***
When I started this blog somewhere around early 2011 (I'll look at the archives later) fake news (a/k/a "propaganda") wasn't widely perceived to have been mainstreamed. Virtue and Moir's lies about their relationship was a seemingly home brewed enterprise that seemed equal parts "protect the privacy of the kids" and "give the hometown friends and family (and the spotlight hungry at Skate Canada, and the complicit media) something to make them feel involved and important." It was marked by an unnecessary malice and poor sportsmanship, tackiness and contempt that stood in unpleasant relief vis a vis the Moir & Co. incessant bragging about core Canadian values. It didn't have the most professional sheen. Many people outside any sort of fandom could see pretty easily what was going on. For those that knew what was going on for other reasons, it was like a two way mirror where you could see and hear people talking shit about you behind your back. "Oh, they can't hear us! We can mock them!"

When Virtue and Moir did their reality show, the blog noted that, apart from Virtue and Moir being ice dancers, "Tessa and Scott" stood alone in the universe of reality shows as complete fabrication. Not even the premise was true. I said the premise of other reality shows, from the Kardashian output to the various Bachelor iterations, were essentially real even if the format and plot developments were warped. I.e., - the Bachelor(ette) is an unmarried individual in a cast of other unmarried individuals. The Kardashians ARE a blended family. Etc.

I don't think that's the case anymore. Lots of things have joined the W Network's "Tessa and Scott" as a complete fake masquerading as a realish life narrative.

****

1. There was a lot of pushback when Forbes named Kyle Jenner a "self-made billionaire."  This for a young woman fronting what is essentially a glorified license agreement. The pushback featured a word that's become nearly radioactive (not to me, but to some) - i.e., "privilege." I know just seeing it and some people stop reading.

Don't be delicate. Be vast and brilliant.

That's officially (for now) Tessa Virtue's favorite quote. It's innocuous as a mantra for an elite athlete (although some day I'd like her to explain how one becomes "vast", or is able to choose brilliance), but as words to live by, it's insipid and exclusionary.

I'm not fond of the "follow your passion" truism - it's not real. It avoids dealing with or even acknowledging the many inherited privileges that make that pursuit possible for very few at a young age, while, due to systemic realities, it's out of reach for most people due to the mundane need to, you know, survive.

And let me say that's quite a favorite quote from someone as chickenshit - and procrastinating - as Tessa (and Scott) when it comes to something that would require real, non-instagramable maturity, courage, conviction, and honesty - outside the bubble of her sport where they exist as exceptional. It would require humility. They prefer the marketable kind of courage and passion.

Most people can't follow their passion (there was lots of pushback on the Kyle cover but this from "ManRepeller.com" was my favorite. It makes no bones.)

2. Read the below on tumblr from a woman claiming to work in pr - it's something we already know, but it nutshells things so well:

Do you want to know who the pioneers of “Fake News” are? The PR firms and the PR teams. We CREATED “Fake News” to sell you the truth we want to depict. “Fake News” is both a PR generated concept and a result of dangerous PR games.

This tumblr vent went on to say that the goal of ALL pr - her agency's goal, every agency's goal, is to make people feel bad. I think Virtue and Moir succeeded with that one (remember "Hi, I'm up and at 'em early on instagram on Scott's birthday solely to make the point that you CAN'T MAKE ME wish him happy birthday on this platform."). She CAN feel him up on a nationally televised reality show though, as part of their 2014 Olympic prep - isn't that sort of thing the primary reason one hires expensive ice dance choreographic talent?

They have boundaries only when they're not getting paid to to violate them. If someone offered them big bucks to come clean, they'd lose their scruples, I promise.

Virtue and Moir were little amateur trailblazers in the fake news arena, but there was a tidal wave right behind them and they jumped aboard.

Both Scott and Tessa do a lot of "empowerment" signaling (I ripped that off from virtue signaling, and how I hate the word "empowerment) while sustaining a ten year history of gaslighting their fans, who are mostly women. It's exploitation at its most basic, and built upon the inherent inequality. Nobody can argue that Tessa and Scott didn't manipulate and lie above and beyond, a hundred times over than what was arguably necessary to "protect" whatever they claimed they were protecting.

They were aware of what was being said by fans, and fed it back, even when it contradicted earlier narratives. They didn't have the common respect to account for discrepancies - it was always out with the old that we previously insisted you to believe, in with the opposite. Fans were like a bug you poke under a magnifying glass.

They were often uber-controlling, overheated and intense about it, trying to crawl into fans' heads, which I've never understood. They always made fans wrong, even about the skating (fans loved Carmen, Virtue and Moir claimed they didn't),.

I never understood why they needed to humiliate fans so completely. It's still humiliation even if the victims are unaware. What was behind the overkill? Maybe their competitive spirit, which shows itself even in an unequal contest. Or maybe it's greed.

Their fans are mostly women of a demographic that is probably least valued in north American culture, and therefore least respected.

From time to time, Virtue and Moir will issue a straightforward and sincere statement, as they did when Denis Ten's murder was reported. They did the same when they supported the right of women in sport to be free of predators. But IMO, it's not possible to really have it both ways like that. Their sincerity is poisoned. You have integrity, or you don't.

*And of course, what about those who don't have a passion to follow? Is that ok?

The butthurt on Cizeron Papadakis
still makes me ragey. How totally unfair
to have skating and dance in ice dance.
Shouldn't the sport
had thrown even more points at their errors
while dinging VM for imaginary mistakes? The
stress they went through all season knowing
it wasn't going to be 100% a gift! Only 98.7 or so.

Back before their first Olympics, I wanted Virtue and Moir to have the same resume as G&G  - they were in a similar universe of their own. When they weren't allowed to take home the gold in 2014, I equivocated with myself that G&G didn't compete in the 1992 Olympics, but rather the one after. Then VM won 2018, justice had snuck in through the back door, and I began seeing their resume as on par with G&G. I'm only talking resume, purely out of context.

There is actually an area where Virtue and Moir's resume stands above G&G's, and above not just skating teams, but all figure skaters who ever competed in more than one Olympics. Have any other Olympic figure skaters been perfect in every Olympics in which they competed? G&G's LP at Lillehammer had a number of small glitches (while their nearest competitors had made their own roughness a feature, not a bug, and G&G's technical purity was their feature, so of course, many fans considered the result unfair). The media is not really allowed to acknowledge that Virtue and Moir were perfect in Sochi, but they were. That is extraordinary. I don't think there are any other figure skaters as absolutely purpose-built for that level of competition. Scott sang through all of it. (It's not noted as much that Tessa sang with him in the Pyeongchang fd, but she did.)

It's heartbreaking in a way that the most extraordinary ice dancers in history competed at a time when being good at skating was actively discouraged by the sport, where it was considered problematic, where everything on earth was done to artificially level the playing field to the point of humiliation.

I appreciated this from them:

VM address abuse-free coach_student environment

Virtue and Moir attempting one of
Papadakis & Cizeron's L4 competitive lifts.

Virtue and Moir in the Globe and Mail

Concluding paragraph.

They’ll have other projects to announce soon, they said, and new collaborations to begin. The next act for Canada’s Tessa and Scott may look a lot different from what we’ve seen so far.

These bitches. No it won't. Even if they decide to lift the veil on their more compelling unseen collaborations, new is not the word for any of them.

I'm discussing this article out of order because I did like this part near the end:

Moir and Virtue are a little less eager to do their own choreography. They skated one of their pieces at Pyeongchang – a flowing, elegiac tribute to Gord Downie, set to The Tragically Hip’s Long Time Running. But “we tend to steal from ourselves,” Moir said; and when working alone, they miss the perspective of what Virtue calls “the outside eye.”

Good. Long Time Running was, to me, as meh as most of their show dances, and the Gord Downie backstory was no help.

The article's author, Robert Everett-Green, observes that ice dance inhibits dancing, because you can't "stop and dance."

No worries. Ice dance rules and criteria have worked hard to get us to where teams are mostly stopping and "dancing". Our current world champions, Papadakis & Cizeron, seem to feel that the skating part of what they do is a pretty unfair expectation of Olympic athletes as extraordinary as themselves. That's for show boaty, cheap ass vulgarian panderers like Virtue and Moir (right, Madison Hubbell?).

Ice dance rules and regulations have developed to where teams are incentived to ignore as much as possible the fact that the medium is ice. Ice dance has eaten its own tail at this point.

Tessa says:

The impetus for our movement as a pair should be quite similar to that of the ballroom world. But we have just that forward-backward plane of motion with our blades. It’s very tough to transfer ballroom technique onto the ice, to give the illusion of the proper hip motion and position, with the speed and glide of the blade.

I don't know why Tessa bothers. Except that Virtue Moir have to execute proper technique to have a prayer, and other teams do not. Well, the Shibs have to do it too.* If it's not done perfectly, we hear from analysts - who have just cribbed the info from something they've overheard - that the reason the Shibs and/or Virtue and Moir didn't win was flawed execution of a technical detail. Other teams can ignore the whole translate dance into that forward/backward plane of motion bit, and break world records. Other teams win via creating "a special feeling." Virtue and Moir had to perform per archaic technical standards that don't apply to ice dance anymore, that have been stripped from the game.

When Virtue and Moir were not awarded the gold medal they won at the Sochi Olympics in 2014, we heard that they were artists, but Davis White were the technicians. When, via a magical, perfect storm that thwarted political intent, they crushed the field in 2018 Pyeongchang and were allowed to eek out a win, the narrative positioned Papadakis Cizeron as perhaps not the strongest technicians, but divinely gifted artists. Denied acknowledgment of both technical and "artistic" high cards over the course of 8 years, Virtue and Moir are currently positioned as cunning performers who win by hiding careless execution behind a cold, bold, and somehow unfair confidence. They're scary. And kind of cheating. They're practically Russian.

I don't think Virtue and Moir care, though. They have the gold, they won gold, even though it's the only gold medal win I can think of that is both deserved, and sticks in the craw. It's pretty much living in my craw.

You have to figure out how to incorporate the lateral movement and still keep the flow and integrity of the skating,” she said. “We try to give the effect of ballroom, but we often have to get there through very different means.

Well, they have to. Others, no.

Article:

In dance terms, their Moulin Rouge routine had a ballroom base, a lot of balletic movement in the arms and bits that looked more contemporary. It’s the last category – the one least favoured by the conservative standards of their sport – that they most want to expand in their non-competitive ice dancing.

"Bits that looked more contemporary" is one of my favorite ice dance terms.

Those are descriptive generalizations. But, as we all know, ice dance is now whatever you want it to be, as is only proper in an elite Olympic sport. Conservative, it ain't. If the right deals are in place, you can slop it up out there however you want.

P.S. - are we still describing Papadakis & Cizeron as humble flower childy skaters too sensitive for the competitive world who somehow win because they summon magic, but it's all about the feeling for them, or can we jump on ahead to where they actually are - we deserve it all, and any contrary result is inherently unfair?


*Which makes them both better off than a number of other teams who are never going to get on the podium no matter what they do.

Degrees of separation

I've had a few weeks with sporadic access to wifi, and when I've been on the web, my attention has been diverted by this:

WTF with the arm.

Yikes.

Her stylist and BFF is Jessica Mulroney, as if one couldn't tell:

Never been a particular
Royal Family (or Harry) fan
but Mazel Tov to the happy couple.

Jessica Mulroney is married to Ben Mulroney who has interviewed Virtue and Moir at least twice, so there's that.

I know instagram posing has bled into video. All that matters is the 2D shot,so the walk is really a pose. Ivanka Trump is the avatar of this trend. This, though, is a whole new level.

I can't decide if HRH really believes he's engaged to a Michelle Obama/Emma Watson hybrid, or is just marketing it like that. All I know is the posing, duckface and Mulroney-fication of her wardrobe has intensified since the engagement announcement, when one would have anticipated that sort of thing would be on the wane. And the astro-turfing is beyond belief.

Ok, that's off my chest.

 *******

I did a drive by to the skating forums and I just can't with the debate between P/C and V/M again focused on non-skating issues and complete skating ignorance. It's predictable but each time it grates. I can't with the oh so surprising latent sour grape-iness in Papadakis and Cizeron becoming manifest. These two wouldn't be in the top ten without the deal making favor swapping bullshit of the past eight years, but they've already developed an enormous sense of entitlement. It still kills me watching Virtue and Moir's absolutely brilliant, knife's edge skate at Pyeongchang while P/C assed their way through, and Virtue Moir barely barely eeked out a win.

I really wish Virtue and Moir would pull the plug already but maybe they think they can milk a few more drops out of will they or won't they. I hope no atom of them is contemplating remaining in the sport. Just let P/C be the 7-8 time in a row World Champions and 2022 Olympic Champions and see how the sport thrives. To tie in the British Royal Family, everybody wonders if the Monarchy will survive after Elizabeth II, and I'm wondering how figure skating is going to sustain any type of interest in ice dance when Virtue and Moir disappear from the competitive scene. P/C have a devoted internet fandom, and figure skating wouldn't be the first organization to confuse internet fanaticism that with actual popularity and the ability to draw a crowd (Virtue and Moir have it all).

Worlds

As an FYI, I am in the middle of (trying to) travel, and I don't know what the internet situation will be when I arrive at my destination, although it's supposed to have WiFi. But it's also a very outdoorsy trip. I'll be away from my reliable internet, IOW, during most of Worlds.

Here's a placeholder:

10th place. Sheesh. No matter what my attitude has been, they're better than that.

Notable head styling on Marinaro. A little Evan Bates-ey.

I see Virtue Moir are still being cagey re their status AND have yet to go one way or the other about retirement.

We know how ice dance will play out, goldwise at Worlds. Enjoy it, P/C.

Kostner ahead of Zagitova? I need to check that out.

P.S. - re MTM 2, noticing the streamlined presentation. Wish they (and MTM V.1) had gone that way from the first.

You be the judge

canadablue's clear, bite-sized, apples to apples PC versus VM comparisons

Someone should retweet to @LynnRutherford. It's a safe bet Rutherford would respond that canadablue is partisan, which is why someone should ask Lynn if she thinks the actual skating on evidence is partisan. I doubt she'd be able to say. We all know you need to be a super expert to discern these things.

Me, I love the butt jut call outs on Cizeron. Tired of Gabriella getting saddled with the role of the skater dragging down the team. No fan of her, but he's nowhere near top drawer. He's ragged. Show me a case of his sublime edgework, stroking, and beautiful, un-enabled glide. Just show me.

In the comments section of the preceding post, there was some discussion of 2002 Worlds and what a brouhaha ensued when the Israeli team beat the Lithunanians to the bronze.

Setting aside that outrage in figure skating is always super selective and ultra hypocritical, here is the Lithuanian free dance.




Here are the Israelis:




Who can tell? The Lithunanian program is exactly like most of the programs skated by most teams from 1999-2002, or it feels that way. It's bravura in style, with a lot of hair work by the woman, but how much skating is going on? He's on two feet much of the time, on a flat a lot of the time, and mostly uses his edges for stroking, working up the momentum for his next bout of flinging her around.

I'm not saying the Israeli skate deserved to finish ahead of the Lithuanians, but it's one of those cases where, if it WAS rigged, I can't get bent out of shape. Chait is unsteady at least once during her skate, but she's not being dragged and flung around as much as Drobiazko. In fact, they do more skating than the Lithuanians, more non-stroking skating. Assessing skating bona fides amidst the flinging and running, rotating and sliding, posing and presenting by Drobiazko Povilas is challenging. There's less gratuitous non-skating with Chait Sakhnovski, but yes, I'm left with the impression that if I sent the two teams stroking around the ice, the Lithuanians would be stronger. But with the content being what it is, how can all of those who protested the outcome assess who deserved to win. The good skaters who didn't do a whole lot of skating, or the lesser skaters who skated quite a bit, at least comparitively?

The Israelis probably are a cut or so below as far as skill level, but to balance that out, I prefer their costumes (the black and white is really refreshing for that era) and their skate-y (for 2002) program. And they're pretty.

Speaking of pretty:



And the team I understand is ice dance's latest wunderkinder:



We can see the difference, right? Anyone can. Yet among the internet fandom I believe Saucise Firus are gearing up for a PC-esque cult.

Is "ironic" the word for the prevalence of figure skating/ice dance fans who are bored to death by both skating and dance and prefer as little as possible in their ice dance programs? Whatever, they're in luck - the ice dance world agrees with them.

Skating. So nice to see in a skating program.
Please please don't let them
be Paul Islam'd. Somebody give them a
Fix You.

ETA - as I've done a lot, I again googled "lyrical contemporary, origins of" because, as our academic in the comments below surely realizes, "Modern" is relative. In certain historical contexts, it can mean a mere thousand years ago. In other contexts, "modern" can mean my Fitbit.

Same same same

Here's a chat from Chock Bates:

Chock Bates chat

They describe two of the requirements in ice dance (other than, you know, skating skills):

"You must have a beat, in both programs, that is one of the many rules."

So when it comes to Papadakis Cizeron, is the rule that the music have a beat, and it doesn't matter if they, the skaters, do?

And

"You have to have a change of rhythm, change of mood."

Okey doke. Obviously, an exception has been made for PC, this record-scoring free dance team.

My favorite comment:

"Picking music is definitely the most challenging process. You want to pick something that will stand out, and be different. Also, be different for you. You don't want to keep doing the same style of dance every year." Setting aside that Chock Bates themselves only really changed it up this year, Davis White and Papadakis Cizeron beg to differ.

 Let's look at 2014:



Of note, the supposedly sublime Cizeron wobbles like a son of a bitch when he attempts any type of one-foot when lifting Papadakis. Even on a flat. Oh I know, he is the god of skating skills, as long as he's on a flat. And even then it's iffy.

Notice how much skating is in this 2014 program. It's a lot of skating. They both keep their blades on the ice for extended periods of time, criss-crossing that rink. They finished in 13th place. There's a reason.

Been reading in the previous post's comment section that PC fans point to this program as evidence they can be versatile. Come on people, get a grip. The reason they don't DO programs such as this anymore is they don't want to end up in 13th place, or, more to the point, have skating fans think they should. Skating fans don't notice when a team two-foots throughout a program, does things one at a time, doesn't sustain, and performs dumbed down elements. As long as it looks smooth. Skating fans do notice when things are awkward and wobbly.

Their skating skills are the same as they were in 2014. Their programs changed, and the rules altered to help them out, so as not to expose them. They're fake.

Finally, my favorite program from when Virtue and Moir were juniors:


How many podium contending senior teams could do that today