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Apologies in advance for the lack of meaningful content in this blog post, but honestly it doesn't take more than a few paragraphs to get this one across.
Referring to non-Korean SC2 players as 'foreigners' is fastly becoming my least favorite habit of SC2 commentators, writers, and posters - passing even the ubiquitous 'goes down'. It's a convention that has carried over from BW and, in my opinion, no longer makes sense in the context of SC2 and how popular it is throughout the world. Hearing any of the great announcers at MLG regard the 'top foreigners' when discussing North American players while broadcasting a tournament held in Ohio is ... annoying?
Being Canadian, I like hockey. Hockey is another sport played in several countries, many having their own leagues and players of all nationalities making up the rosters in these leagues. The NHL is obviously the largest and most talented league, and has its home in North America. But this doesn't mean that everything else in hockey has to be discussed as relative to North America. The SEL and the KHL aren't just painted as 'foreign hockey'. They are just Swedish and Russian hockey, respectively. When Alexander Radulov is ripping up the KHL, we don't start talking about him as a 'top foreign hockey player.' Foreign to what? That would be stupid.
If you want to talk about people outside of Korea, talk about non-Koreans. You know what a foreigner is, right? It's an outsider - specifically a person living in a country not his own. HuK is a foreigner when he takes part in Korean tournaments. Grrrr and Elky were foreigners when they took played BW in Korea. IdrA is not a 'top foreign zerg' when playing a Korean in America. He can be a 'top non-Korean zerg'. Hell, he can even be a 'top international zerg' when the discussion is in happening in Korea.
Anyways, this is just one of those things that bugs me, basically because it makes no sense. SC2 is a whole lot bigger than Korea.
  
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but all the top players are in korea. anyone outside korea is at a disadvantage, hence on the outside, hence foreign. it's an important distinction
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No its an accepted term.
You may start a movement to end it but there will be resistance.
Accept the established language.
Being a Canadian I like hockey too. Why do we all fit the stereo type so well ;p
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Considering that the GSL, the current #1 league in terms of prestige and prize money, is situated in South Korea, isn't it safe to assume that Korea is still a focal point of StarCraft? Not the only one, to be sure, but a significant portion of the world's best hail from S.K. The term "foreigner" is not only a well-established one that seems to work (work being adequately defining top non-Korean players, who can be argued to not quite be at the collective skill caliber that fellows like MC and NesTea are at yet), and it's easy to say. If I have a choice between two terms that mean the same thing (more or less) in the same context, and one is easier to say than the other, I'll use that term. It's easier and less cumbersome to say "IdrA is a top foreigner Zerg" than it is to say "IdrA is a top non-Korean Zerg".
Why use "non-Korean" when "foreigner" means exactly the same thing? Why use "international" when the context there is exactly the same as with "foreigner"?
Stick with what works, in my opinion.
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Korea is still the mecca, and until SC2 is truly internationalised, this wont be going away. I don't see why it's such a big deal.
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On June 14 2011 23:18 ComaDose wrote:
No its an accepted term.
You may start a movement to end it but there will be resistance.
Accept the established language.
Being a Canadian I like hockey too. Why do we all fit the stereo type so well ;p
Let's start a counter-movement to the original movement. As we all know the best hockey players in the world are (to a great degree) from Canada. And the best development and junior leagues are also in Canada with an ever-increasing number of Europeans and Americans moving here in order to 'compete with the best' and increase their chances of turning pro. Because of this, and the similar context to the Korean example in SC2, we will now refer to all non-Canadian hockey players as foreigners.
Tim Thomas is a pretty good goaltender, for a foreigner. Evgeni Malkin is a top-foreign player.
Join the revolution!
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"Non-Korean" is never going to catch on, sorry.
And by the way, "non-Korean" is just as negative a turn of phrase as "foreigner".
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I understand where you're coming from, but non-Korean is just as negative as foreigner. "foreigner" is a term that has been used for so long that it really won't change. Hell, I bet many progamers are proud to be foreigners.
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10810 Posts
For casters it is probably a lot more polite to say the player's name, but it still makes sense to point out someone is 'the only foreigner left in the tournament' when everyone else in the tournament is Korean... So in other words, pretty much any competition the Koreans care about, aka any competition which is actually difficult to win (there being about a million in SC2, it's hard to tell if any are prestigious at all).
If people say 'wow over half this tournament is foreigners!' that's going to be when it starts sounding incredibly stupid and you can just turn off the cast.
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On June 14 2011 23:18 ComaDose wrote:
No its an accepted term.
You may start a movement to end it but there will be resistance.
Accept the established language.
Being a Canadian I like hockey too. Why do we all fit the stereo type so well ;p
At one point "boy" or "nigger" was the accepted term for people of african-american descendt - just because something is established it doesn't make it right. Tbh, I think there are bigger battles out there to fight and I could care less about foreigner, but I can see where the OP is coming from.
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I believe the f-word you are looking for in regards to non-North American hockey players is floaters. You clearly don't watch enough Grapes vids.
It is a bit odd though, considering how SC2 has a bit more of an international focus than the competitive BW scene. I guess since many of the first casters were old BW guys it kind of weaseled its way into the scene
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I see where you are going with this, I agree with you. Coming from casual BW play to SC2 I was unfamiliar with all of these terms. This one did strike me as odd. However, I feel it is too embedded in the SC2 world to change.
The only hope is a lot of new players and spectators will adapt a new term. I honestly doubt it will happen.
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I agree with OP, foreign and non-korean do not mean the same thing and even though korea may have the best players or biggest tournament that doesn't mean you are a foreigner if you are non-korean, although you can be if you are actually in korea.
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I'll stop using the word once a non korean wins the gsl :p
Seriously though that would be amazing, gogo non koreans :D
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As a foreigner myself i find it insulting you would try to eliminate an important part of my heritage.
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On June 14 2011 23:23 stafu wrote:
Korea is still the mecca, and until SC2 is truly internationalised, this wont be going away.
Personally, I feel SC2 is extremely internationalized, what with tournaments, leagues, and professional teams in all sorts of countries.
I dunno - to me the use of the blanket terms 'Korean' and 'foreigner' to describe a group of international players is just so simplistic. It's us vs. them. It's Korean and everyone else. Of course the best players are Korean and the highest competition. But not the best leagues (one could argue). Not the best tournaments (again, open for argument). And for what it's worth, I could care less about how 'negative' a term might be - I'm more concerned with how it works in context. For the record, I don't think any of this is derogatory and I probably wouldn't care if it was.
It made more sense in BW as there was really no comparing the world of StarCraft in Korea with what existed in the outside world. But the same can't be said for SC2. It's an entirely different context. Maybe we can revert in 10 years when the Koreans are the only ones still playing professional SC2 ;-).
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Don't let the word bring you down, take back the word!
SAY IT LOUD, I'M FOREIGN AND I'M PROUD!
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It comes from the BW days when the distinction skill wise between koreans and non-koreans were so big that we refereed to the Korean BW scene and the foreigner BW scene. I personally got used to the term many years ago and I see no reason to change it.
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I think I would've found this post far more amusing if the OP was american.
Its just a term; if you take it in a derogatory way thats your problem. If it was generally used in a negative way, yes it could be a problem, but it refers to all the people outside SK, where the starcraft scene is MUCH smaller.
The term's use will obviously diminish over time as more money is put into the NA scene.
Don't let the word bring you down, take back the word!
SAY IT LOUD, I'M FOREIGN AND I'M PROUD!
/facepalm
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Language isn't logical. Why would you think it was? Its based on use, shared meaning, and frequency.
This is like trying to say that we can't use the word 'epic' anymore because we aren't talking about the odyssey.
EDIT: if you don't like it, instead of saying 'foreigner' how about saying 'Koreanally challenged' or something.
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EPT
