, your ex highschool classmate who left before graduation and his wife. And using twitter to fuck with your relative's fans and supporters. That's not #crazy.

What are they doing on twitter besides not providing any positive attention for Scott and Tessa's Sochi prospects? Do they run "Virtue Moir" through the search function to find out what fans are doing so they can mock them? They've probably got a lot bottled up since they restricted their facebooks. We know them. It's not enough to be meanspirited amongst themselves. They like a big audience of strangers.

Seriously - why don't Scott and Tessa petition to skate their programs in a lab? Keep the crowds out. Just run through the programs under the critical eye of the ISU's judges and have them report the scores later. Let the other skaters skate in public, in front of actual people.

I don't know if Scott and Tessa can skate their best breathing the actual air also being breathed by mere fans who paid mere money to watch them compete. Likewise, how on earth do they manage to perform in shows when all these fans are attending.

If they're not paid, they not only ignore fans, they actively and publicly disparage them. If they're paid, they will lay it on. When not paid, they do things like host a fanpage and then ignore all the fans who do basic things like say Happy Birthday, until they bolt for the exit because their newest fake girlfriend has just joined twitter and they don't want to be around when fans find out about it.

People wonder how spoiled Tessa is, or how obsessed the family is with Scott and Tessa, but I want to know how spoiled that senior generation is - Carol and Alma & Co. They are certainly undisciplined and completely unaccustomed to the need to consider other people's feelings.  They act like they've never left the play pen, which, in a way, they haven't.

I think it's high time Moirville provided everybody with their profile of an acceptable fan. Apart from a willingness to shell out money for yellow sweatshirts and fabricated biographies, is anything else on the list?

Why couldn't this person who made that playlist be a fan of somebody with a fucking heart, like Moore Towers Moscovitch? Or ice dancers who have a freaking clue about publicly treating their public with basic decency (Paul/Islam).

I don't know, maybe Alma, Carol and the other Moirs with restricted twitter accounts should lay down a few guidelines for those they follow, especially people they know. Such as try not to basically single out a fan by name (or even screen name) on twitter, and shame them.

http://8tracks.com/parapluies/tessa-scott

That would require thought. They are allergic to thought.  Things like thoughtfulness and basic decency are too much trouble. They're just a bunch of social media slobs but I also think, as the blog has said many times before, they have a sensitivity chip missing. Because, a lot of people, this type of insensitivity and casual cruelty just doesn't happen, no matter how careless or inattentive they're being on social media. If it's not in you, it's not going to happen. If that's who you are, however, then it's going to show up all over the place.

Ironically, nothing brings them to tears faster than they bring themselves to tears. Get them talking about themselves and the floor is littered with crumpled tissue. Other people, not so much.
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*"Ummmm" is right up there with "shrugs" and "lol" in the pantheon of overused, ass-covering disclaimers on the internet in cases where someone is completely obsessed but trying to play  themselves off as not.

P.S. - this season, in addition to .gif-ing the shit out of Meryl and Charlie's programs the second they're unveiled, it might be nice to keep an eye on stories such as the one that came out recently about Paul Moir and Sherri Moir getting ice skates to that low-ranked ice dance team whose skates didn't arrive in time for them to compete. Track where stories like this come from. Who brings them to the attention of the media? How are good deeds like this discovered?

P.P.S., as this is a twitter post, and in honor of the tumblr linked in the comment section, here's a sample of the twitter stylings of Cassandra Hilborn:

You guys, she sobbed.

Scott was, of course, on tour with Tessa. Which makes Tour - 1, Cass - 0 sort of resonant.

This is also classically narcissistic sham. It's not life. It's about CASS.

I've said it before, Moirville has big mouths. And I sometimes wonder just how enthusiastically they embrace Tessa, or is it really that Scott loves Tessa, and Tessa is the reason Scott won a gold medal, so of course they LOVE Tessa, but do they love her in her own right, for her own qualities, or is it a Jackie/Ethel situation where they wish she was Ethel?

The tone of the sham - especially this iteration, with "Cass", calls that into question, IMO. It's like this Tessa dissing shit is creeping into things. It's probably all her fault they're stuck making asses of themselves shamming. If Tessa didn't have her own life, then she could hang. And everybody could crawl up her ass and into her business - for real, not just behind her back. Maybe Scott would be more available and less whipped.

And maybe Cass, who as we know is tweeting under Moir supervision - is just acting out some wish fulfillment. Maybe the competitive tone that creeps into all things sham stems from the source - those who run it.

Marketing your way to gold

Apart from the Sale & Pelletier incident in 2002, which was more like a railroad job, has a figure skater or skating team successfully marketed their way to an Olympic gold medal against superior competition before, or are D/W breaking new ground?

They're so relatable!

We saw Meryl Davis sailing away with her Kelloggs Cereal on her Sunday sail, as you do. They're busy acquiring as many marquee names - like Derek "makin some shapes!" Hough as they can think of to help brand their upcoming Olympic programs. At the rate they're going their costumes will have to resemble NASCAR race uniforms.

This may as well be a "Four Your Consideration" campaign for Best Picture. Sochi will just be the venue for the announcement. The votes will have been cast already.

Their partisans are trying to create an issue out of what happened at the 4CC's 2013 with Virtue and Moir, and there's agenda all over that. That agenda is they want Virtue and Moir's scores to be lowballed through Sochi, to compensate for inflated scores at 4CCs.

They want us to believe Virtue and Moir were overscored at the 2013 4CCs, get out the memo that Virtue Moir are overscored, period. It's audacious, I'll say that. Silver medal and still overscored!

Nobody is talking about Davis and White's skating. It's all how Davis and White make people feel. And how unfairly they're treated. Once in awhile, they lose to a better team that outskates them every time they take the ice. Not that often, but from time to time. OMG - the humanity!

Some of their partisans are quite belligerant about how irrelevant they find the actual skating. And yet they think gold in Sochi in a freaking skating discipline is D/W's by right.

How much have we heard - if anything - about Meryl and Charlie's actual skating? Not "expression" - their SKATING?

How much have we heard about the stars who are helping them shape their programs?

How much have we heard about their Kelloggs sponsorship? How much have we heard about their work ethic and all around wonderfulness? The actual competition is a mere formality. #sochigold is inevitable, if this sport is to be considered legit. If North America is not to shame itself in Russia. If North American fans don't have their perception of the sport soured by the blatant and unfair score inflation for Virtue Moir. #sochigold. What's skating compared to matters of such urgency?

Over here, we have Virtue and Moir, who have tied their own hands. They can't counter market without tying themselves in knots. "Look - a bridal magazine shoot where we pose like a bride and groom even though we're only platonic and by the way look at me and Cassandra in Aruba!"

Thanks guys. That helps.

Virtue and Moir are completely checkmated, marketing wise, by Davis and White. Davis and White may be nothing like the cheery Disney-fied versions of themselves they instagram and tweet, sunny one dimensional personalities with only hash tags and exclamation points in their heads. But I doubt very much they've got a baby and a marriage with each other on the down low, which means they've got a whole lot more scope for this marketing shit than Virtue and Moir, who simply have not put themselves in a position to put themselves out there. Davis and White have got the field to themselves.

Even if Charlie were, say, secretly hitched to Tanith, that's not such a scandal. It might be a little bit shady to have his wife comment on the Sochi ice dance event, but that's not a big leap from having his girlfriend comment on the Sochi ice dance event, so big whoop. There's really nothing that could come out that requires them to tie their hands now. They are free to work it and work it til we're barfing up cornflakes. (And btw, I'm not suggesting Charlie is secretly wed to Tanith. Just that it wouldn't really matter.)

Virtue and Moir officially (and of course, hypocritically) claim to shun social media, but social media is where Davis and White are hustling themselves into a gold medal before they've even unveiled their programs. Every single thing they do on twitter and facebook is making the case that they DESERVE gold as people.

One would think that Virtue and Moir partisans would enter the arena with the strongest weapon available to them - Virtue and Moir's skating.

That would require their Federation in their corner, and their Fed has abandoned them now that the Skate Canada officials have determined Virtue and Moir have either declined to serve or no longer serve the personal agendas of these officials. They're not going to get the word out they way they do consistently with Patrick Chan.

Scott comes from a huge skating family, yet as connected as they are in figure skating in Canada they don't seem able or motivated or I don't know what to use their connections to make the case for Scott and Tessa based on sport.

Maybe it just goes against the grain to treat the public as capable of understanding this as a sport. But that's the only counterargument available to them, because it sure looks as if DW have gotten the message that this medal is not going to be awarded for anything that happens on the ice. Here's how they're railroading this thing before the competition even happens - if Virtue and Moir blink at the wrong time in the same competition where Charlie and Meryl are two-footing, leaping, hopping, skipping, clutching, dragging, knee sliding and otherwise junkyarding their way through their program - then everybody will scream that Virtue and Moir were overscored because of an ill-placed eye-lash flutter from Tessa. They'll scream it before the season starts, they'll scream it at every competition Virtue and Moir skate before they even meet Meryl and Charlie, and at the end the scores they got vis a vis Gilles & Poirier at the last two Canadians will look like inflation while D/W's scores - it's only fair - will make Yuna Kim's scores look like Rachel Flatt's.

I love how Charlie and Scott can be friends and Meryl and Tessa can't

How does that work?

According to an interview P.J. Kwong IMO pointlessly agreed to grant, "let's face it, Meryl and Tessa aren't going to lunch together." says the interviewer. Because they're COMPETITORS.

IMO it's fine to be interviewed by absolutely anybody - a kid, a blogger, a fan, your mother. Any of it can produce interesting content. However don't ask questions with your high-handed, but wrong assumptions built in, especially not to P.J., who doesn't exactly have the best focus or the most logic. Or let's call the assumptions what they are - low rent dramatic fantasies based on absolutely no actual information except the lowest common denominator stereotypes held by the interviewer. I'm sure the interviewer thinks Charlie and Scott can share a beer, no problem.

At least she confirmed what was already apparent - she never asks questions that aren't approved in advance. I'll take that further - she asks questions at times that the skaters themselves would like to be asked. Such as the time she asked Scott and Tessa what romance means to them.

P.J. also told twitter she'd ask Scott and Tessa more specifically about where they got the idea there was an internet backlash against Carmen from the fandom. She never did. And now we know why.

She has a role and does it well, but that role is publicist. It's not reporter.