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Previous Life in Korea blogs:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Lifes not fair. Sometimes life really isn't fair. Sometimes life dangles your hopes and dreams in front of you like a cat toy only to swish them away at the last second, with you barley getting a taste of them.
Since my journey to Korea a year and a half ago, I have met many challenges and obstacles in my broadcasting career. When I first showed up I was a fresh face straight from college looking to cast Proleague, the Starcraft league I grew up with in high school and college that I had a very personal relationship with. The challenges came where I had to learn how to properly broadcast, deal with a Korean company and how they handle business, and of course deal with my co-caster at the time. I'm not going to sugar coat it, he was very difficult for me to work with throughout the season and was an enormous source of stress for me the entire proleague season.
I just told myself get through this season, and things will get better. I really believed it too; just buckle down and weather the storm. Unfortunately that wasn't the case, and things continued to get worse from there. For more details on how things continued to get worse, check out Blog 6 and Blog 7.
Things were looking more positive coming into the Korean Dota 2 League season 1. I never got paid by Spotv or had anything beyond a verbal contract with them, but they did promise to pay my rent. Season 2 paired me up with Moonglade and the production quality improved for the English casters, things seemed to be getting better. I talked to Spotv about getting a contract and salary from them, since things were becoming more professional. I contacted V about this and he said he would talk to Spotv. He said Spotv would pay me for season 2's work as well as get me a contract. Wonderful! Whether I would cast season 3 or not though was still up in the air. Red flags.
This is where things start to get fucked up. V and R, a long lasting member and supporter of me at Spotv quit their jobs because they really dislike X, a higher up at Spotv that is handling a lot of the business decisions. These 2 guys have been working with me and generally helping me out at Spotv since day 1. Keep in mind this is in the middle of my potential contracting and season 2 payments. I'm handed off to one, then another different person at spotv where I was forced to essentially beg for my payments and updates regarding the season 3 situation. I eventually find out that I will get my money soon(tm) but they still never said anything about season 3. A meeting is held and in the end I find out that I won't be casting season 3, the reason being that X really dislikes me due to having a close affiliation with V and R. I have never met X before.
Completely out of my control. I bust my ass and deal with some terrible shit for so long and this is what I get out of it. My future looks quite hazy at the moment, I have never felt so lost in my life. Before moving to Korea, and throughout most of my life I always had a clear vision and goal of what I wanted to do with my life. After broadcasting and living in Korea for so long, I am almost scared to return to the USA, simply because my old goals and aspirations are no longer what I want to accomplish and to make matters worse I have NO idea what I want to do.
I'm tired of being broke. I'm tired of being stressed out. I'm tired of the way I've been treated in Korea by spotv. I'm tired of telling myself to stick with it for awhile longer and things will get better. I'm tired of continuously getting fucked over. I'm so tired.
Small update: I realize that there isn't much positivity in this post. I wrote this after I found out what happened + 4 hours of sleep. From the positive side I do miss some things about America so being able to return would be nice. I also gained a lot of friends, I learned a lot about living in the real world, and there ARE some ways for me to still stay and survive in Korea if I really want to.
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Katowice25012 Posts
Damn you have had a bad streak in the last year, that really sucks to hear. Hope things get better, do you have to decide fairly quickly if you are going to return to the USA or stay in Korea?
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I don't have to decide fairly quickly, but it is certainly a question that I will have to face eventually.
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wow that sucks whipbro
I really enjoyed your korean dota casts if that makes you feel any better.
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That's bullshit man, I friggin hate people who do that sort of shit and don't even know you personally. I enjoyed watching your commentary as well with Moonglade. I really hope that things somehow get better for you.
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opterown
Australia54784 Posts
All the best man, I hope things work out for you
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Chin up and I'll see you at the top. Keep yourself productive and active in more ways than one and someone will notice your endurance and ability to work hard.
It just takes the neighboring virtue of confidence in your ability and patience to see others be persuaded by your pursuit. I hope nothing but the best for you and all your endeavours.
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The dislike by association that this x guy is displaying seems pretty rotten to me :/
Hope atleast you get the season 2 payment, best of luck
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I only watched your SC2 cast, and I really admire how you always were positive even in bleak situations. Everyone is wishing for your success, wherever you end up, I wish you the best.
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On August 03 2014 09:17 LemOn wrote:
time to learn poker
that seems to be what the ex-pros do, not ex-casters
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Keep at it man, that sounds ludicrously tough, and I can't personally give you much advice or anything like that, but keep your head up and keep on keeping on >.<
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On August 03 2014 09:17 LemOn wrote:
time to learn poker
Oh I see from your last blog you did try already. give it a shot in freetime then move to some super cheap country once you get okay at it I can make a living off of nl16 in Czech Republic, prolly NL10 in Thailand 
Also screw that gloomy attitude bro, you are getting great life experiences. You can always join the ascetics in India 
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United Kingdom24425 Posts
Well if you plan on continuing to cast Dota then you're probably better off not being in Korea.
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So KDL Season 3 is down to two casters, both of which are people with SC2 backgrounds?
Are they setting themselves up to fail? Or is the english stream of low priority to SPOTV.
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How is teaching English and player poker, like your last blog post suggested you'd do?
Either way, best of luck Whiplash. As a caster, you have never been my favorite - you initially kind of ruined my Proleague viewing experience, but you have been getting better, up to the point where I was enjoying your Dota 2 casts. Either way, you're a great person and hope that your next blog post is less bleak!
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It seems like spottv is a terrible company to work for and shows how unstable korean esports are unless you're the top big dog. There's less than a handful who has that status in korea. I hope things work out for you
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Just breath my friend.
The best people don't know what they want to do with themselves, but go at new things with a positive and unrelenting drive - which you would appear to have, don't lose it over Korean digitial politics.
By the by, you and moonglade were hilarious together. Like a younger brother explaining his favourite game to a stoned older brother.
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you have to stop being so passive in your life if you want to pursue your dreams. I've gone through a crisis similar to yours and what you said at the end about being sick of telling yourself to keep trying and it'll get better is what I connected to because if you simply keep doing things the way that you have been, which is polite and trusting of others, you take the ability to choose your fate out of your hands and into others. Don't give up, just analyze why you've failed and make the necessary steps to ensure that you control your life enough so that the same mistakes can't happen again. GLGL
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 i just found out about this
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On August 04 2014 06:35 Defessus wrote:
So KDL Season 3 is down to two casters, both of which are people with SC2 backgrounds?
Are they setting themselves up to fail? Or is the english stream of low priority to SPOTV.
likely low priority. i dont think they care a lot about the quality of casting, so long as somebody is doing it, so they just pick their favorites or maybe long time people.
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On August 05 2014 15:06 rabidch wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 06:35 Defessus wrote:
So KDL Season 3 is down to two casters, both of which are people with SC2 backgrounds?
Are they setting themselves up to fail? Or is the english stream of low priority to SPOTV. likely low priority. i dont think they care a lot about the quality of casting, so long as somebody is doing it, so they just pick their favorites or maybe long time people.
It indeed is very low priority. The english streams are there so the company can say to a potential investor/partner hey look, we have an english stream we are so modern and globalized!
The only company I've seen put some sort of emphasis on the English casting is OGN, I'm not saying they do a great job but they certainly do better then every other company in Korea.
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Also the fact that they put you in the closet or somewhere in the back area to cast the games. I fondly remember KDL season 1 production problems but I know they were out of your hands. Kick some ass Whiplash elsewhere!
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You are going through a lot of shit right now, but don't give up. Someday, it will pay off.
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in b4 BTS.Whiplash
Seriously though, don't give up. I've watched your casts during KDL season 2 and they're good. Yeah, it's not up to par with the top English casters but it's clear that you are doing your best to really put on a good cast. I do hope to hear more from you and your casts in the future. You'll get through this.
p.s. to heck with spotv. srsly.
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One of the reasons why I quit immediately after season 1.
They were also very arbitrary during TI4 as well.
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Man that's really shit to hear Justin. After our paths crossed briefly during Type II times (speaking of getting fucked over haha) I was quite impressed by you quickly rising up to be an internationally known esports broadcaster. Guess it looked a bit nicer than it was in the end.
The best thing I can recommend to you is to cultivate a deep belief that in the future (whatever that means) everything's gonna be good for you, very good even.
You've already done the right thing by delving straight into a Korea-adventure and you've been on screen and stage a lot. All the while you've been developing great skills, be it speaking, (esports) knowledge or just dealing with a shitty co-worker which you can feed off forever. Also, the hardships you're going through are going to make you faster better harder stronger.
So basically, even though it feels like shit, you're putting in work right now, which is exactly what you need to do in your 20s post graduation - the harder you need to hustle and the more you're killing yourself, the stronger you will emerge.
Good luck with everything, and remember that everything's going to be good.
Namaste.
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I feel for you whiplash, the new kdl casters are booty
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Man that really sucks. Now they have a casting duo who are not primary dota players/casters doing the cast and im guessing Brendan(?) has played and watched less than 20 matches of dota. Also the stream was at it's all time peak today and korean doto is definitely getting better and better. Short sighted decision from them to let you go.
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If zyori can make it on the BTS roster, so can you.
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Tuned into KDL today cause I was curious about Merlini's first game back, and I was surprised that you weren't casting. Digging for info led me here T_T
Sorry about what happened, best of luck to you in the future though, whiplash fighting!
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Hoping for the best for your future endeavors!
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Sucks to hear man. Casting is tough and it's even harder when you don't have support behind you.
I certainly felt how you felt in your previous blog posts before. All up to you on how you move forward. eSports grinder is real.
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Whiplash is not the only one suffering under SPOTV's crazy policy. This company is also striking many other casters out there. All the recent VODs of HeflaTV got a copyright claim by SPOTV with "visual content". Fun part is, that the visual content is obviously Dota 2 and last time I checked SPOTV wasn't the owner of Valve or it's games.
This means, the VOD monetization is disabled for more than a month and the claims are not answered, meaning they let those claims time out (which is the longest duration if you want to harm other companies, casters, etc). We had alone the first week of August 40 claims and other casters experience the same problem now too.
Nobody at Youtube can help, unless we sue this company...
Copyfraud and more. Way to go apparently for the Koreans.
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On August 05 2014 15:06 rabidch wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 06:35 Defessus wrote:
So KDL Season 3 is down to two casters, both of which are people with SC2 backgrounds?
Are they setting themselves up to fail? Or is the english stream of low priority to SPOTV. likely low priority. i dont think they care a lot about the quality of casting, so long as somebody is doing it, so they just pick their favorites or maybe long time people.
They probably don't care about it. I tried watching the english KDL stream a few days ago and I couldn't stand it as the casters literally did not even know what the heroes were.. "Stun goes out from some guy", "Looks like this guy is gonna die"
It was really bad.
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On August 12 2014 14:25 Heflamoke wrote:
Whiplash is not the only one suffering under SPOTV's crazy policy. This company is also striking many other casters out there. All the recent VODs of HeflaTV got a copyright claim by SPOTV with "visual content". Fun part is, that the visual content is obviously Dota 2 and last time I checked SPOTV wasn't the owner of Valve or it's games.
This means, the VOD monetization is disabled for more than a month and the claims are not answered, meaning they let those claims time out (which is the longest duration if you want to harm other companies, casters, etc). We had alone the first week of August 40 claims and other casters experience the same problem now too.
Nobody at Youtube can help, unless we sue this company...
Copyfraud and more. Way to go apparently for the Koreans.
Which VODs are we talking about here? anything related to Korean Doto? Or even the TI4/non-Korean doto stuff?
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On August 13 2014 03:09 Akari-Akaza wrote:Show nested quote +On August 12 2014 14:25 Heflamoke wrote:
Whiplash is not the only one suffering under SPOTV's crazy policy. This company is also striking many other casters out there. All the recent VODs of HeflaTV got a copyright claim by SPOTV with "visual content". Fun part is, that the visual content is obviously Dota 2 and last time I checked SPOTV wasn't the owner of Valve or it's games.
This means, the VOD monetization is disabled for more than a month and the claims are not answered, meaning they let those claims time out (which is the longest duration if you want to harm other companies, casters, etc). We had alone the first week of August 40 claims and other casters experience the same problem now too.
Nobody at Youtube can help, unless we sue this company...
Copyfraud and more. Way to go apparently for the Koreans. Which VODs are we talking about here? anything related to Korean Doto? Or even the TI4/non-Korean doto stuff?
Everything, VECL, MPGL, G1 Challenge, even JDL Asia. They claim everything. In summary HeflaTV had about 200 claims by SPOTV leaving all vids not monetized / listed for 30days+. All support requests on Youtube failed and they forwarded us to SPOTV, which didnt reply to anything obviously.
That's how business is done apparently. Knock out everyone else by making a roundhouse-claim on any Dota2 content.
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EPT
