Why do you have to be one or the other? Just appreciate the good bits of both.

I still haven't really seen evidence of this "catty, personal abuse" the OP wrote of. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to see evidence of it - I think anything personal is bang out of order whoever it's aimed at. I too have seen anti-Ricky threads and they're not pleasant either but it's not really a 14 week hate campaign.

Can I just take this opportunity to say how much I detest the rolleyes smiley? If ever a little icon said, "Your post is irritating and stupid and I can barely be bothered replying to it" this little beauty does. I think rolling your eyes at someone in real life is the height of ignorance and it's no better on a forum.

Nobody else will care about that - I just wanted to get it off my chest.

OH Thank you Thank you thank you .The rolleyes smiley is simply awfull and I hate it too

Oh - I agree tabitha...though when I first joined I thought it meant 'thinking' not rolling eyes!
Though I find it incredibly funny when people get on their high horse about other FMs being rude and out come the rolling eyes and yawning in the same post!
Oh the irony.

OP : Drama queen extraordinaire! It was never a hate campaign. It was a campaign for Ricky to be what he was capable of - bringing persoanlity to the dancefloor as well as technical moves. He did that last weekend and people started voting for him. Nothing backfired - he produced what the public wanted and they reciprocated and voted for him.

I like Chris but if Ricky produces this week dances of last weeks quality I will be upset if he doesn't win.

If it weren't for Chris I don't think we would have seen Ricky at his best - he needed that nip at his heels to do it. I had hope Ali would come alive in the same way for the same reason, but she didn't.

A campaign for Ricky to be what he was capable of? Oh please tell me you're joking there?

Perhaps you haven't followed the forum as closely as I have, the live show/ITT discussion threads are particularly gruesome regarding remarks about Ricky - it seemed to me that at times him simply existing was enough to produce some very unpleasant and personal "remarks".

Perhaps I haven't. Every year there are some suspect posters who leave nasty posts but it's not a general vibe and is usually across a lot of better and the worst celebs.

I assume you are a Ricky fan. I think he stands a good chance against Chris. I didn;t before last Saturday but I do now. I think he improved at a perfect point - he just has to continue it and pick up Ali's votes plus a few from those who only vote in the final.

I couldn't understand the abuse. I didn't see that Ricky or Natalie did anything wrong, they are a great couple.

All the contestants get a hard time on the forum at some point.

We tend to notice when it happens to our favourites more, but in a year when I've supported half a dozen couples I realise the negativity is directed at everyone.

It was ever thus

I have been posting here since series 4 and it has always been a feature of these boards that some , only some , posters delight in making rude remarks .Some of those can be very personal and vicious .
Ricky has faired far better than Karen Hardy for instance or Letitia Dean , even much better than Natalie Cassidy.

I only read the OP quickly and I just thought of all the nasty comments made about Chris. Ricky hasn't come in for a lot of mud-slinging. But I suppose it's all subjective.

Why don't we just state what we like about our chosen ones without feeling the need to enumerate the vices of the other couple? Because they're just yer average geezers really. They don't deserve a full MP's expenses-type hue and cry.

I live in England and where I live "away with the fairies" means crazy not asleep in our neck of the woods.

I have avoided this forum alot this year. I used to love it but this year it seems to have gone down the road of X Factor and BB not praising your favourite couples but trying to destroy the reputations of others.

just a thought: Maybe what has happened is that the people who didn't like Ricky but didn't post the hate/anti threads that have littered the board since day one just didn't care to read them as they were about someone who didn't interest them so you wouldn't have know the terrible things some people were saying.

Either that or people who didn't like Ricky/Natalie felt justified in what they were saying on the anti Ricky boards and don't feel what they said was that bad.

I also wonder, there have only been a small amount of Ricky fans out on the boards since the early week, so there were minimal numbers with the cnfidence to defend him against the large amount of Anti Ricky threads whereas Chris has had so much support on here that if someone dared say anything against him, they were immediately shouted down by the Cola Massive.

I've not read all the anti Chris threads because they are repetative and don't contribute anything decent to the discussion on here. However, what I've read doesn't seem that bad, certainly no worse than what has been said about a lot of celebs.

What's taken me ages on here is to develop a thick skin. Us WWW's have also been subject to mocking and disdain for having the gall to support Ricky and that has been difficult to deal with. I suggest Cola fans do the same, it just isn't worth getting angry on here so late in the game.

If he wins, yes. At the moment, it might be too late to matter

Totally agree, and it's such a shame that people like yourself are made to feel that way.


Great post DrB.

In the early weeks this forum was not the most comfortable place to be if you supported Ricky. It seemed that he was one who galvanised the supporters of other dancers. It didn't matter who you supported as long as it wasn't Ricky.

Every series there's one or two dancers who are singled out (for whatever reason) and this year it was Ricky. Mind you it's still not as bad as the BB forums in flow but, at times it was getting close.

Maybe you personally haven't been hateful regarding Ricky but I have seen some posts that have left me flabbergasted. I remember remarking to my colleagues about some of them. We came to the conclusion that people have no genuine reason to hate this guy; it’s just that they felt so threatened by his ability and they were so desperate for the one they were supporting it was just their way of trying to dis the opposition. Now that their favourites have gone, many of these have left off trying to bring him down showing that they’re quite reasonable people really.

I'm mystified, where was this Ricky hate campaign? I genuinely missed it.

I got the massive Alesha hate campaign.
I spotted the mid-level Cola hate campaign.
I even caught the minor Nat C hate campaign.

But I missed the Ricky hate campaign.

Most of the anti-Ricky threads seemed, well, a bit half-hearted, you know?

Oh for God's sake - hate campaign? Really? Some people don't like Ricky. Some people don't like Chris. I think people should be able to say that they don't like them and why without their fans throwing tantrums. I saw it in November with Ricky and I'm seeing it now with Chris and the only annoying thing is the way the pro-fans react. Me personally, I don't like Chris and I think I should be allowed to say that I don't and why without people saying I'm participating in a hate campaign or immature. Same goes for people who don't like Ricky. Is the average age of posters here 12? Adults should be able to discuss and disagree and leave it at that. Because I don't like Chris and have posted in threads some people would call anti-Chris, I have seen and been somewhat attacked by more than a few Chris fans acting like babies but I have no doubt it's exactly the same for the ones who don't like Ricky. People need to chill. I personally think Chris is manipulative and PR savvy. I should be able to say so without people jumping on me and throwing a hissy fit. If someone wants to post saying they find Ricky boring and giving reasons for it, what's the problem with that? None, except the pro-fans don't like hearing that there are people who don't like who they like and feel the need to make an issue out of people disagreeing with them.

They started it!

LOL OK, that was funny. I'm now expecting a 'oh yeah? well so's your face!'

You may be setting your sights too high there...

Chris started it.

That's a Fact.

Chris didn't start the fire. It's always been burning since the world's been turning.

~Billy Joel

Words to grow on.

If only someone would set Billy Joel on fire. Or pull one of the legs off his piano and beat him with it. Or at least release the dalek from inside his body