I don't understand why people use this term. The vast majority are not Korean, or even in Korea.
The term in itself sounds condescending or at the very least creates an unhealthy (us and them) dichotomy that makes no sense. Perhaps in Korean language the term does not have the same connotations (although i'm confident it does), but in English it makes no sense whatsoever for a guy from new york to call a guy from california a foreigner.
btw for those who somehow don't know, foreigner means: a person not native to or naturalized in the country or jurisdiction under consideration.
The country or jurisdiction under consideration (with regards to talking about starcraft) is not Korea lol its a global game played on the internet.
In sum, stop trying to sound like Koreans by saying everyone not from Korea is a 'foreigner'. You don't sound cool and it doesn't even make sense.
It originated from BW, with Korea being the central hub for it. SC2 is definitely a lot more global of a game so far, but the term has trickled in from BW, so yeah.
As mentioned before, it's a broodwar term used by fans outside of korea following e-sports there. I'm pretty sure it just stuck with the transition to sc2. But I guess it must sound strange since the term is a bit misplaced when you don't have the full picture of why it's used the way it is.
Its only really used in reference to games in Korea. When people were at the ESL in germany no one talked about foreigners. I have no problem with it when it is used to describe a non-korean in a korea league
now what you gonna do? force people to stop using the word "foreigner"? and what if they dont listen? (cause they wont)
I cant understand people beeing upset by stuff like this... maybe you are just too new to the scene? just like the guys beeing upset because people keep talking about "tiers" and not using the right plural for colossus. dont be such a *insert random flame* about it
Oh boy, another young gun that went straight to SC2 without BW. This is all from BW, the Koreans dominated BW, and if any non-korean became pro, they would be called a "foreigner" because what else would you call them? Would you go like, well that german has very good macro, or that Mexican is good at micro? No, you just call them foreigners because you can't memorize all the foreign player's countries especially when they don't make a difference in the pro scene. In Canda, your country, what would you call a group of people that were German, Irish, Japanese, and Spainish? You call them foreigners.
And its not like foreigners are dominating SC2. Only 1 foreigner TLO is left in the GSL out of like 30 now
The word doesn't have the negative connotation in Korean like it does in English, and like it was explained above, everything that happens really big in Starcraft happens in South Korea.
By your own definition of a foreigner, where is the country/jurisdiction under consideration when we are talking about starcraft? Since you seem to have joined the community post-scbw, ill explain.
If you have watched that short clip, perhaps you would know why Korea is the "country under consideration" when we talk about Starcraft or even eSports in general. Korea is the home of eSports, so if you aren't from home, but youre talking about eSports, then you are foreign.
Read or Reread this and maybe now itll all come together
On September 17 2010 04:33 Tropics wrote: a person not native to or naturalized in the country or jurisdiction under consideration.
in this context starcraft is the jurisdiction, you literally posted the reason it happens when questioning why it happens
What? this makes no sense. Then everyone, koreans included would be a foreigner. Nobody lives in starcraft. lol. My point is that nobody is a foreigner since it is not a valid jurisdiction. Its a nonsensical statement to make.
The main reason I have a problem with it though (cause lots of nonsensical things don't really bother me all that much), is that it creates this "we are different from them" dichotomy that is not healthy. If you think about it as starcraft nerds you probably have a lot more in common with a random progamer than you do with your neighbour.
We're all one man peace and love and so on. No need to create and support made-up divides between two like "groups".
Edit: the whole point is why even point it out? When a Japanese baseball player comes to pitch in the Major Leagues the announcers don't say "foreigner pitcher so and so". They don't call spanish basketball players foreigner ballers lol. You see the place in which the sport is most popular doesn't need to have any control over the use of foreigner like this. Its obviously a term adopted from Korean to English that makes no sense to use in the majority of contexts it is used.
listen, SC has been around for a while. since the vast majority of the top BW players were korean, players like Nony entering Korea to play SC were considered "foreigners". you went to korea if you were good and to the koreans you were a "foreigner". since TL's attitude was so influenced by the prevailing attitudes in the professional SC circuit in korea it stuck on here as well.
in sum, stop trying to sound like a wronged individual by saying that it doesn't make sense. the official TL clock is in KST, TLPD lists korean names, you are given a star if you can translate korean articles. there is a great deal of korean influence on this site, stop crying.
i came from bw and this term felt right cuz koreans were way better than "foreigners"
but in sc2 i believe if all the top "foreigners" played in the GSL i believe it would be "foreigners" that make up half of the round of 64.
so i dont like the term anymore because it makes it sound like koreans are better in sc2 also which isnt true. i think its about the same. look at most the big foreigners who joined it, made it. tlo, idra, torch?, artosis. imagine morrow, dimaga, kiwi, sen, etc was playing in it.
I agree with the original post. I was not in the Brood War scene so some people might jump down my throat for admitting I don't like it, but this is just how I feel. Nobody is crying about this, but it seems like it would make more sense to say non-Korean instead. But the term seems to be heavily used already and probably won't be changed. That's okay, I don't like it but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.
On September 17 2010 04:33 Tropics wrote: a person not native to or naturalized in the country or jurisdiction under consideration.
in this context starcraft is the jurisdiction, you literally posted the reason it happens when questioning why it happens
What? this makes no sense. Then everyone, koreans included would be a foreigner. Nobody lives in starcraft. lol. My point is that nobody is a foreigner since it is not a valid jurisdiction. Its a nonsensical statement to make.
The main reason I have a problem with it though (cause lots of nonsensical things don't really bother me all that much), is that it creates this "we are different from them" dichotomy that is not healthy. If you think about it as starcraft nerds you probably have a lot more in common with a random progamer than you do with your neighbour.
We're all one man peace and love and so on. No need to create and support made-up divides between two like "groups".
Edit: the whole point is why even point it out? When a Japanese baseball player comes to pitch in the Major Leagues the announcers don't say "foreigner pitcher so and so". They don't call spanish basketball players foreigner ballers lol. You see the place in which the sport is most popular doesn't need to have any control over the use of foreigner like this. Its obviously a term adopted from Korean to English that makes no sense to use in the majority of contexts it is used.
The reason they don't do that in other sports is that they have many more foreign players than Starcraft has
On September 17 2010 04:33 Tropics wrote: a person not native to or naturalized in the country or jurisdiction under consideration.
in this context starcraft is the jurisdiction, you literally posted the reason it happens when questioning why it happens
What? this makes no sense. Then everyone, koreans included would be a foreigner. Nobody lives in starcraft. lol. My point is that nobody is a foreigner since it is not a valid jurisdiction. Its a nonsensical statement to make.
The main reason I have a problem with it though (cause lots of nonsensical things don't really bother me all that much), is that it creates this "we are different from them" dichotomy that is not healthy. If you think about it as starcraft nerds you probably have a lot more in common with a random progamer than you do with your neighbour.
We're all one man peace and love and so on. No need to create and support made-up divides between two like "groups".
Reading comprehension, dude. It makes perfect sense.
Here, I'll put brackets around the different components of the sentence to make it clearer:
[a person not native to or naturalized in] [the country or jurisdiction] [under consideration.]
i.e. A person who does not come from the place that we are talking about. In this case, we're talking about Starcraft and e-Sports, whose home is South Korea. Therefore, if you're not from South Korea, and we're referring to a non-Korean in the context of Starcraft, then you are, by definition, a foreigner.
If you go to a foreign country and speak to the locals, you'd refer to yourself as a foreigner too, wouldn't you? Someone would call himself "American" or "German" or what have you, in effect calling himself a foreigner.
EPT
