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The Armchair Athleticism critical series is an opinion-base article series regarding the issues and sociocultural deficiencies of the E-Sports and StarCraft scene. All articles are perceptive-base and revolving around my own experiences and understanding of the subculture.
+ Show Spoiler [summary introduction] +The Solo Trail – Unbeaten - Posted on October 20th, 2012Short version of credentials: - Manager of 5 progaming teams (50+ professional players)
- Writer for 11 E-sports websites (5 team sites + 4 organizations: 150+ docs/articles)
- Organizer or Contributor of 11 community events (74,000 viewers/attendants)
- Some video-editing for one or two organizations, nothing big, just twitch.tv highlight-editing, presentational writing, etc.
Why are you starting your own space? I was listening to the suggestions of several friends and I finally started this space after I hit a dead-end in my endeavours in E-Sports. I’m at a point where I am not really affiliated with anyone and now’s a better time than ever to do some opinion topics. Doing my own content meant I would be alone and would work around my own initiative, drive and interest. However, it also meant that I may do something that requires more work than I thought and I would be on my own. It meant that the community reception can be more direct and harsh towards me personally and my views as I would not be backed by some credible organization as when I was writer for some. In the end, this series that took me about a month of writing, editing, verification and re-writing will really be everything I’ve learned, observed and felt throughout my time. I started out with three pieces and ended up going to ten. All of them delve into inspecting the five perspectives of the scene: teams, tournaments, players, spectators and contributors. Ultimately, it aims to really take a strong look into the many issues that inhibit the StarCraft community and E-Sports culture.
The Balance between Professionalism & Personality - Posted on January 3rd, 2013
With the demand for both more tournaments in the local/regional/national/international scene as well as improved story-telling from said tournament organizers, the amount of exposure a player receives should rise. With more exposure means more public eyes on who they are, what they do, and what they say. This exposure and amount of viewership translates both to a varying level of expectancies and desires from a player (or personality). When it comes to the expectancies of professionalism of young adult professional gamers, the community standards are too high and too vague to properly determine. With insistence of etiquette over a digital space, the only area of one’s courtesies that can be seen publicly is personality; written or verbal. Personality in E-Sports is voiced more than acted out and thus manners are gauged more by the words communicated than some of the behind-the-scenes actions these iconic people do. This lopsidedness of perceived civility can often create a popular negative association with a person, despite their commendable actions within an organization. In other words, the public evaluates a person’s professionalism solely by what is seen as said (so they never account what someone does as well) and can often be too high and varied for someone to reasonably accommodate.
The other issue popular community members deal with when it comes to professionalism is when we consider the “audience”. Intended audience when something is first voice or written is not necessarily the general public and what is private communication ends up being public (but not expected to be). Below are several drama-related issues that spiked popularity on Reddit’s StarCraft subreddit. Some based on private communication caught through public means (though unintended), others spoke on a public level, but to be interpreted as emotionally private (meaning personal and not necessarily representative of their public professional attitude):
Reprimanding those who misbehave is something most support, however one’s career becomes “crucified” over misappropriation of language, unfavourable personal opinions or poor sportsmanship is often the eventual consequence for some prominent members. Reprimands are needed if the community dislikes circumstances such as Ex-Root Gaming player Destiny saying racist words on the pretense of personality; Team Liquid player NonY openly writing his discontent due to his frustration. Not all incidents are acceptable, but they’re all done with the public watching continuously and that, in of itself, poses a dilemma. Personal restraint is important and should be learned, but outlets to openly express one’s discontent are also essential. How a player can express themselves accordingly is something all teams will have to teach to the socially inept. Given how exposed these iconic figures are on a daily basis, the likelihood of them misbehaving in the past or present increase than that of other celebrity figures in mainstream worlds.
A few months ago, Destiny weighed in on this issue:
“I can’t think of a single time in the history of anything where people have had the same kind of “24/7″ access to celebrity-like figures. Sure, people like Tiger Woods and Tom Hanks have a twitter, but they are very, very carefully managed. You rarely see them doing things “for fun” in public, and when they are, it’s rare that there’s a camera or a spotlight on them. You don’t know how Tom Cruise acts with his personal friends; you don’t know what kind of dirty jokes Denzel Washington laughs at; you don’t know what Taylor Swift thinks about racial slurs.
All of the incidents and drama that I mentioned earlier occurred via forums of communication (forum posts, streams, twitter) that 99.999% of the celebrity world doesn’t partake in.”
What the community asks for is maturity and so a public ‘backlash’ over Reddit or Team Liquid, even to the greatest degree (i.e. contacting a team’s sponsor), is due to the community’s pressuring desire for two concepts:
1. an immediate response from the sponsoring organization about the situation.
2. Suitable Punishments. Maturity is the backbone of good public relation skills towards an emotionally-filled community. When players fail to portray maturity, the community feels compelled to show disapproval (if the team doesn’t first).
Though short, this piece determines three existing demands from teams and the community;
- Leniency & Patience. Teams don’t want to lose their livelihood over the free-will of their players who offer more good than bad. There should also be some leniency in what’s said over what’s offered. When players give you streams, time on web-shows for their opinions and a peak into their lives, there should be some liberties for them to express themselves.
- Punishments & Sanctions. The community wants rules set in place to properly punish those who misrepresent and offend the scene. These rules should be both implicit in contracts and expected to be carried out in a timely manner.
- Maturity & Professionalism. Teams and tournaments expect this, but to what lengths? This is the million-dollar question and while racism is obviously not allowed, are players allowed to express their anger towards an unruly community member? What about joking/teasing amongst friends where the language/topic is not very tasteful? What boundaries are to be set to give players some privacy and room?
Ultimately, what it comes down to is pleasing a diverse audience of different ages and maturities with both constant content from the players, but also keep it at a level of professionalism that most professionals are not used to constantly uphold. Restraint is difficult when it isn’t natural or raised as we all grow older. Restraint from the community is also difficult when some are too impatient to wait for an official statement. To end, we are presented with a real respective from a professional gamer, torn between his personality and words, and the harsh reactions and expectancies of an assorted community:
"If I say something stupid, like the Naniwa comments or being a part of Avilo’s horrible appearance on SOTG: it charges months of backlash. Now, in a world where people are making sport of contacting sponsors and asking them to fire people I too have to think: Is more [exposure] better? SOTG tends to discuss dramatic stuff, I am getting married in December, do I want to run the risk of another year of a show where one wrong statement and I am potentially ejected from the community/job that is attached to my very soul? My passion? I cannot change who I am."
[Evil Geniuses' Geoff 'iNcontrol' Robinson]
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This informed series of written pieces could not have been achieved without the help and opinions of my peers and friends. Below are the people I wish to thank for their insight, accuracy/consistency check or expert opinion on the numerous topics: thank you
- Alex Shieferdecker (Team Liquid Progaming Team Content Manager - tree.hugger)
- Brad Carney (Lefty)
- Chris Chan (Founder of ChanManV Production)
- Eric Grady (Cyber-Sports Network's Director of Events - Usurp)
- Flo Yao (Quantic Gaming’s Progamer - Flo)
- Jacqueline Geller (eSports Network Coordinator of Blizzard)
- John Clark (Cyber-Sports Network Executive Director of Operations)
- Josh Dentrinos (FXOpen’s Director - Boss)
- Marc McEntegart (Team Liquid Writer - SirJolt)
- Matt Weber (Team Liquid Director of Operations - Heyoka)
- Payam Toghyan (ROOT Gaming Progamer - TT1)
- Shawn Simon (Team Liquid Progamer - Sheth)
- Steven Bonnell II (Progamer/Entertainer - Destiny)
- Thomas Shifrer (ESFI World Senior Journalist)
If you'd like more information about the series (more pieces about different aspects of the scene will be released periodically), to contact me privately or to generously give me some siteviews on my website, you can follow the following link:
You can also follow me on Twitter where I tweet public news and information about the scene including roster changes, controversy and/or overall E-Sports news: @TorteDeLini
Thank you very much and I appreciate all feedback or corrections.
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Well done. If there were some way I could keep your posts at the top of my TL page, I would do it every time.
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Nicely writtten. Also what destiny said is very true.
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Professionalism often has this negative connotation of 'suppressing personality'. From experience, I really don't think that needs to be the case. I have never hidden my personality even in professional settings.
Professionalism means to work according to a certain setting. You can move freely within that setting (and bring in a lot of your personality) and don't need to constantly challenge them. If you do, which is often a good thing, you need to be willing to stand up for it!
I also feel that personality is often used as a benign umbrella term for racial slurs or other kinds of slip ups.
This is a very well written and concise article and an excellent basis for discussion! Great work as always Torte!
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On January 05 2013 03:37 JOJOsc2news wrote:Professionalism often has this negative connotation of 'suppressing personality'. From experience, I really don't think that needs to be the case. I have never hidden my personality even in professional settings. Professionalism means to work according to a certain setting. You can move freely within that setting (and bring in a lot of your personality) and don't need to constantly challenge them. If you do, which is often a good thing, you need to be willing to stand up for it! I also feel that personality is often used as a benign umbrella term for racial slurs or other kinds of slip ups.
This is a very well written and concise article and an excellent basis for discussion! Great work as always Torte!
I think it's due to the high standards and expectations as well as the misinterpretation of what is truly professionalism within a public sphere that leads to that negative connotation. If the general public knew the actual limits of professionalism, then there wouldn't be so many clashes between demand for the new and unique, but the restraint of professional attitudes.
Some personalities are very blunt or confrontational that could appear unprofessional, but rather just don't share the same values or priorities as others do.
I think that personality can have a wide range, not necessarily about racial slurs.
thanks (:
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Real celebrities are sought out by paparazzi and their lives are documented (generally) against their will. Pro gamers willingly set up twitters/facebooks in an effort to connect with their fans. It's usually good for their careers to post stuff on twitter and reddit, just not dick pictures... Overall, not really sure what Destiny is talking about as most sports players have social media outlets and they to get crucified if they say stupid shit.
In fact, there are numerous Sports figures and celebrities who have lost their playing careers and/or endorsements because of mistakes in their personal lives. In fact, this can happen to almost anyone if you act like a dumbass. Sometimes Destiny surprises the community with some well thought out comments but this time it seems he's just sour about his own position.
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On January 05 2013 04:16 SupLilSon wrote:
Real celebrities are sought out by paparazzi and their lives are documented (generally) against their will. Pro gamers willingly set up twitters/facebooks in an effort to connect with their fans. It's usually good for their careers to post stuff on twitter and reddit, just not dick pictures... Overall, not really sure what Destiny is talking about as most sports players have social media outlets and they to get crucified if they say stupid shit.
In fact, there are numerous Sports figures and celebrities who have lost their playing careers and/or endorsements because of mistakes in their personal lives. In fact, this can happen to almost anyone if you act like a dumbass. Sometimes Destiny surprises the community with some well thought out comments but this time it seems he's just sour about his own position.
I think if someone else had written what I quoted of Destiny, it'd hold the same truth.
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On January 05 2013 04:47 Torte de Lini wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2013 04:16 SupLilSon wrote:
Real celebrities are sought out by paparazzi and their lives are documented (generally) against their will. Pro gamers willingly set up twitters/facebooks in an effort to connect with their fans. It's usually good for their careers to post stuff on twitter and reddit, just not dick pictures... Overall, not really sure what Destiny is talking about as most sports players have social media outlets and they to get crucified if they say stupid shit.
In fact, there are numerous Sports figures and celebrities who have lost their playing careers and/or endorsements because of mistakes in their personal lives. In fact, this can happen to almost anyone if you act like a dumbass. Sometimes Destiny surprises the community with some well thought out comments but this time it seems he's just sour about his own position. I think if someone else had written what I quoted of Destiny, it'd hold the same truth.
Although true, your other examples show people who are willing to accept mistakes and change if necessary. Destiny has shown little remorse for his actions. Although he is sometimes articulate and thoughtful, he often uses those talents to justify for some extremely poor decision making.
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On January 05 2013 04:59 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2013 04:47 Torte de Lini wrote:On January 05 2013 04:16 SupLilSon wrote:
Real celebrities are sought out by paparazzi and their lives are documented (generally) against their will. Pro gamers willingly set up twitters/facebooks in an effort to connect with their fans. It's usually good for their careers to post stuff on twitter and reddit, just not dick pictures... Overall, not really sure what Destiny is talking about as most sports players have social media outlets and they to get crucified if they say stupid shit.
In fact, there are numerous Sports figures and celebrities who have lost their playing careers and/or endorsements because of mistakes in their personal lives. In fact, this can happen to almost anyone if you act like a dumbass. Sometimes Destiny surprises the community with some well thought out comments but this time it seems he's just sour about his own position. I think if someone else had written what I quoted of Destiny, it'd hold the same truth. Although true, your other examples show people who are willing to accept mistakes and change if necessary. Destiny has shown little remorse for his actions. Although he is sometimes articulate and thoughtful, he often uses those talents to justify for some extremely poor decision making.
I guess stubborness is part of his personality 
hohohohoho
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Canada1169 Posts
As always extremely well written, always look forward to reading the next of these. Great work Michael 
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Punishments & Sanctions. The community wants rules set in place to properly punish those who misrepresent and offend the scene. These rules should be both implicit in contracts and expected to be carried out in a timely manner.
While I understand where you are going with this, this is actually the only thing I kind of have an issue with. What/who determines a "misrepresentation of the scene" rather than "misrepresentation of yourself". I understand that some players or kind of synonymous with Starcraft, but I think it is kind of garbage when a person 24/7 represents someone else rather than themselves when they do something "wrong". When Stephano made the joke about the 14 year old girl that was a clear representation of himself. Times where has forfeit tournaments because he is too tired to play is when he represents his team..........and people lately are having a very hard time making that line.
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I like the initiative mate, you've been one of the few people around who put a lot of thought and time in to a lot of the written stuff I see you do anywhere.
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I think that the concept of "high standards" has been somewhat perverted in recent years - most notably in 2012 due to a number of situations that have led to people losing their jobs or contracts. The majority at large seems to have adopted this form-over-essence approach, where circumstance and context are usually thrown out of the window. People feel empowered by the fact that by pressuring organizations or sponsors over any issue that comes up is now very likely to cause the individual to be dropped or otherwise penalized by his employer. That alone is enough of an incentive for a lot of people to look out for new cases of a player stepping out of the line just so that they are able to use the same power again.
The so-called standards as we have them now aren't there to keep the community and the scene clean - they have the exact opposite effect, as they're being used as a tool to expose and amplify all kinds of dirt and persecute people that stray even for a little bit, sometimes through arguably little or no real fault of their own, and sometimes by exhibiting normal human reactions with no malicious intent behind it. As a consequence, many issues that could have been handled more reasonably, elegantly, and with minimal damage to any of the parties involved, have been placed under heavy spotlight and blown way out of proportion, causing damage not only do the "guilty" side, but plenty of collateral damage as well.
Furthermore, the situations as it is causes the players - people who used to be an integral part of this community - to become detached and aloof. While it all depends on what people really want to see from the scene, I find the notion of Starcraft players behaving and presenting themselves as media superstars extremely unappealing, artificial, and generally not something that I would care at all for (in a positive sense).
IMO, the reason many forms of internet media have gained popularity and found success over the last few years is because they have presented themselves as an alternative to the kind of content one would expect to see on TV - mostly by doing away with many of the limiting and nonsensical layers of media professionalism (while still retaining the basic aspects of it) and coming off as more genuine and honest.
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On January 05 2013 05:03 Nerski wrote:
I like the initiative mate, you've been one of the few people around who put a lot of thought and time in to a lot of the written stuff I see you do anywhere.
Totally agree with this :-)
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TBH I feel sometimes too many people use the personality excuse to act like an asshole and get away with it. At the same time, creating an "asshole personality" is one of the easiest way to stick out from the masses of quiet, good but not great players and is something that a lot of people enjoy watching.
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On January 05 2013 05:22 Louuster wrote:
TBH I feel sometimes too many people use the personality excuse to act like an asshole and get away with it. At the same time, creating an "asshole personality" is one of the easiest way to stick out from the masses of quiet, good but not great players and is something that a lot of people enjoy watching.
Great insight! Yes, there is a huge conflict of wanting to stand tall through harsh personality. Everyone has similar skills and traits and not all viewers are able to detect the finer details of stylistic play (unless it deviates heavily from the norm of traditional builds).
Through voice and words, your personality is narrowly defined and shown to the viewers. Being an asshole indulges certain others and the hilarity of it can sometimes put you in the spotlight for other reasons than your skill. It's a great way to compensate your inability to achieve (given the dominance of Koreans going on right now, this path isn't exactly too bad of an idea).
Of course, then you have a thin line of maintaining that personality, pushing boundaries and ensuring the audience gets what they want without stepping on too many toes. It's like shock therapy, but trying to avoid shocking to death your self-made entertainer career.
Awesome viewpoint (:
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On January 05 2013 05:22 Louuster wrote:
TBH I feel sometimes too many people use the personality excuse to act like an asshole and get away with it. At the same time, creating an "asshole personality" is one of the easiest way to stick out from the masses of quiet, good but not great players and is something that a lot of people enjoy watching.
I don't know which people in particular you're aiming at, but I don't know of a single "personality" in Starcraft 2 that I would consider an asshole, nor do I know of anyone that behaves in such a way consistently that he would deserve being branded as one.
There have been plenty of people that have had their outbursts now and then, some more so than others, but for the most part all of them behave reasonably and professionally.
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On January 05 2013 05:30 Talin wrote:Show nested quote +On January 05 2013 05:22 Louuster wrote:
TBH I feel sometimes too many people use the personality excuse to act like an asshole and get away with it. At the same time, creating an "asshole personality" is one of the easiest way to stick out from the masses of quiet, good but not great players and is something that a lot of people enjoy watching. I don't know which people in particular you're aiming at, but I don't know of a single "personality" in Starcraft 2 that I would consider an asshole, nor do I know of anyone that behaves in such a way consistently that he would deserve being branded as one. There have been plenty of people that have had their outbursts now and then, some more so than others, but for the most part all of them behave reasonably and professionally.
I think when he means asshole, that they're a bit obnoxious or confrontational.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/kwkQa.png)
