EPTAn Observer of Joy
I am not a member of the Berkeley CSL team, or a student at the school. Nor am I a close personal friend or relative of any of the players. I had never met Conan “Suppy” Liu before yesterday. There was no real reason for me to feel anything as I watched Berkeley take on Chunnam University in the title match.
And yet, somehow...I have never felt more emotionally invested in a grand finals than I was yesterday, as I sat feet away from the Berkeley squad watching each of their players square off with force that decimated Washington just hours earlier. I've never wanted someone to win more than I did in that moment. And when they won, as I jumped out of the way while the team rushed Suppy to throw him into the air, celebrating with a display of emotion that can only be described as joy in its purest form, I stood off to the side smiling almost wistfully, knowing that these players realized their dream that day. I felt a momentary twinge of longing - thinking, “If only I had the drive and determination to play like them, to throw myself into the game and become the best like they did.” As a writer – someone who sees these moments and records them, trying his hardest to communicate not just the facts but the abstract emotions these players felt during these moments – I'm always on the outside looking in.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/3ctOVKc.jpg?2)
But really...that's not so bad. The momentary twinge passed, and I let their joy wash over me. I watched the victorious team accept their prize and felt proud to have supported them, and continued to think about what questions I was going to ask Suppy in the interview I had to do just minutes later. I thought about how I could possibly express in words what I'd seen today. These were players who very clearly loved and supported each other, who fought together over a whole season as comrades-in-arms, and in the end had their hard work rewarded. I thought to myself, “This is why I'm here.”
eSports is truly incredible. Every time I find myself falling out of love with StarCraft II, I always find a reason to come back to this community. This game that we've all rallied behind certainly isn't perfect. But it doesn't need to be. This game, in a very real sense, makes dreams come true. It lets us be something more than gamers, students, or members of the workforce. This is a community we've created from the ground up, together. The CSL Grand Final that I experienced yesterday was built from nothing through the hard work of some people I couldn't be prouder to call my friends. And it gave a few young men the chance to feel like heroes.
And as for me? It's my job to tell you all about it. The job of “eSports writer” is sort of hazy. What makes a good eSports reporter? Someone who breaks down and analyzes matches with game knowledge rivaling the pros? Someone who gets the “scoops” and delves deep into the industry? Someone who makes waves, in an effort to influence an industry where anyone and everyone still has a voice? Possibly, but that's not how I see my job.
What I want to do...what I've always wanted to do...is to share the joy these young men experience with the world. That's what makes eSports for me. It's not the drama, the controversies, or even the games themselves that I care about most. It's the way this world we're building together changes lives. A friend of mine put it best. What are these guys going to remember, ten years from now? It won't be the exam they've got waiting for them back home, it won't be that fungal growth was bullshit unfair, and it certainly won't be that Alex Garfield and Slasher had a piss fight.
It'll be that on February 16, 2013, together as members of the University of California at Berkeley Collegiate Starleague team, they made magic happen.
And that's why I'll never leave this world of ours.
Photo by Silverfire.
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