General Yuzuru Chat

[utsukushii3A]

7 hours ago, ICeleste said:

I can't explain it but it sounds softer in Spanish.

 

That has got to be the most frustrating thing about knowing multiple languages. I wish I could explain how Yuzu says some things in Japanese and just how he sounds overall, but there's just no way to do it 100% accurately (as evidenced by how a kabillion fans of Japanese skaters know the word "kuyashii" despite it being a fairly advanced word!).

[Old Cat Lady]

7 hours ago, Henni147 said:

After quite a long break Fanyus have not forgotten about Laureus. Obviously:

https://mobile.twitter.com/LaureusSport/status/1090555037519171584

 

This tweet is just 4 hours old and it's flooded with comments already. Crazy stuff

 

Incredible! 

World famous superstar Tiger Woods has 1 retweet and 14 likes.

Glamorous Lindsay Vonn has 4 retweets, 53 Likes.

 

The figure skater has 1.1k retweets and 2k likes. 

 

Do I overestimate Woods and Vonn's fame outside the US?  Is this phenomenon because of Yuzu's lack of social media?  I don't understand how Twitter works? (highly probable, don't use social media much). Woods and Vonn must have a lot of dedicated fans themselves and I always thought they were way more famous than Yuzu.

[Frenchkiss70]

7 hours ago, kelly said:

 

I miss him

so much

[Dreamer]

well, there are a lot of Golf Tiger Woods fans for sure but I dont know if they use twitter.

[yuzuonice]

29 minutes ago, Old Cat Lady said:

 

Incredible! 

World famous superstar Tiger Woods has 1 retweet and 14 likes.

Glamorous Lindsay Vonn has 4 retweets, 53 Likes.

 

The figure skater has 1.1k retweets and 2k likes. 

 

Do I overestimate Woods and Vonn's fame outside the US?  Is this phenomenon because of Yuzu's lack of social media?  I don't understand how Twitter works? (highly probable, don't use social media much). Woods and Vonn must have a lot of dedicated fans themselves and I always thought they were way more famous than Yuzu.

My guess is that Golf & Skiing have more casual fans - perhaps fans who don't use twitter either, or at least not to support the sportsmen they cheer for. Meanwhile, Yuzu has fans who are very dedicated, who even have whole accounts dedicated only to him, and bond into communities. Which is what generates likes and RTs and replies.

I'm from Europe, and figure skating isn't very popular in my country -  so I've never heard of Yuzuru or any other skater (other than some occasional Plushenko mentions back in the days) in our news. But Vonn and Woods make the sports segments pretty frequently here. 

[Paskud]

22 minutes ago, Old Cat Lady said:

 

Incredible! 

World famous superstar Tiger Woods has 1 retweet and 14 likes.

Glamorous Lindsay Vonn has 4 retweets, 53 Likes.

 

The figure skater has 1.1k retweets and 2k likes. 

 

Do I overestimate Woods and Vonn's fame outside the US?  Is this phenomenon because of Yuzu's lack of social media?  I don't understand how Twitter works? (highly probable, don't use social media much). Woods and Vonn must have a lot of dedicated fans themselves and I always thought they were way more famous than Yuzu.

Very probably. I heard about Woods only in films from USA (kill me, but I thought he retired already). And Lindsey Vonn is one big . I remember her name from Olympics but nothing more.

[Dreamer]

Lindsey Vonn was also Tiger's GF for a while so that is how my husband knows her name. Tiger fans my husband's age don't use twitter or social media much

Lindsey also has a line of clothing with Under Armour...way too expensive IMO

 

[EisElle]

3 hours ago, Veveco said:

It's... almost painful to see actually. The Yuzu Laureus tweet has 1000+ likes and retweets and the other athletes less the 10. I mean, the other candidates deserve some attention too.

You know, I wanted to reply to that tweet too, but I don't want to overwhelm the Laureus staff too much   and I've left likes to the others too, they all deserve support

still the sentimental wall-text in support of Yuzu is sitting in my folder, I might still decide to overwhelm them a bit more
 

Idk, I have 0 experience in other sport fandoms so maybe following athletes outside of competitions is more of a FS thing? 

maybe it's just people who love a sport and like watching comps but they don't get that emotionally attached to competitors? So they don't feel the need to be updated about everything they do? or they don't feel the need to be vocal about their support? Or they don't care about the award?

I mean, there are athletes among the nominees (also talking about the other awards) who have millions of twitter followers and yet the most liked tweet and the one with more replies is the one with Yuzuru who has...no social media LOL

Or... are we FS fans just more dedicated?

idk, but if I come to "care" about someone it feels natural to try to support them whenever possible, included voting in obscure polls or leaving likes under Olympic channel vids and so on true, with Yuzuru maybe everything is intensified because there is no official account and we can't just tweet Yuzuru: "hey, congrats for the nominee!" so we scream that to Laureus instead

 

Are we too intense?

 

 

anyway hopefully the voting panel will choose in good faith regardless of appeal of the sport, nationality (or passionate fanbases), and really, reading those stories I'd be so torn if I had to chose one of them.

but well, Yuzuru is the one I have followed through injury and comeback and I'm following again through injury waiting for comeback so of course if he could win I'll be happier

[caterpillar]

46 minutes ago, Old Cat Lady said:

 

Incredible! 

World famous superstar Tiger Woods has 1 retweet and 14 likes.

Glamorous Lindsay Vonn has 4 retweets, 53 Likes.

 

The figure skater has 1.1k retweets and 2k likes. 

 

Do I overestimate Woods and Vonn's fame outside the US?  Is this phenomenon because of Yuzu's lack of social media?  I don't understand how Twitter works? (highly probable, don't use social media much). Woods and Vonn must have a lot of dedicated fans themselves and I always thought they were way more famous than Yuzu.

 

I might be completely wrong about this, because I am not generally one to follow sports, but I have actually thought a bit about this lately, and I think part of it is due to the way figure skating differs from other sports. 

 

I think that while Yuzu is definitely an athlete in every sense of the word, figure skating is quite unique in the way it blends art and sport. Anyone who has ever experienced the suspense of a figure skating competition can attest to the sport aspect of it, the competition, and that aspect is probably true for all sports. On the other hand I don't think fans of most sports tend to discuss the details of the athlete's outfits the same way, of the aesthetics of their movements or their musicality and "artistry". And why would they? That's irrelevant to most sports, while in figure skating, it is often considered incredibly important. In this sense, figure skating fans share a lot of similarities with fans of musicians, maybe in particular with k-pop fandoms. And figure skating IS an art, in a way that golf just isn't, which is made very clear with the gala after most bigger events, and also all the ice shows held around the world. So it makes sense that people would follow it in a slightly different way.

 

I also think it has to do with figure skating being a much smaller sport. Bigger, more accessible sports are easy to be causually interested in, but figure skating is obscure enough that to actually get into the sport in the first place you have to be quite dedicated. It is also easy to find fellow football or tennis fans in your everyday life, but with a niche sport like figure skating you are quite likely to be alone in your interest, and subsequently many people find fellow fans online instead, which gives the sport an active online "presence" despite its limited popularity. 

 

I'm really just speculating, but those are some aspects I have considered.

[Dreamer]

I think Fanyus are so 'intense' because we have grown to love and admire Yuzuru the person, not just the athlete.

He truly seems to represent the best of his generation and what 'grandma/grandpa, auntie/uncle, brother/sister or buddy could resist that ?

[Sombreuil]

The online presence of fans is probably a big factor- if it weren’t for this place I would have nowhere to talk about FS - and if it weren’t for FS I would never have had an online presence.   It’s a bit the same with gymnastics - no one I know is interested in it in general, and if they notice it at the Olympics etc it’s usually the women although the UK men have become a force in the last 10 years.    Whereas tennis, golf, football etc lots of people play themselves and follow the pros, support a team, they go in skiing holidays and they have plenty of people to talk to about it.  FS doesn’t get televised in the same way, so there isn’t much access - you have to go looking for it.  So the fans there are, are on social media and get excited if it gets some recognition in the general sporting world.

[ICeleste]

hace 36 minutos , LadyLou said:

Idk, I have 0 experience in other sport fandoms so maybe following athletes outside of competitions is more of a FS thing? 

maybe it's just people who love a sport and like watching comps but they don't get that emotionally attached to competitors? So they don't feel the need to be updated about everything they do? or they don't feel the need to be vocal about their support? Or they don't care about the award?

Are we too intense?

I don't know about other sports but trust me, as an Argentinian I can definitely confirm that skating fans are not even 1% as intense as football fans... Here there are people naming their kids "Messi" and Maradona is one of the biggest idols even now (football fans call him God), his private life is all over the news 24/7. 

I've never heard of these Laureus awards before so my guess is that it has to do with the awards not being as well-known or important to other fandoms.

@caterpillar you hit the nail on the head with you last paragraph. I've never met a casual figure skating fan (or a casual fan of any niche sport), however whenever there is a football event here everyone can discuss it with their family, friends, coworkers, etc so they don't feel the need to sign up on an online forum to talk about it.

[ruruzest]

[micaelis]

2 hours ago, caterpillar said:

I might be completely wrong about this, because I am not generally one to follow sports, but I have actually thought a bit about this lately, and I think part of it is due to the way figure skating differs from other sports. 

 

I think that while Yuzu is definitely an athlete in every sense of the word, figure skating is quite unique in the way it blends art and sport. Anyone who has ever experienced the suspense of a figure skating competition can attest to the sport aspect of it, the competition, and that aspect is probably true for all sports. On the other hand I don't think fans of most sports tend to discuss the details of the athlete's outfits the same way, of the aesthetics of their movements or their musicality and "artistry". And why would they? That's irrelevant to most sports, while in figure skating, it is often considered incredibly important. In this sense, figure skating fans share a lot of similarities with fans of musicians, maybe in particular with k-pop fandoms. And figure skating IS an art, in a way that golf just isn't, which is made very clear with the gala after most bigger events, and also all the ice shows held around the world. So it makes sense that people would follow it in a slightly different way.

 

I also think it has to do with figure skating being a much smaller sport. Bigger, more accessible sports are easy to be causually interested in, but figure skating is obscure enough that to actually get into the sport in the first place you have to be quite dedicated. It is also easy to find fellow football or tennis fans in your everyday life, but with a niche sport like figure skating you are quite likely to be alone in your interest, and subsequently many people find fellow fans online instead, which gives the sport an active online "presence" despite its limited popularity. 

Fundamentally I agree with you but I think you haven't taken your comparison of figure-skating with other activities.  You err, I think, in comparing figure skating to certain types of popular musicians.  There is some legitimacy in your statement but if I were making the case, I'd say that figure skating more closely resembles ballet, particularly in the sense that ballet, like figure skating, has a vocabulary of standard moves.  What many people don't know is that there are ballet competitions and the approach of the judges in those is very much like the approach figure skating judges do.  In ballet competitions it is very much a mix of athletics and aesthetics and make no mistake about it, a trained ballet dancer, male or female, is a trained athlete.  Ballet competitions, though, have even less of a following than figure skating has.  But the principles in both are the same.  The one difference is that ballet in performance is much more widespread than the figure-skating version - ice shows.  Moreover by and large ballet dancers at the top of the pecking order generally occupy a social position appreciably higher than an elite figure skater, part of this being that particularly with the well-established ballet companies there are direct links between the elite dancers and the public, particularly those wealthy donors who keep many companies financially afloat.

 

One thing that was hinted in the post I'm discussing was that the really popular sports are generally team sports and fans' energies tend to be fixated on the teams as a whole, although individual players are singled out by fans but even then the fans generally see those individuals as part of the team they are supporting.  Should the player change teams the following generated in his first team tends to lose interest as he picks up support from fans of the new team.

 

I will say something about Yuzu fandom, however, and it is a phenomenon that fascinates me almost as much as Yuzu himself fascinates me, and that in my several decades of life I have never encountered fans as focused and passionate as Yuzu's fans are.  The most visible aspect is the inevitable avalanche of Pooh bears that follows every Yuzu skate.  That is totally unique and I have never encountered anything similar in any sport.  Another element is that so many fans, and not just the Japanese ones, follow Yuzuru from one competition city to another.  As one commentator said of him, "Everywhere he goes it's a hometown crowd."  

 

One final observation about the coming Laureus awards, I think both Tiger Wood and Lindsey Vonn are probably out of the picture as both have received Laureus awards in the past, though not in this category.  Another is that Yuzu's life includes one element that raises his struggles to another level, and that is the earthquake.  The image of him struggling to leave the ice rink and get outside while still wearing his skates is one that is especially dramatic and the fact that he has devoted so much of his time and money over the years to help others get past their experience of the quake elevates him to a higher position.  I am personally of the opinion that his People's Honor Award was as much a recognition of his charitable deeds as his Olympic triumphs.

 

All in all I think the odds are probably 50/50 of Yuzu receiving the award.  If he doesn't it's no great loss for him.  He didn't volunteer himself to be a candidate, unlike his entry into a skating competition, so while he can appreciate the honor he won't lose any sleep if he doesn't receive it. 

[Maleko]

Hace 12 horas, Henni147 said:

After quite a long break Fanyus have not forgotten about Laureus. Obviously:

https://mobile.twitter.com/LaureusSport/status/1090555037519171584

 

This tweet is just 4 hours old and it's flooded with comments already. Crazy stuff

 

Done, retweet and  to Yuzu and  for everyone else.