OpEd: Note to A Certain Fandom

This is my blog's first ever foreign submission, as in an article that didn't come from me, the admin! Thanks to the writer for trusting me to print this! Whenever I receive a submission I ask that you share something about yourself. Kari, the writer of this opinion piece, is a fan of many countries but was so enraged by the behavior of the gymnastics community after the European Games that she felt compelled to rush to the defense of the Russian fandom. Her article:

     I'd like to start this article by thanking Our Russian Season founder, Sasha, for giving me the opportunity to write this piece and get this thing off my chest.

     To start with, I've been a gym fan for a few years and when I first came into contact with the online gymnastics community it was much more combative and factious than it is now. I started following early websites like The Couch Gymnast back in 2007, a time when there were so many hate blogs devoted to any gymnasts you didn’t happen to like, and stan wars were intense with the real rise of USA and CHN upsetting the declining nations, RUS and ROU. I guess you can say the 2004-08 quad was when The Big Four solidified completely, and boy was that a rough period. It's a testament to the overall growth and maturity of the gymternet, that hate blogs and the like don't last long and are pretty nonexistent now.  

     Still, there are moments when the gymternet becomes such a hostile place that it takes me back to those early days before the Twitter and Tumblr part of the gymternet had sufficiently developed. There are gymnasts who, through no measure of their own fault, inspire people to such intensity that any narrative surrounding them always becomes sour.

Such a gymnast is Aliya Mustafina.

     She has an aura of untouchability about her that stems from her beauty, her talent, her presence, her fighting spirit, and her medal haul. She is the only current gymnast to have a world or Olympic medal on every apparatus, and through all the years of adversity she has never let doubt talk her into retirement. Any misgivings from her fans, or her own self, about her podium potential is quickly laid to rest when she wins. And yes, she often does that. Wins. Except, at the inaugural European Games in Baku, she grabbed a silver medal in the floor exercise behind Giulia Steingruber, narrowly missing gold by .066. I'm not here to talk about the merits of the medal concerning either girl; I'm here to talk about how the gymnastics community, and Tumblr in particular, reacted when Aliya won silver (or lost gold).

     So we all know the Games has been a fantastic meet for Aliya; she medaled in every final she qualified for and she would've come away from the competition a Golden Girl, if she had snagged that floor title. Her triumph is wrapped up in a larger context surrounding the Russian Artistic program which has resurged to spectacular new heights this year by easily dominating every competition they’ve been in this spring, both MAG and WAG. Complexity has been added to routines across the board, the execution is rising, the depth among Olympic contenders is growing, and consistency is finally emerging. The results are in: Trofeo Internazionale Città di Lugano,Torino 4 Nations, Dityatin Cup, European Championships, and the EuroGames were all won by the Russians in both TF and in many EF's. For Russian fans, it's a great time to be witness to these victories, after a VERY disappointing 2013-14. So yes, some people were upset that Aliya didn’t win and especially so after it emerged she may have been erroneously downgraded (though ultimately this is still Aliya's fault because she suspected as much but didn't put in an official inquiry).   

     What amuses me most is that every time the Russian program is at a high point a group of people always find a way to belittle their progress even when the results are clear indicators of success. If Russians want to "overreact" about the technicality of a call that may have lost Aliya a gold medal, who cares? Apparently, everyone who is not a Russian fan. I felt the RUS fandom was very respectful when raising the question of why Aliya's d-score was downgraded and if one or both of Steingruber's feet were OOB, but I saw immediately that many responded to these general inquiries with impatience and wariness, even anger, as if this was the first time in history the gymternet ever discussed controversial judging.

     But what really made me angrier than anything else was a popular Tumblr post that went around showing an edited Wikipedia article for Aliya. "Bitter Aliya stans be like-" was the beginning of the post before showing her biography that had recently been edited by a fan to include the Baku Games- with the inclusion of their opinion that Aliya was robbed on floor. And do you know what people, who I thought I admired, did? They mocked the fact that the person could not speak English completely fluently. That bio has since been erased and re-edited but it was clear to everyone that the person who had initially edited Aliya's bio was NOT A NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKER. Another tumblr post, since deleted, said Aliya stans should spend their time learning grammar instead of being angry. 

The offending tumblr post. These pictures were included with

the article and were not chosen by the admin of the blog

     How pathetic do you have to be to mock a foreign language speaker? Or the better question is' how arrogant do you have to be?' If you think that belittling their opinion just because they are not grammatically correct is cool, you have no respect. And you should. Here's why:

     Half of the gymternet are international fans who VOLUNTEER to speak in English so that we native English speakers can have more people to talk to about the sport we all love. These people work so hard translating interviews FOR US. They upload gym news feed from international sports channels and add subtitles to them FOR US. They tirelessly answer our questions about their country's gymnasts, when they know inside information, FOR US. They go to the international meets and take videos of gymnasts we request to see and they upload them quickly FOR US. They live chat meets we ourselves cannot attend, and when they can't attend in person they somehow piece together various fragmented sources to find scores, FOR US. They scout non-English message boards and social media looking for rumors and updates on gymnasts FOR US. They deliver, in person, our gifts to gymnasts we love, FOR US. They make lists detailing real versus fake gymnasts' social media accounts FOR US. They greet American gymnasts at the airport with flowers and placards when USA goes on international assignments. They try to explain their country's societal norms so that we can better understand its sporting culture. And then we hurt their feelings by laughing at them because they don't speak English perfectly?

     If you think that I'm just being too sensitive know that I've seen how some of the members of the international community responded through various social media about this, and people were upset. And they have every right to be because at the heart of the matter, we are laughing at someone who was so distressed that they could not coherently put together words from a language they were not born speaking nor mastered. Who even cares if they were dramatic by editing Wikipedia? It's Wikipedia, world's most convenient distrusted source of information, not the Britannica Encyclopedia!

     Anytime Russian fans get excited about something, they're told doomsday scenarios about why it won't last. Anytime Russian fans are upset about something they're told they're overreacting. And anytime Russian fans try to create a neutral narrative to talk about this disparity, they're told they're being ridiculous and that's basically the end of any conversation. This is the unfairness of the gymternet: the largest and most dominant group, the USA fandom, get to blabber on about all their prospects and talk FOREVER about who was robbed of a chance to compete in a final that some other American [or two] medaled in anyways. And many Russian fans may not ever say it, but a great deal of them are international (though not necessarily Russian) and they sometimes feel like the gymternet doesn't have a totally inclusive platform for other fandom's to share excitement or distress without being belittled in the process. (And yes this was entirely caused by USAG stans from English speaking nations (USA, GBR, IRE, AU, CAN, NZL) because while USAG does have an extremely large international fan base, it's ridiculous to assume that a USA stan who speaks English as a secondary or tertiary language would ever mock someone else for that. So this was just Anglo-privilege rearing its ugly head).

     To the people who wrote those horrible things about a fellow member of the gymternet, you are arrogant. To the people who 'liked' or reblogged that post after you saw those comments, you should be ashamed of your part in this. To the international gymnastics community, ya'll are awesome! You are one of the most enriching parts of the gymternet and everything you do to make the gymternet a knowledgeable, fun place is greatly appreciated.

     If the USA fandom doesn't want to hear about a topic being discussed among another fandom then it's preferable to stay out of it instead of dictating when a conversation ends just because, as they proclaim, they're over it. Telling fans to get over it is exactly the opposite of why the gymternet exists, and isn't how they would want to be treated when they bring up injustices they presume have been hoisted on American gymnasts. In fact, when fans first heard news that an Uzbekistan gymnast had supposedly completed the double memmel (or triple Y turn) at 2014 World's, many were stunned and angry because suddenly it wouldn’t be named after Aliya, who had been competing the skill on and off since first debuting it in training in 2011. Then, as now, backlash from the USAG fandom immediately turned to how selfish Russian stans were because they were only sad for Aliya even though no one said anything bad about the other gymnast, and it is not criminal to feel more sympathy for the gymnast belonging to the nation you favor. There were several insightful comments that explained why poor coaching, bad stamina, and ever-changing routines were at the heart of why Aliya couldn't get the skill named after her sooner; she had submitted it the year before but didn’t have the endurance to complete the turns along with difficult acrobatic elements. This kind of commentary was cut short because certain influential blogs felt that Aliya's fans were always making a big deal about everything concerning her and through no other means than stating that Aliya stans are 'the worst' and 'obsessed,' any further conversation on her failed eponymous skill was finished.

     It's worth recalling that during this same time, Hong Un-Jong submitted the triple yurchenko for review and everyone who supported preferring to have it named after Mckayla Maroney was allowed to wallow in premature despair because they felt she was the fitter gymnast deserving of doing the vault first. So many Russian fans agree that the vault should be 'the Maroney': she's cleaner, more dynamic, has been training it longer, and said she hoped to have it named after her. Even if RUS stans don't like Maroney, they could empathize with why it would be unsettling, after such a long buildup, to see it named after someone else who would probably chuck the skill and hope for a half decent landing. It would've been nice if the same courtesy had been returned to Russian fans concerning Mustafina's now eponymous FX skill, because at that time it was just one more disappointing facet in a very depressing period for Russian WAG. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised by the hypocrisy though; the gymternet is US-centric both in how it attempts to rationalize and criticize things (e.g. the response to the FIG 2020 reforms).

     At the end of the day, I just try to remember why I sought out the gymternet in the first place: because I love gymnastics and I love the gymnasts. None of this is their fault; no American or Russian gymnast is to blame when things like this happen. If it reads like I'm being unfair to the USA camp, maybe I am, but when giving examples it was kinda important to stroke the brush wide. I'm not a fan of solely one nation but I think regardless of who you favor, every group ought to feel like as long they're being respectful, they can express their emotions, frivolous or not, without incurring the wrath or disdain of another group. And please, no more making fun of foreign language speakers about their English. 

This blog does not belong to me but to you, Russian fans, who have various educated opinions on a range of topics, both on and off Russian gymnastics, and I'm giving you a judge-free zone to tell it. I accept and post all submissions no matter how controversial the topic; I simply ask you to allow me the power of grammatical edits to your piece and for you to write, minimum, one paragraph. All submissions are anonymous or you can assume a name of your choosing to be published along with your work. If you have an opinion, grievance, or exaltation you've been dying to get off your chest, submit your piece to sashbib@gmail.com.