Read on Twitter
It was such a joy moderating this fan Q&A with Kurt Browning last weekend. Kurt told great stories, showed us his old costumes, and closed with a beautiful heartfelt thank-you to his fans. BUT (thread)…
…things have taken a weird turn. The video is being brigaded by angry #YuzuruHanyu fans. It’s mostly frustrating, but on some level fascinating as hell.
One participant asked who Kurt’s pick is for men’s gold in Beijing: Yuzu or @nathanwchen. Kurt had positive things to say about both, but picked Nathan.
Cue the vitriolic comments (now disabled) and downvote-bombing — which causes the video to be suppressed by YouTube’s algorithm. Meaning, fewer Kurt fans will see it.
Context: a ton of work went into this event. The organizer spent her own money to upgrade Zoom and buy Facebook ads so people would know about it. She gets nothing back.
Everyone involved was happy to put in the effort, Kurt included, because we wanted to create a happy experience for fans who missed out on seeing him skate this year. That’s all.
As thanks, fragile Yuzu fans are waging war on 72 minutes of positive content because they can’t handle Kurt narrowly favouring another skater. (Which, btw, has 0 impact on the actual outcome of the Olympics. Kurt ain't a judge.)
Here’s where it gets interesting: a year ago the same organizer filmed another Q&A with Kurt, and he paid Yuzu a huge compliment. Kurt said he’d like to see Yuzu recreate his iconic Brick House program, and would “probably nail it.”
Just as popular a video, but when it was a positive sentiment, Yuzu fans were nowhere to be found in the comments. It’s almost like they’d rather tear down others than build up their hero.
I’ve been part of many fandoms, and put some ridiculous effort towards elevating others artists’ creativity. Imagine if instead of writing my Colbert Report book, I spent my time hunting down people who preferred other late night shows?
Choosing this outward negativity is just… such a baffling waste of energy. If Kurt’s wrong, sit back and let Yuzu prove him wrong. Easy.
I’ve heard the new generation of figure skating fandom is “toxic,” but is it just rampant within skating fandom? Is this the general evolution of fandoms overall? Is this a fringe behaviour that’s always existed? So many questions.
I won’t blame this on their age. I think every generation has its share of entitled/dogmatic people, and today’s extreme Yuzu Stans are likely tomorrow’s Karens. Petulant for life.
Point is, any figure skating fans who enjoy fun/positive things should go smash that ol’ “Like” button. And watch the whole video, because the fans’ questions are great and Kurt’s great:
(Also, I’m totally cheering for Nathan now.)
