yang

They say that it is the most read magazine in France.  That's a great publicity for the upcoming shows and for NPIH. 

For exemple, NPIH sales went up just after he performed J'ai pas envie at The Voice and especially because they showed snippets of his latest videos. NPIH re-entered the top 50 of French album charts (#39 last week).

  :thumb_yello:  

Catling- Anna(US)

I am starting to wonder if you are confusing me with someone else If a genie granted me 3 wishes one of them would be to have better skin.

 

 

Yes but you think I (and others) are saying mean things about Mika, non?

 

I guess it's overall environment in that small club gave you a good glow, cuz your skin looked very shiny and silky~

Yeah maybe, I did think you liked to be really harsh to him, and tended to mildly insult him on MFC. But I thought wrong, and I need to appologize for it, sorry.

You have asked me why I automatically assume the worst of Mika's intentions but you are doing the exact same thing to me. If, as you say, something can be interpreted in more than one way, why keep jumping to the conclusion that I am being mean and insulting? If the dictionary definition of sucking up is neutral why did you insist over and over that I meant it in the worst possible way?

 

 

I do really consider my wording when I'm writing. But you have to understand it is impossible for me to imagine it from the perspective of someone who is not a native English speaker. Of course I could use extremely simple and bland language but I love the English language and want to use it to express my personality and my thoughts in a nuanced way. I am sorry if my online persona rubs some people the wrong way but it has also lead me to bond with people who share my sense of humour, etc. I would rather annoy some people than never make any genuine friends because of self censorship. The thing I don't like about the endless "Mika is so amazing" commentary is not that I want people to hate on Mika, but that it is so lacking in stimulation and uninformative. All of the so-called "fights" that put some people off of MFC I find very useful for getting to know people and really understanding what they think and what kind of person they are.

Oh nononononono I never consider you are a mean and insulting person, you are a nice person and I like your soft and smooth skin ( forgive me for being a little creepy here , but your skin looked so good in NYC! I am bi, my compliment here is very sincere) , if I assume you're a mean person I would not bother to ask for the real meaning, and to know why the online character here I feel is so different from my memory. I already know my misunderstanding long time ago, that post is only for explaination to Suzie about my past emotion and why everything happened in the first place.

The problem is, a lot arguments here seem a little off each other, it's like A is saying one thing and B is saying another thing and no one seem to really understand each other. And the cycle goes on and on and on... At least you do not want to chase people away, right?

Another interesting thing is, I was asked to leave this topic four times yesterday, and why was that? If all the criticize are for the two sides of the story.

I had fun times too, actually .

Ok, so obviously my post did not make it obvious why I was using the words I did, so let me give it one more try and explain the background....

 

When I started to read this thread I found a string of funny comments by you, posting from the US and asking a native speaker not to use words you don't understand. I also found you engaged in some utterly ridiculous conversation about the meaning of a phase unknown to you that you tried to understand with the help of Google pictures ... At that point I was about to step in and recommend you refer to a dictionary or an online Thesaurus to figure out meanings of words rather than sticking to your interpretation that was based on some cartoon.

In the end, I didn't do that but checked your MFC posts in the news section to see who is the group (the  'WE')  you are talking in the name of. I did not get closer to the answer but the picure captions I saw from you did make me draw my conclusions. However, most certainly I would not have not pointed it out had I not witnessed a conversation on this thread in which you practically wanted other members to adjust their English to the level you understand.

 

I hope it is clear now. Any learner of a second language gets my appreciation by default (I am one as well) but preaching native speakers about the vocabulary they are meant to use when you also  have significant gaps calls for nothing but the urgent need for a reality check.   

Thanks a lot for your explaination.

Let me explain why I stuck with Christine back then for these phrases. For a lot English words/phrases they can be interpreted more than one way. And by the first time of reading we would not know we misunderstand. You may or may not noticed here that but a lot times non-native speakers saying some posts are rude/mean and some find they're obvious not.  As I have pointed out before, one reason for this is because we can not hear the tougue of speaking, another reason is that these phrases can really easy to be misinterpreted in another way.

I've lived in US for three years, I can speak relatively fluent English with an Asian accent, because I also need to teach marketing in English. Besides communicating with my students I also talk with my colleges, friends, advisors everyday in English. I do not know the language difference between the places we live, because during the past three years I can't recall one time there're some words/phrases spoken by others are something like these phrases. It's not that they do not use similar words, but normally they use these words to describe the people they really dislike ( trust me, I hear "s**k up" a lot from my advisor when he describe someone in a really "I dont like that guy" tongue, Drump for example,we talked about politics a lot every Tuesday when he bought us pizza, he kept saying someone "s**k up" Drump, and he despised both sides in that phrase). I remember hearing people around me use "yapping" too, to describe someone ( let's call him A) talking too much or talking in an annoying way, again in that case the speaker really dislike the A, otherwise he would just say A talk too much instead of using the word "yapping" . Yet I remember one ( I dont remember who he/she is) MFCer here saying mika is "yapping" at the UK gig.

I hope you see the points here, a lot phrases used here are not neutral to me, these phrases in my understanding are normally used on people you dislike. The reason I picked these words to Christine, in the begining was to explain her why I was in a defensive mode for mika, since she said she did not know why the fans felt protective and defensive for mika.

I also believe these phrases mean bad things to a lot non-native speaker and even some native speakers. They asked me why some MFCers here talked about MIKA like he was our enemy, we discussed and we did not know why. Because obiviously these MFCers are also fans, they like MIKA, don't they?

The reason I showed these pics, which to you seemed ridiculous, is because the definition of "suck up" in dictionary is neutral, yet you can tell from these pics some people consider this phrase to really despisable behavior and only use this word to people they dislike. I do not think all of these people are non-native speakers.

I am not asking you to change your way of writing/speaking, that would be really hard I understand. I am simply explaining the situations here and why these phrases have pinched my nerve, as well as the nerves of people similar to me in some sense.  

I like to really consider my wording before I write it down, because I know people can not hear my tougue and all the motions in the words would be exaggerated. But this is only my habit. It's completely your freedom to do similar thing or not.

Well, I did not mock anyone, I just asked how you define the 'we' you are talking in the name of. So it is that group then, I see. Thank you.

 

 

 

So who needs to read guidelines?

  Like the way I realize it's none of my business if MIKA does not mind being harshly criticized by MFCers, in this case she does not mind, so it's none of you business.

Being familiar with Mika's gigs is not being "closer" to him. That word implies we have some sort of personal relationship. Lots of older fans have interacted with his partner because it was his job to interview us. But he is professional and it's not like he gossips with fans about Mika

 

 

Self indulgence is not a thought, it's an action. I don't need to read his mind to draw conclusions about what he's doing. It doesn't matter what he thinks, it matters what the result is. Besides everyone keeps telling me that Mika should sing French songs (or do all kinds of other things I don't approve of) because he can do whatever he wants. Doing whatever you want is exactly what self-indulgence is.

Ahh, OK, new phrase to learn~

The difference is lobbying Mika to play your favourite song is nothing but selfishness. Telling Mika not to play his French songs in a market that doesn't value them benefits the vast majority of people involved, including Mika. He is not doing himself any favours by alienating people and replacing their favourite songs with ones that don't hold any meaning for them. You and Mika's other fans who love his French songs can cling to your belief that people who want an English-only gig are intolerant and closed minded or rude or dumb or whatever it is you want to say or think about them. It doesn't change reality. It doesn't change their behaviour. They are just going to stop buying albums and gig tickets as they have been doing year after year as Mika ignores them and their preferences. And before you know it, you won't be hearing BBB in NYC because Mika will stop coming to NYC altogether because his fanbase is too small.

 

Going back to some of your previous comments can you please not say that I am close to Mika? If that was true I would be calling him up and telling him to apologize to Jemma so she didn't have to make that video and we wouldn't be having this ridiculous debate about whether it is justified for Mika to throw one of his fans under a bus because he is butthurt.

If you are talking about his marketing I can totally understand. But how many UK/US albums he is selling today anyway? The loyal customers(in this case, loyal fans) should not be that easy to switch, right?

He is selling much better in France, right? Maybe that is why he constantly want to please them more?

I said "closer", I mean closer than me. I edited it anyway. But you kept mentioning how long you were a fan and how well you knew about his gigs and he was not chatting less even someone also in that gig said he was. And, you said so in the chat yourself, you told us you met MIKA's partner occasionally to talk about fan stuff.

If you are not very close to MIKA to know what he thinks, and clearly you can not read mind, how can you keep saying he's self-indulgent to sing BBB or TOOL, and that's his purpose not others? You can say you think, or you assume, but you always sound very certain that you know it.

You can lobby Mika all you want to play BBB in the US. This has absolutely nothing to do with the UK. What Mika does in the UK has absolutely nothing to do with you or what you want. 1500 people do not have to forfeit the chance to listen to their favourite songs so you can hear BBB on the other side of the world. This is the most bizarre line of thinking I have ever heard. Please just stop

I am not against anyone lobbying mika to play the songs they want, they want to hear their favorite songs? Ask him! Even by doing so it takes the French songs position I can still understand.

But don't you see the difference here? It is one thing you ask him to sing some songs, it's not the same thing as you ask him to not sing some songs, the latter one is much more exclusive.

I keep arguing for this, because if today some UK fans stop him from singing French songs, tomorrow some US fans could do the same thing to stop him singing French songs too. This could set a bad precedent that other people can follow. You said here multiple times that you didn't want him to sing BBB in US too.

And since you're selling your UK gig ticket, why do you still care if he sing French songs in the next UK gig or not?

Back to the sucking up to B when he's there for A scenario again. He performs for French fans CONSTANTLY. He performed in the UK once in THREE YEARS. His priority should be giving the UK audience the show they want because it's their country.

 

You can keep arguing and arguing about this but I don't understand what concern it is of yours what takes place at a UK gig and what you are trying to accomplish by "proving" that Mika made a wise choice by putting BBB on the setlist.

He gave priority to UK audience, his setlist fited UK better comparing to other setlist of his gigs, didn't it?

He sung French songs in a lot non-French area gigs too, and most times he got good reaction, why could not he expect the same in UK?

I argue for two reasons, first I don't think it's 100% mika's fault for this situation; second and more selfishly, I want to hear BBB live in US, because I love this song, and based on your logic he should not put BBB in the US setlist either.

So you are saying the UK fans don't matter, as much as the small amount of fans who have travelled from abroad to the show?

I'm travelling to a few gigs in Europe in the next few months, so can I expect him to drop playing BBB for All She Wants at one of them? 

That's not going to happen, as I don't expect it should, especially the French shows, as it's popular there.

And all the French fans there had been to a lot of gigs in France where they heard it, can't say I've ever seen him do anything like that for fans from other countries who have travelled around to see him. He never did the Italian version of Stardust for the Italian fans, who had travelled over. 

I'm sure Debs who travels to lots of shows, would have loved to heard Make You Happy, but he didn't sing that.

So if he does it for one set of fans, why not all?

Fair is fair.

He changed his setlist to fit UK better, he sung far less songs that's not released in UK comparing to other heaven tour gigs, didn't he?  Does the setlist have to be completely exclusive?

Even excluding France fans, there exists few UK area fans love that song.

Deb said herself she requested Mika to sing Promiseland on behalf of some fans, and he did that. Even in France a lot audience seems not knowing that song at all.

And as I said, it's one thing that you request him to sing some songs, it's a completely different thing that you request him to NOT sing some songs.

You like him to sing ASW, ask that, you want him to sing Rain, ask that, I don't think there are any problems with that.

The majority of those people probably hoped to hear songs from the UK release of the album, so they don't matter I guess.

Of course they matters, almost all of the songs he sing in UK is English, just ONE French song. And the fact that all these arguments is just about where he should sing one particular song is just ridiculous in so many level.

I know it's only minority of audience love BBB, the rest either don't know or don't like it. But is it so hard to bare one song for these small part audience, so hard to hear that it need to be begged to stop?

It makes perfect sense.

 

These are the top 15 songs on Mika's UK itunes chart. These are a fair representation of the songs people will want and expect to hear when they go to a gig in the UK. If I recall Mika did not play 5 of these songs. He did not play FIVE of his most popular songs in the UK and instead chose one song that most people do not have any interest in. This is total self-indulgence and is not about giving the fans what they want.

 

1

Grace Kelly

2

Lollipops

3

Happy Ending

4

Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)

5

Love Todays

6

Popular Song

7

Popular Song (feat. Ariana Grande)

8

Any Other World

9

All She Wants

10

Talk About You

11

Rain

12

We Are Golden

13

Relax, Take It Easy

14

Staring At the Sun

15

Grace Kelly

Why do you keep saying he plays BBB purely for self-indulgence, why do you have to keep thinking him in a negative way? You are not him, you do not know what he thought.

He played it in not only French speaking countries but also other non-French speaking countries too, and in these non-French speaking countries he got good response most times.

BBB is the first song on Vevo, yeah maybe a lot UK fans do not know it, but all the foreign fans fly to London know it for sure and a lot of them like it. ( You can hear the loud "Qui" when he asked in French) . Don't say he does not know that before the show, he knows there are fans fly from all over the world to see him, a large part of these fans are from France, it's the special nature of his fans.

So if 80% of the audience don't really like it, and 20% do, how does that work? I'm just playing devils advocate here, I'm curious to how that would work.

So he played 16 English songs and 1 French song. 1/17 is much smaller than 1/5, and it's still too much for some one.  It just does not make any sense.

I really do not think the part who love BBB is too small to be ignored. How much audience are there? Around 1500 right? You don't think there are more than 100 people in the audience who happens to like and want to hear that song?

Christine you mentioned that BBB is not reflecting well in NYC, but in Brooklyn at least people around me are really liking that song, I can hear loud BBB singing with him, it maybe a small portion, but definitely not too small to be ignored.

Jemma, another reason that I can not leave this topic alone, besides I don't think mika should hold full responsibility, is that I really like BBB live, even before he did the Elvis move. If he is pressured to not sing any French songs in UK, same pattern may happen in US too, that would be really sad.

Yang you are not the one getting the final say on how fans should react to this incident or how fans should interact with Mika. Your opinion matters only as much as mine or anyone else's, so why so judgmental? Mika is 100% responsible for stirring up this anti-Jemma sentiment and that is way out of line. He should know his own fan club better and how drama is fueled by his own comments/actions. There is a long history here that gives some of us a different perspective on this incident and makes it less forgiveable. 

Yeah I am not the one to have the final say on how fans should react to this incident or how fans should interact with MIKA. 

I am not giving the final call, I am just giving my opinion by saying "I think", or "my feeling to your video", how is that judgmental?

So it's not his fault that people have been calling me a xenophobic racist? The whole thing has been blown out of all proportion. Mika can sing what he wants, it's his show. How I've been treated for shouting out something said in jest is totally out of order. I have received abuse on social media from people who have never interacted with me or heard about me before Tuesday. I'm sure loads of you have come into this thread to read the drama and then pm each other the latest gossip. I'm totally sick of it.

I am not a xenophobe. I love France and my French friends. I'm not racist and if you knew me personally you would definitely know this. I am not a mean person. I'm not intolerant. I accidentally hurt the feelings of a pop star as I was hurt leading up to the moment.

This doesn't give Mika the right to slag me off at a concert in France saying that I need more sex in my life and then 6 months later say on television that I'm mean & intolerant. This also doesn't give the right for anyone to abuse me. The last couple of days have been complete hell for me and I'm sure it's not going to stop anytime soon. That is Mika's fault.

Please do not hate me, I absolutely do not think it's 100% your fault to be attacked like this. What they do are not right in any level, that I am very certain.

I am just going to point out several facts. First, few people know you are the fan he is talking about until you jump out and saying how much you are hurt by his words, which again, I am very sorry about that. Second, when watching the video my sympathy for you was decreased by some level in the end when you were begging MIKA to not sing ANY French songs, because by doing so you are also trying to stop other fans who will buy the UK gig ticket and love the song live to hear the song live too. It's like because you don't like a dish, you try to stop the dish from serving on the table, ignoring the fact there are some other people who happen to like the dish are also eating with you.  

Again, I absolutely do not think it's 100% your fault, I just do not think it's 100% MIKA's fault either.

Once again, can I direct you to the fact that not all UK fans are members of the fan club, so many of them don't have a clue where this or any of the French songs come from, as they aren't watching every single move Mika makes, only when he brings out new music here. And this doesn't make them bad fans, it makes them fans who like the music he releases here. I'm sure if he released a French song here, they may like it or they may not. No one knows unless he tries it.

Yeah but BBB's video is on youtube and is available to everyone. Despite this fact, I'm not saying that if they don't like French songs, they are bad fans. But if they are begging him NOT to sing ONE French song because they don't like it or don't know it, ignoring the fact that there're audiences in the room who happen to like it, that is just wrong.

I think this may be the crux of the matter and sort of a vicious circle: Mika feels (at least on some level) rejected by the UK and much more warmly embraced by France (plus some other countries). This has led to him embracing the French part of his identity even more. Unfortunately, the UK fans in turn feel rejected by him and want "the British Mika" back, while he seems to think along the lines of "if you want me, you have to accept all of me, even the French part, because this is who I am". So he sings a French song in London and when someone expresses disapproval, he doesn't see this just a criticism of his setlist, but as a rejection of him personally. At least that's my opinion on why he reacted so strongly to something seemingly insignificant.

This is a very reasonable explanation, 100% agreed.

Now I think the focus should be how to break this circle, and I do not think pushing Mika to change back to "British Mika" again, or pressuring him to say he handle the situation wrongly, is a good way to solve this problem.

The reality is, if Christine is right at the part MIKA is earning a lot money from gigs, he can always earn that money elsewhere he feel more ease and comfortable. One small gig comparing to all the other gigs he hold elsewhere is really insignificance, he does not have to hold a gig where he does not feel very comfortable.

Maybe some fans feel that if a gig in which they can not heckle MIKA is not worth going, or they do not care if MIKA holds concerts in London or not, then the problem is solved too.

I do not think MIKA handle this issue very well, I mentioned this opinion in the beginning. But what happens now is not 100% his fault, I am very sure of that.

I thought I would just give up. But I realized that I had more to say.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there is a difference between wanting MIKA to sing more English songs and wanting MIKA not to sing just ONE French song. The former is because some fans prefer English songs better, which is totally understandable. The latter is pure exclusive(not sure if this is the right word) and do not worth sympathy, because begging MIKA to not sing just ONE French song is also depriving the chance of other fans to hear it live.

As I mentioned, there are even fans in UK area love this song live, you can see their posts here expressing their love in BBB, don't ignore that.

 

It's not part of our smilies list yet -- Eriko just inserted that as an image. I'll add it.

Thank you

Shanghai, China

VIDEO

iQiyi and Universal Music reached a paid music collaboration

 

ORIGINAL

爱奇艺与环球音乐达成付费音乐深度战略合作-娱乐视频-爱奇艺

 

RE-uploaded to

VK

2016-03-01 爱奇艺与环球音乐达成付费音乐深度战略合作-娱乐视频-爱奇艺

Great!! And we have a Chinese flag emoji too!  wait how to type this flag？ I cant find it  :China:  , no not working

I'm sorry, but who are the 'we' in your example? Those who reduce their forum activity to posting pictures only with some random and often misspelled comments?

 

I cant believe I missed this post, yeah we have a lot misspelled comments, and we may post more pics than words, sooooo?

Guideline : "Do not mock someone because of the way they speak/write, or the amount of time they spend on the forum.'

yang - Mika is not here. I know you don't think it matters but it does. You can't be rude to someone by saying things they will never hear. I expect people were saying all sorts of things in private messages today - MFC, Twitter, FB. As long as these conversations are private the people saying them are not being "rude" to other members and the moderators are not going to police them.

Mika is not here, mika fans are here, and A LOT mika fans (like me)  understand fandom in a completely different way. I can see what other people said about the idol I loved and cherished, and you dont think that will trigger a fight in someway?

This being said, if mika does not mind being criticized in that way, and does not think it's mean/rude. Then maybe I should let it go too.