[Interview] Stork after soju - Page 8

Before Bisu (and other gamers of note) arrived and brought some mainstream BW fans with them, I've heard Sea occasionally praise Savior for no reason. Sometimes he would be talking about something completely different and suddenly segue into a non sequitur about Savior's handsome looks, awesome fashion sense, and what not... Sea would even go as far as to "put up a shield" for Savior by saying that the match-fixing scandal had no impact on him and he doesn't understand why people would say that it cause the fall of BW. One can only imagine that he was aiming to extract balloons from crazy Savior fanatics who followed him to Afreeca. We can also imagine that someone like iloveoov or Stork would want to punch Sea in the face after hearing such bull.

Sea is constantly saying [expletives redacted---just in case there are people who are too delicate and precious for such words] and sometimes uses these words to insult his viewers. I am not a prude, but using foul language does not enhance your image unless you can do it intelligently like George Carlin.

Sea uses those words to insult the people who have not given him balloons. When he gets into an argument with the viewers in his channel, he will blacklist them immediately if they are not in his "fan club" (which means they donated 1 or more balloons). If that viewer has an icon that says he has donated a balloon, Sea will check the Afreeca records to see how many balloons this viewer has donated to him. If the amount donated is small, he will direct foul language at the viewer and blacklist him. If the amount donated is large, he will prostrate himself and beg for forgiveness while doing this really embarrassing "cutie sea" act. However, to me what is more embarrassing is the fact that he is so crass in the way he so openly and explicitly discriminates between viewers based on how much they have given him. Most people will treat their patrons well, but they wouldn't do it in such a crass way.

Sea also sometimes tries to elicit pity balloons from his viewers in ways that are embarrassing because his intentions seem so transparent no matter how much he tries to hide them.

There's also the fact that he sometimes streams without washing his face or brushing his teeth. There are clothes strewn about his room, which reveal that his room is a bit of a pigsty.

That said, there are worse BJs...

Boxer's generation worked really hard to change the image of gamers, who were previously viewed in Korea as uneducated addicts who were lacking in class and social graces. Progamers became icons of the unadulterated and wholesome passion of the youth to an extent. If one of the grumpy old men who bemoaned the rise of professional gaming in Korea saw Sea's (or many other) BJ's streams today, he might put in his false teeth so that he could grumble "I told you so".

So---yeah---Stork is not completely off base about this.

I think that Bisu's stream is okay (there are a couple other decent streams as well). I see that Bisu is lonely (wtf?), sucks at singing, and has a terrible sense of humor, but he treats his viewers with respect (although he gets playful at times) and doesn't really say anything controversial.

Before Bisu (and other gamers of note) arrived and brought some mainstream BW fans with them, I've heard Sea occasionally praise Savior for no reason. Sometimes he would be talking about something completely different and suddenly segue into a non sequitur about Savior's handsome looks, awesome fashion sense, and what not... Sea would even go as far as to "put up a shield" for Savior by saying that the match-fixing scandal had no impact on him and he doesn't understand why people would say that it cause the fall of BW. One can only imagine that he was aiming to extract balloons from crazy Savior fanatics who followed him to Afreeca. We can also imagine that someone like iloveoov or Stork would want to punch Sea in the face after hearing such bull.

Sea is constantly saying [expletives redacted---just in case there are people who are too delicate and precious for such words] and sometimes uses these words to insult his viewers. I am not a prude, but using foul language does not enhance your image unless you can do it intelligently like George Carlin.

Sea uses those words to insult the people who have not given him balloons. When he gets into an argument with the viewers in his channel, he will blacklist them immediately if they are not in his "fan club" (which means they donated 1 or more balloons). If that viewer has an icon that says he has donated a balloon, Sea will check the Afreeca records to see how many balloons this viewer has donated to him. If the amount donated is small, he will direct foul language at the viewer and blacklist him. If the amount donated is large, he will prostrate himself and beg for forgiveness while doing this really embarrassing "cutie sea" act. However, to me what is more embarrassing is the fact that he is so crass in the way he so openly and explicitly discriminates between viewers based on how much they have given him. Most people will treat their patrons well, but they wouldn't do it in such a crass way.

Sea also sometimes tries to elicit pity balloons from his viewers in ways that are embarrassing because his intentions seem so transparent no matter how much he tries to hide them.

There's also the fact that he sometimes streams without washing his face or brushing his teeth. There are clothes strewn about his room, which reveal that his room is a bit of a pigsty.

That said, there are worse BJs...

Boxer's generation worked really hard to change the image of gamers, who were previously viewed in Korea as uneducated addicts who were lacking in class and social graces. Progamers became icons of the unadulterated and wholesome passion of the youth to an extent. If one of the grumpy old men who bemoaned the rise of professional gaming in Korea saw Sea's (or many other) BJ's streams today, he might put in his false teeth so that he could grumble "I told you so".

So---yeah---Stork is not completely off base about this.

I think that Bisu's stream is okay (there are a couple other decent streams as well). I see that Bisu is lonely (wtf?), sucks at singing, and has a terrible sense of humor, but he treats his viewers with respect (although he gets playful at times) and doesn't really say anything controversial.

Before Bisu (and other gamers of note) arrived and brought some mainstream BW fans with them, I've heard Sea occasionally praise Savior for no reason. Sometimes he would be talking about something completely different and suddenly segue into a non sequitur about Savior's handsome looks, awesome fashion sense, and what not... Sea would even go as far as to "put up a shield" for Savior by saying that the match-fixing scandal had no impact on him and he doesn't understand why people would say that it cause the fall of BW. One can only imagine that he was aiming to extract balloons from crazy Savior fanatics who followed him to Afreeca. We can also imagine that someone like iloveoov or Stork would want to punch Sea in the face after hearing such bull.

Sea is constantly saying [expletives redacted---just in case there are people who are too delicate and precious for such words] and sometimes uses these words to insult his viewers. I am not a prude, but using foul language does not enhance your image unless you can do it intelligently like George Carlin.

Sea uses those words to insult the people who have not given him balloons. When he gets into an argument with the viewers in his channel, he will blacklist them immediately if they are not in his "fan club" (which means they donated 1 or more balloons). If that viewer has an icon that says he has donated a balloon, Sea will check the Afreeca records to see how many balloons this viewer has donated to him. If the amount donated is small, he will direct foul language at the viewer and blacklist him. If the amount donated is large, he will prostrate himself and beg for forgiveness while doing this really embarrassing "cutie sea" act. However, to me what is more embarrassing is the fact that he is so crass in the way he so openly and explicitly discriminates between viewers based on how much they have given him. Most people will treat their patrons well, but they wouldn't do it in such a crass way.

Sea also sometimes tries to elicit pity balloons from his viewers in ways that are embarrassing because his intentions seem so transparent no matter how much he tries to hide them.

There's also the fact that he sometimes streams without washing his face or brushing his teeth. There are clothes strewn about his room, which reveal that his room is a bit of a pigsty.

That said, there are worse BJs...

Boxer's generation worked really hard to change the image of gamers, who were previously viewed in Korea as uneducated addicts who were lacking in class and social graces. Progamers became icons of the unadulterated and wholesome passion of the youth to an extent. If one of the grumpy old men who bemoaned the rise of professional gaming in Korea saw Sea's (or many other) BJ's streams today, he might put in his false teeth so that he could grumble "I told you so".

So---yeah---Stork is not completely off base about this.

I think that Bisu's stream is okay (there are a couple other decent streams as well). I see that Bisu is lonely (wtf?), sucks at singing, and has a terrible sense of humor, but he treats his viewers with respect (although he gets playful at times) and doesn't really say anything controversial.

The superstars of Brood War had a larger, more diverse fan bases than other players. Sea was a very good player, but was never a superstar. Stars with large fan bases instinctively learn not to offend subgroups of their fan bases. Furthermore, when they do make mistakes in public, they are made targets of criticism, which is a signal for them to correct their behavior. Players like JangBi and Stork both made and learned from their mistakes. People watched and enjoyed Sea's games, but he was outside of the public consciousness for the most part and did not receive a similar level of scrutiny. Bisu was such a mega superstar that he even appeared on network television, which is a huge deal. SKT would not have sent him out on such a stage without some guidance beforehand.

Teams like SKT/KT/Samsung (to a lesser extent Pantech) actively used their Brood War teams in their marketing strategies. These corporations had an incentive to make sure that their players would behave with some level of decorum in public or keep their mouths shut.

Some players received a lot more guidance from the older gamers. Think about how Boxer groomed iloveoov. It was said that Boxer also planned for Bisu to be the public face of T1. Other old gamers are also known to be grounded and thus good mentors (like Yellow, Reach, etc.). If you were lucky enough to have those guys' behavior rub off on you, then you are probably better off.

Of course, some people just have it and others don't. If you saw Yellow on the "The Genius" game show, then you would have agreed that the man is just a born survivor who can handle all of life's curve balls. Aside: Yellow is so awesome. Bisu has mentioned on his stream that Sea is extremely talented and even used to place ahead of Bisu in amateur tournaments. However, Sea apparently never practiced as hard as the other gamers when he was with Bisu on the MBC team. Perhaps Sea was less mature than most people to begin with.

However, even the better-prepared gamers have trouble with adjusting to life after retirement. There was that interview with Yellow, NaDa, and Nal_ra, where all of them said that they were befuddled by how unprepared they were for life after pro-gaming.

Sea and Bisu started out on the same pro team. They also attended the same high school, which was recently featured on Korean television as a school for "problem children" who had run out of second chances. They chose that school because it allowed them to skip school for pro-gaming activities. So both of them were deprived of character-building teenage experiences. However, Bisu does not behave crassly on his stream like Sea does. Bisu had advantages related to points #1, #2, #3 (and likely #4 as well) over Sea. I wonder what would have happened if Sea was on T1 and whipped into shape by oov and Boxer. Perhaps he would have become Fantasy instead of Fantasy.