Skaters and the Message Boards

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

In Hollywood there are the tabloids, and in figure skating there are the message boards. Filled with fans, gossip, and critiques, these sites are the “Holy Grail” of skating news. Their posters hold nothing back. Some are kind. Others use these boards as a means to vent their frustrations for skaters they feel haven’t lived up to their expectations. And there are a few who use the anonymity of the internet to spread gossip like a wildfire and knock down skaters unfairly at any chance they get.

The online skating community began right before the new millennium and has only flourished since then–with the biggest skating message board Figure Skating Universe achieving much of the online traffic. You would be hard-pressed to find a skater who hasn’t heard of FSU (whether they would or would not openly admit it), and it would be equally as difficult to find a skater who hasn’t perused the site and doesn’t actively visit it on a regular basis.

When I first started skating and the internet was beginning to grow, I remember all I wanted was to become one of the skaters fans would discuss on these message boards. Once my name started to appear on these sites, though, I was less than thrilled with what certain fans were saying. And the more “known” I become in the skating world, the more negative feedback I would read.

I started noticing some posters on these sites would pick apart everything and anything–from a skater’s lutz, to their hair color, to who they were or were not “supposedly” dating. Sure it was fun reading this stuff when it was about one of my competitors, but when time and time again strangers would continually break apart the weakness in my skating and appearance (I was once said to look like a starving Auschwitz survivor.), I realized it would be best for me not to read any of the threads about myself. Still, the allure of strangers commentating on various parts of my life proved too enticing at times, and I found myself back on FSU reading about whether or not my technique had improved under a new coach or if my costumes and hair got the thumbs up from skating fans.

For a long time I thought that I was the minority and other skaters hadn’t heard of this vast online community of skating fans–or maybe they just weren’t as self-involved as me and didn’t care what a group of strangers thought about their lives. Over time, though, I found out that this was not the case. I learned almost every high-level skater read these sites and were equally as interested in what fans were saying about them. It also appeared there was, for some, a sense of shame or embarrassment attached to caring so much about what was being written about them.

One world-level skater told me that reading Figure Skating Universe was their “guilty pleasure,” and another once whipped out his blackberry and searched to see if anyone was talking about him one morning while we were out to breakfast. I was shocked and told him to put his phone away and focus on his coffee.

So with the vast majority of skaters reading these sites, the question arises: How beneficial is reading what these fans have to say for a skater? Probably not very. At times some posters can get downright mean, and a few times I’ve even read some write that they hoped whichever skater they were bashing wasn’t reading what they had to say. My bet? They probably were.

Since quitting skating I feel much more comfortable browsing these sites. Now that I’m not in fear of someone critiquing me (Although in today‘s world critiques are impossible to escape.), I can appreciate the positive attributes to these skating message boards. They are a great way to stay up-to-date with what’s going on in the skating world, and many of the site’s members are quite funny and have some really intelligent things to say about the sport and the skaters involved. However, earlier this week I got a little bit nervous when I saw a thread a few pages deep about this blog, and I realized the best decision would be to forgo opening it and continue reading about some other skater.

In addition to the posters who are harsh but fair, there are some members who use these sites as a means to start gossip about a skater and get overtly critical of things not pertaining to their on-ice abilities. Although I hope the online skating community only continues to grow, I also hope that some posters think about the relativity of what they are posting. Critiquing a skater’s performance is one thing, but critiquing their relationships off the ice and attacking their character is another. Remember: these skaters are real people who work hard to ultimately please fans like you. I applaud the members on these sites who are able to critically analyze a skater’s performance and refrain from personally attacking them.

On the flip side of that, as a skater who did get trapped in the monitoring of these sites for the slightest blurb about him or herself, I would suggest skaters stay clear of places like Figure Skating Universe. Although it’s human nature to want to know what others may think of you, leave the critiquing to your coaches and the judges. Hearing the fans’ voices can be a great thing, but ultimately you have to know what you’re getting into when you go to these sites and how affected you may become by some posters’ negative comments.