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PaperclipPerfector  22hr ago (text post)   3885 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026

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The Winter Olympics is happening right now. Is it just me, or do the Olympics feel like they are far less culturally relevant than they used to be?

When were they culturally relevant?

I mean it might be different if you live in Canada. But I can't remember anyone caring very much about the winter olympics. Summer, yeah.

I think there used to be some level of cultural relevance for female figure skating and Ice Hockey.

The 1980 Miracle On Ice was a huge deal. My Dad can tell you what he had for breakfast that day and the day Kennedy was shot in 1963. It's that level of "seared into memory."

Figure skating, aside from the whole Tanya Harding nonsense, has been important because it holds female emotional valence and America wants to ensure that our ice dancing barbie dolls are the best ice dancing barbie dolls on earth.

I think both of these have declined in recent years because America fundamentally won hockey by having the NHL. When Aleksander Ovechkin, arguably the GOAT or Vice Goat after Gretzky, plays 20+ years in Washington and not Moscow, the jig is up. The "pro" leagues in Sweden, Finland, Czechia are all just AAAA farm leagues for the NHL.

For figuring skating, the Chinese got really fucking good and our own skaters turned, literally, fake and gay. I think the last superstar was Tara Lapinski? Or maybe that Sasha girl from like 2004 or so.

USA seems to be doing quite well at figure skating this year. It helps when you can poach the best figure skaters from USSR and Japan. However, that also diminishes the nationalistic hype of the Olympics... it feels like these are just globalistic sports dynasty families, spending their whole lives travelling around the world, not attached to any country in particular.

But also the death of network television, and NBC does a shitty job streaming it on the internet.

Poaching Soviet talent has been a thing forever. The Karolyis defected in 1981. I can see getting bent out of shape about someone like Gu, but Ilia was born in Virginia. Kam and O'Shea are not even in medal contention and were the weakest in the team competition. Kam being the weaker of the two.

Kam was born on 20 December 2004 in Yokota Air Base, Japan, to a Japanese mother, Mako, and an American father, Benjamin. She also has two older brothers, Zane and Kai. At the time of Kam's birth, her father had been stationed in Japan due to his work as an Air Force surgeon. Following his assignment's completion, the family moved to Alaska before eventually settling in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Sounds American to me. Born on a military base, grew up in the US, not counting early childhood.

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