EPTIn the literal meaning of the word 'professional', of course just means that you earn money doing it. In that sense since part of the appeal of the character of IdrA of Destiny and their streaming revenue is their unprofessional character they cultivated. They most paradoxically could be said to be 'professionally unprofessional'. Of course when people say 'professional', in practice they mean something entirely different than this.
What is 'professional?'
Something vague and hard to define what it exactly is, luckily my argument doen't need to define what it is, only what it falls under, and what it falls under is a man in a mask, judging a man by his sobriquet rather than the character behind his dramatis persona. Professionalism simply put is an institutionalized practice of judging people for how they look, what they wear and how they say things, rather than for what they are, what their skills are, and what the content of what they have to say is.
If a man is professional or not is not his skills, it's not his personality, it's not his content. It's whether or not he wears a suit with a tie and observes some vague shallow social courtesies which can quite easily be coupled with deep downright evil scheming or stupidity.
Suits every-where
If you look at the professional business world there are suits everywere, a nice tie under it. I mean what is a tie anyway for clothing? I mean what the fuck is a tie to begin with? Have people ever wondered that, yet everyone in the business world wears them, for the simple reason that everyone wears them. My mummy used to ask me 'If everyone jumps in the river, do you follow them?', I should've said back 'If everyone at your work wears ties, do you follow them?'.
Why does everyonw wear them and not a single counter example comes to mind? To they seriously not hire people who are like 'Yeah guys ehh, ties are pretty stupid honestly.', would they seriously not hire an excellent man for the job because he lacks a tie? Would they have made their mind up already at the job interview when they see no tie nor suit before the qualifications are even discussed? I'd not be surprised in the slightest if this is how it works. That billion dollar internationals would actually pass over the best man, who can bring them the most money, because a tie is absent from his attire.
Take a look at this dashing fellow:
![[image loading]](http://blogs-images.forbes.com/johngaudiosi/files/2012/11/chris_sigaty.jpg)
hubba hubba hubba
No tie, no suit, not clean shaven, no Phoenix Wright haircut. Yet, this man—Christ Sigaty—is hired in a high position at Blizzard. Why? Most lkely because Blizzard doesn't give a flying damn about how professional you look in job interviews and concluded that this man had the skills they needed and they hired him. He looks unprofessional, but he gets the job done. Unthinkable in most corporate spheres that someone who looks like that gets hired no matter his skills.
Remember, remember, the fifth of November
This section might come of as culture bashing to some, and it is to some extend, close your eyes if you're too sensitive for it. But I've noticed a striking difference between American and European broadcasts. I have never seen anyone at MLG or IPL say 'fuck' ever while Dreamhack's cast easily has that word in its vernacular. Quite often from the same casters. The complete absense of these words ever on American prime time television has always baffled me. Why? Do they think small children will develop neural damage from being confirmed to the existence of words they already knew existed? What exactly is the North American phobia with swearwords? Is it unprofessional, is it bad for children?
I don't know, what I do know is that when we get to see Apollo at Dreamhack, such words fly around with the frequency you'd expect from a young man his age. People talk about using real names in esports because it appear smore 'professional' than an ID like 'Apollo', how about showing people real personalities. The actual personality of the casters instead of hiding them behind acted vernacular. No one doubts that Apollo drops the odd F-bomb at home when something disturbes his Greek-Godly presence. So why can't he at MLG? Because it's 'unprofessional'? It's unprofesional to be yourself and not act like you're something else? Well, gee, that's something we noticed.
Two friends of mine are in the US at the moment for a Ph.D. and they discribe the same culture clash that develops between them and the bloo'y fuck'n yanks. The Americans perceive them as blunt amd aggessive while they perceive Americans as incincere and fake. Europeans commonly talk about the extreme amount of "smiling" that goes around in the US, and when I say "smiling" I mean just displaying your teeth. For me, as a European, that doesn't look like a smile at all, it's just displaying your teeth. To hominids with dashing fur, more podal dexterity but lack of magnificent sky scrapers and polluting internal combustion engines, it's just perceived as a sign of hostility.
I mean what is this?!?
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/President_Barack_Obama.jpg/480px-President_Barack_Obama.jpg)
'I swear, it's a sign of friendliness that I am displaying my incissors.'
Is that a 'smile'? It doesn't even remotely look like an actual natural human smile, it's a man displaying his teeth. It looks ridiculously faked to me. He doens't look happy or pleased, he's just retracting his lips to display his fine omnivoric incissors which would barely be capable of tearing the raw flesh from his pray to then give him all kinds of diseases because his digestive tract has been weakened after years and years of relying on cooked food.
![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cd/Mark_Rutte-6.jpg/429px-Mark_Rutte-6.jpg)
'No, we don't actually kill our grandparents, you have been misinformed.'
Conversely, here we have the prime minister of the Netherlands, primus inter pares of a coalitional government. No smile, not even a tie. You can actually see what he looks like, isn't that the point of an official picture? Let's consider one of his Divine Predecessors, since reduced to a brain in a vat:
![[image loading]](http://1.nieuwsbladcdn.be/Assets/Images_Upload/2010/06/09/fuckdrugs.jpg.275.jpg)
'Alcohol is not a drug because it's common kids, remember, as long as something is common it isn't evil.'
Ignoring the bizarrely contradictional attitude of being against drugs whilst drinking beer. That's what I'm talking about. The then-leader of the largest Christian Party in the Netherlands showing he's not afraid to use a little bit of vernacular barred from American Prime Time television to get his political views across.
Ultimately, many people from the US have remarked that Dreamhack is less 'professional' than MLG or IPL. I disagree, different cultures have different standards of what falls within the bound of 'professional'. If a prime minister can say 'fuck' in public, surely TV can in North Western Europe? I mean, make no mistake, North Western European culture also has its façades to maintain with respect to professionalism, just in a slightly different way.
In lieu of the usual sobriquet...
Kevin Knocke changed his presentation from CatsPajamas to To Kevin Knocke because he felt it was more 'professional' to use his birth name. Okay, fine, if you feel that way. Birth names how they work in western culture to me are silly though, they are composed of two principal parts (except in Iceland) typicaly:
- One part, the given part, which is chosen by your parents.
- Another part, the lineal part, which is inherited along a line, typically from the father, in that case called a patrilineum.
Especially the second part serves no actual real purpose. Where it once may be used to disambugate two Johns from a different family. There are many John Johnsons today however. It serves no actual purpose whatsoever but the invasion of privacy to have a part of someone's name be a partilineum. It serves no administrative purpose whatsoever and I feel people should have the freedom to drop the patrilineum and legally have only one single name is is quite common in some cultures where people have one single name.
What makes it even more curious is that it is professional to address people with '<Title> <Family Name>', this makes no sense from a practical perspective. The amount of family names in circulation isn't large compared to given names, a process called surname extinction occurs where the longer surnames are passed down in a culture, the less there become. Vietnam and Korea are examples of cultures which have had patrilineal surnames for such a long time uninterrupted that a very small amount of them is in circulation. Calling someone 'Mr. Gim' in Korea barely disambiguates that person, given the sheer amount of Gims in Korea right now.
What purpose does it have to address a man in a way that doesn't disambiguate him from his father? But hey, everyone does it, and it is professional? That makes it good right? Arbitrary rules of professionalism over practicality?
Then there's the issue of privacy. If Kevin Knocke is fine with everyone knowing his real name. Okay, that's his prerogative surely. But some people just aren't and for understandable reasons. No one knows the real identity of IceForg, the creators of the Death Note manga have kept their real name a secret simply because they don't want that attention and I can understand it. Imagine if Japan had a Korean-like system where you had to be known under your real name to publish books. Maybe that was the tipping point, maybe we wouldn't have had Death Note then? Maybe IceFrog would've never picked up Dota Allstars if there was no way for him to keep his name a secret and we had a lesser Dota right now? These are all things to consider. Privacy is in many countries a constitutional right which shows that we value this as a culture. If there is a realistic option for anonymity and people do not want to be famous and just want to produce content without the real life hassle then surely that option should be afforded to them. I'd take the comfort over content creators to not have to have a secret number because random people will call them since they made Dota over some arbitrary rules of 'professionalism' and if Valve has to list their lead designer as 'IceFrog' rather than 'John Danielson' because of it and it looks 'unprofessional', then so be it.
Titulus Rei Ipsae Formulatus in Latina Est
Why would we want such a system? Why could anyone ever strife towards maintaining a sytsem where you are judged on your appearance, not on your content? You need only look at your own heart honestly. People that want professionalism are already living in that system. They want it because they judge people on appearance already. Should you care if Kevin Knocke is known as Kevin Knocke or CatsPajamas, if he wears a tie or not, if he uses 'fuck' or not? No, what you should care about is the quality of his casting and managerial work and nothing more. If he wants to wear a tie and use his real name, fine, that's his prerogative. I just hope it doesn't lead to a culture where it is no longer a choice but an obligation like corporate culture and talented hardworking people are not given jobs because of some shallow dramatis persona they refuse to adopt.
