I want to talk for a second about bullying and how it affects the lens through which you view criticism later in life. You know what this means! Here comes another long thread

I think a lot of us on stan twitter were bullied as kids (and some on stan twitter *are* kids, and may still be bullied). Being severely bullied colors how you view so many things, and it is absolutely relevant here in multiple ways.

First, a brief primer on my personal experience — I was bullied *severely* as a child. The school got involved, but was not helpful; I was mostly blamed for my own harassment. I was a scrawny nerd, and not one of the pretty girls.

I got harassed constantly for my appearance and my academic interests. I’m not going to go into details, but it happened between ages 4 to 13, and ages 10 to 13 were by far the most brutal. It led to a lot of lasting trauma, and some of it is still with me to this day.

Moving back on topic, I want to discuss something I’ve noticed about how bullying affects FS twt, and no, I’m actually not going to talk about the pervasive bullying problem here. That’s another discussion for another day. I don’t want this thread to be even longer.

I’m talking about the fact that, if you’ve been bullied severely, you can become extra sensitive to criticism. So sensitive, in fact, that harsh *but fair* criticism of yourself and even others is automatically seen through a lens of bullying.

Look, I don’t need to tell you that people here can get self-righteous, defensive, and mean. People here harass and bully each other. We’ve seen it happen time and time again, and it’s *wrong.*

Some people here, even people I’m incredibly fond of, need to learn how to disagree with someone else without dunking on them. There are times when dunking is appropriate, but most of the time, it’s not. It’s important not to mix them up.

That said, harsh criticism is not always unfair or inherently bullying. Some things deserve harsh criticism: racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, abuse apologia, etc.

You see that last one? Yeah, I’m going to talk about yesterday.

[From here on out, CW — sexual abuse of a minor]

If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume you know the context here: M**gan C***** is being investigated for sex crimes. Plural. Not all the info is public, but it has been vetted.

I am not a court of law, so I don’t have to wait for the French Fed to act or for Florida to return a guilty criminal verdict: in my opinion, which is backed by knowledge, he has done what he is accused of and more. If you are still unsure, there are things you don’t know.

Another thing that I believe, backed by evidence — JZ and SF actively covered up MC’s actions. They are not innocent in this. Again, if you have not come to the same conclusion, if you think they are “the sweetest people,” then there are facts that you do not know.

Now, I don’t expect skaters to publicly condemn coaches, whether their own or others. That’s simply not feasible given the institutional pressure here. If coaches as predatory as M*****v and S*******d can continue to operate without ISU condemnation, then pretty much anyone can.

However, a skater — not a predator himself AFAIK, and actually, one whose skating I absolutely adore — did not exactly cover himself in glory yesterday. He could have stayed quiet, but instead, he got upset when his coaches were (rightly) criticized for covering up abuse.