Skip to main content

Will the real Aliya Mustafina please step forward?

Not a fake profile ... Aliya's unofficial fanpage has over 50,000 followers

Have you seen the film Spartacus, the bit where the Romans try to get Spartacus to give himself up, but fail because there are so many people who claim to be him?

The gymnastics online community is getting a little bit like that ... I did some counting this morning on Facebook, having come across yet another online profile of a gymnast that claimed to be 'real' yet obviously wasn't :-)

22 online profiles of Aliya Mustafina
29 of Viktoria Komova

Some of these are athlete pages that present news of the gymnast's progress, but many are simply fake identities that make use of personal photographs found elsewhere on the internet to develop whole new narratives of the gymnast's life.  I love my regular Gin O'Clock updates of HRH the Queen's daily life as much as the next person, but these profiles try to pretend to be the real Aliya or Vika, without the embellishment of humour or even a courtesy acknowledgement of the sources used.  I don't think any harm is meant ... but I would feel violated if somebody else grabbed my private pictures and began to pretend they were an online version of me ...

Interestingly, though I thought there might be similar counts for other gymnasts, the vast majority of the 'fakes' seems to be on these two.  Perhaps the English language speaking gymnasts have more opportunity to keep their identities private. I also think that these two - highly professional sports stars - deserve more official help in sensitively policing and promoting their online social media presence.

Comments

  1. It actually surprises me that the RGF hasn't done anything yet (especially after what happened with their ex-official websites last year). They need to have an american style social media approach (sharing a lot, media-trained everything); I understand both girls love their privacy and that's cool. But it's PR, and even if they feel like both of them deserve to be protected and they are not going to manage their official social accounts, they should, at least hire a CM.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Whoops, I meant they DON'T need and american style social media approach.

      Delete
  2. I hope Russians will never adopt American social media approach. To watch American interviews is the most boring and useless thing ever. If you saw one, you saw them all. "it was great, it was fun, blah blah blah "

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well not all of them are fake, the ones that have the name of the gymnast and then the words online were "official" the creator had direct contact with the gymnasts, I know because pavlova has a profile on a certain page, and she and him talked a lot.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I agree completely, but you will find a lot of these so-called fake as friends in other profiles that claim to be real

    ReplyDelete
  5. As the person who started years ago the unofficial Aliya fb page, I must point out that we neeever ever pretended to be her, we even suggested fans not to add the fake Aliyas and despite of the fact that I speak russian, I prefer to leave the real Aliya alone instead of trying to befriend her and try to look oh-so-cool-and-important in the eyes of the gymnastics online community. As a matter of fact, me and Vitor don't want Aliya fans to add us on facebook so we rarely reveal our identity!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I hope the article doesn't read as though I am attacking fan pages some of which of course can be informative and entertaining.

    All I am really saying is that given the number of fake identities on Facebook you would think somebody - most obviously the Federation, but I may be mistaken - would take up some positive PR and identity protection on behalf of these young girls.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Svetlana Boginskaya: I was always a bitch* in gymnastics

Svetlana Boginskaya, 15 years old, with her medals from the Seoul Olympics Nico translates the latest interview with gymnastics legend Svetlana Boginskaya, during a recent visit to her home country of Belarus. Svetlana Boginskaya: I was always a bitch* in gymnastics, so now I ask for forgiveness from everyone who came in contact with me. The National Olympic Committee of Belarus held a press conference with three-time Olympic Champion in artistic gymnastics, Svetlana Boginskaya. The meeting was devoted to the 25th anniversary of the Olympic Games in Seoul. In South Korea the Belarussian won two gold medals in the team competition and vault. As a gift to the Olympic Hall of fame, the famous gymnast, now living in the United States, donated one of her trophies that she won at the 1990 European Championships and a pennant for Best Female Athlete of the USSR in 1989. How happy we were when we could share with such stars as Boginskaya, Scherbo, and Ivankov,...

I am looking forward with inspiration - Melnikova returns to international competition

Angelina Melnikova will be the first Russian WAG to compete internationally since the IOC ban in 2022 when she appears at the World Challenge Cup in Paris on September 13 and 14 this year. Travelling with her will be coach Konstantin Pluzhnikov and judge Elena Redyanova.   Angelina says she will compete AA with a relatively simple programme. I’m glad Angelina is making this start for Russia.  It’s a real tribute to this young woman that she is trusted with the first effort at coming back after such a long time, and I hope people welcome her back warmly.  Angelina will be competing as a neutral athlete, of course.  She was awarded this status after a fair and rigorous process of evaluation by the FIG.   Here is what Angelina said today to Match TV: Olympic champion in artistic gymnastics Angelina Melnikova told Match TV how she reacted to being admitted to the FIG World Challenge Cup tournament in France. ❓What emotions did you experience from the fact that you w...

Mustafina Interview 2 of 2 : 'I will only perform under the Russian flag'

Argumentyi i Fakti interview with Aliya Mustafina Translated by Marina Vulis ‘I have no fear’, says Aliya Mustafina.   ‘My father [Farhat Mustafin, the bronze medallist in Greco-Roman wrestling at the 1976 Olympics] took me to my first gymnastics class.   In his opinion children need to do sports, and he saw gymnastics as useful for my general development.   He had no goals – just to let us practice.’ It did not end with ‘just practice’ – she became the World Champion at 16, but then had an ACL injury the next year (2011) at the Europeans.   Even just returning to gymnastics is a feat; then she came back to win four medals at the 2012 Olympics. Aliya Mustafina – That injury.   I do not know why I was ashamed – so many people were watching me and I could not even walk.   My parents!   They saw everything on TV (the coach had to carry her from the podium).   Of course I was aware that anything could happen in gymnastics, but I di...

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more