SuperFans: A Reflection on Fandom and Its Impacts

I glance briefly at the glowing numbers of the clock. I am sitting down at home on this particular Saturday night, the clock reads 9:26, and I am completely, utterly bored. Shifting around restlessly in my chair, I finally decide to tune into a TeamLiquid stream and I see a high-level TvZ match. Despite its intensity, I soon close the stream in favor of old VODs featuring my favorite Korean progamer: 정종현 (Jeong Jong Hyun), otherwise known as LG-IMMvp.

"What a strange phenomenon," I muse to myself. Why is it that I can only derive enjoyment from this particular player? Today, I decide to ponder this question more extensively in hopes of finding a suitable answer.

First, I consider the possibility that Mvp simply has an entertaining playstyle. Although many would consider Mvp to simply be boring due to his safe and solid gameplay, I know better. I have witnessed the great diversity in his builds and style, and it is certainly no coincidence that many of Mvp's games are found within lists containing the very best games.

However, there must be something more that draws me towards his games. It must be the player himself, his background, and his stories.

I know that Mvp is as much of an entertainer as MC or any other flashy progamer that lived. While MC is known for his crazy antics such as his Murloc suit, Mvp entertains by creating storylines.

Off the top of my head, I can list dozens of great rivalries that Mvp has produced. Can MarineKing ever overcome his personal wall, the King of Terran? Will we see teammate titans Mvp and NesTea duke it out again? Does MMA still hold an advantage over Mvp now that SlayerS has disbanded? These rivalries generate hype and add immensely to the entertainment value of matches.

Even without existing rivalries, Mvp alone is enough to generate a thrilling storyline. In 2011, he directed the tale of the unstoppable king. In 2012, he wrote the story of the underdog struggling with health problems. Mvp shows us the struggles of a progamer, the clash of a veteran against new blood. He captures the essence of progamers vying for relevancy in the rapidly changing scene, and the champion's struggle for unrivaled success.

Beyond the stories lies the man himself, a man no different from any of us. Reading about his family's financial problems, the difficult days of Brood War, and the risky switch to StarCraft II allows us to empathize with him. Winning GSLs is significant on its own, but knowing that Mvp used the prize money to buy his parents a house makes the accomplishment that much more meaningful. His personality is clearly visible through his brilliant smile after he wins a match, or his humble comments regarding his own lack of skill. To put it simply, he is incredibly likeable.

Then, there is one specific quality about him which I can keenly sense: his thirst for victory. Mvp has nothing left to prove, and his winnings are certainly more than sufficient. If he were to retire at this very second, he would still go down in history as perhaps the most successful player in all of StarCraft II history. His spine condition causes him serious amounts of pain while he plays, so much pain that he cannot even register the feeling of his clicks. Despite the pain, despite his success, Mvp practices hard. Mvp is not done yet; he wants to taste the championship over and over again.

I realize that Mvp embodies all the qualities that I admire most. His burning will to overcome his challenges has inspired me, along with many others, in our daily lives. His humble personality reminds me to appreciate what I have. His success prods me to put in more effort and reach greater heights. I tell myself daily that if I struggle long and hard, I will succeed like my favorite progamer.

When the situation seems utterly hopeless and I feel myself giving in to despair, I ask myself, "Would Mvp give up?" The answer is a resounding "No!" as I rewatch Mvp vs. INnoVation game 2. When my life suddenly takes the wrong turn several times in a row and everything is going wrong, I once again ask myself, "Would Mvp give up?" I think about his devastating losses in HomeStory Cup and his subsequent triumphs at IEM Cologne and GSL Season 4 2012. "No!"

When I lose my self-confidence, I ask myself if Mvp was ever intimidated. I remember Rain's air of PvT invincibility or INnoVation's intimidation, and I also remember that Mvp never gave up without trying.

As I write this article out, it becomes painfully obvious why I derive enjoyment from Mvp's games. Suddenly I am not watching a simple TvZ. I am watching a hero, a champion. I am watching a professional StarCraft II gamer hailing from South Korea, my inspiration, the greatest entertainer in my eyes.

Please dazzle me forever more, Terran King!

Being a PartinG fan is something special and has affected my life.

After following WarCraft III for a few years, I was very excited about the release of StarCraft II. The hype preceding it was massive and I found myself quickly drawn into it. Several months into playing the game as I was hitting diamond in random, I discovered the world of professional StarCraft on Youtube. After a while I found out about TeamLiquid.net and was soon actively following the GSL. Tastosis were great and enjoyable and players like Mvp and Nestea made it a treat to watch. I became a fan of Mvp very quickly and kept up with every his games for a while.

Around December 2011, I was watching the Korean StarCraft II League (KSL) between IM and StarTale, a must watch match between two of the top Korean teams at the time. The player to look out for was again, Mvp. After defeating Squirtle quite easily StarTale sent out PartinG versus Mvp. I had never seen this rookie play before. The map they played on was aptly named Calm Before the Storm, a foreshadow of the coming tempest. PartinG dismantled Mvp that day with perfect Templar usage and drop defense. I was baffled. A rookie took out the 3-time GSL champion with unseen level of style and innovative play. With PartinG's win, StarTale sealed the victory in the team league match.

I was instantly hooked. PartinG later qualified for his first Code S season in January 2012. It was then that I created the PartinG fan club. Along with qualifying for GSL came more exposure. He was characterized by his cocky and cheerful personality in interviews. Soon, because of his unique PvT style he gained more fans. His first GSL run was ended abruptedly in the quarter finals by the player who would become the eventual champion, DongRaeGu.

PartinG’s weakest match up, PvZ, was worrisome. In the 2012 GSTL Season 1 Final, his team StarTale faced Prime. PartinG played against MKP in the fourth game of the series after having already defeated two other Prime players. With stellar play PartinG seemed close to sealing the 3-kill win for his team when the unthinkable happened, the game disconnected. I was watching this live, everyone on TL was going nuts on what should and would happen nexxt. Controversially, a regame was decided which allowing MKP to metagame PartinG and took the series for team Prime. PartinG was devastated and so was I. It felt so bad to see him cry with his team surrounding him, but that defeat did not stop him from fighting his way to his first big title. By fixing his PvZ with the infamous WonWonWon, or Soul Train build, PartinG was ready to make some real money.

2012 was PartinG’s year. While on a family weekend, early in the morning I watched PartinG win the biggest StarCraft II prize to date, a hundred thousand dollars. Two weeks later he raked in another 20k by winning WCG. He made some big bucks and this fed his ego. I personally thought this was very amusing and was very keen on seeing more of him.

PartinG is a polarizing player to say the least. He talks smack, a lot. Every live report thread of PartinG´s games is filled with passionate supporters or disapproving antifans. I enjoy this of PartinG. A common Dutch proverb is “leven in de brouwerij brengen”. Meaning “to pep things up”. This fits PartinG, he might not always say the right words but he’s just a nineteen year old kid who enjoys what he does. And I like what he does because of that.

Following PartinG for the last 2 years has made me appreciate SCII more, as a sport and as a hobby. PartinG’s cheeky words and banter in his interviews and his fun and playful personality have made SCII very enjoyable for me. I will always continue to cheer for PartinG. He has had a tough time with HotS and joined the KeSPA team SKT. Still I see the awesome player and rookie of that KSL game. I see it in his play, in his bravado and his passion. This is why he is my favourite player. The joy as a fan of following a player like PartinG has been a great experience and I hope PartinG keeps showing great games. I want to thank a number of fellow PartinG fans for their support and cheering for him with me on Team Liquid, LockeTazeline, Lazzi, jmanthedragonguy and GL999et1000. Thank you for reading this.

It's no secret that 2012 was the year of the Zergs, with 3 of 5 GSLs going to the Swarm and more Zerg players finding success than ever before. People like to talk about the imbalanced Zerg late-game, where brood lords, infestors and jungles of spine crawlers allowed the Zerg to fully utilise the strenghts that lay in slowly wearing your opponent down with waves and waves of free units. But in fact, at the time where turtle-Zergs were at their very peak, another Zerg emerged to take the scene by storm. And no, I'm not talking about Sniper, and definitely not Roro!

Lee Seung Hyun, better known as ”Life”, had been a constant fixture in online leagues for quite a while, first being noticed early in 2012 as a strong, aggressive ZeNEX Zerg much like his teammate Line (now Suhosin) – favoring low-economy play and two-base timings. As one of the ESV Korean Weekly regulars, Life gathered some hipster fan support as fans began to notice his unique but effective style. With a ZvZ winrate rivalled only by Nestea's at his peak, Life joined Creator and Taeja as players with top-notch online performances but no real offline results to match.
I'm of the opinion that the most important point in Life's career was his all-kill of Team Liquid in GSTL. Don't get me wrong, he had been a force in online team leagues before that point, but his 8-kill streak in GSTL (beating Zenio, Hero, Jinro, Haypro, TLO, Coca, Crank and MMA) gave him the momentum he needed to ”ignite the fire”. Not long after his GSTL performance, a ZeNEX-StarTale merger was announced, and Life was assimilated into the StarTale ranks, coinciding with the Korean summer school break.

The rest of the story is well-known. After a summer with StarTale, Life emerged a more complete player. His trademark, unrelenting aggression was still there, but with the help of StarTale, he developed solid decision making, further improved his macro and game sense, but more than anything else, he developed his patented ling-centric style. With constant ling aggression coupled with next-level control, Life took the world by storm, eventually winning 5 major tournaments in the span of 6 months – GSL4, Blizzard Cup, MLG Fall, Iron Squid 2 and MLG Winter, becoming one of the select few to consistently produce results for an extended period of time.

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Although Life's unique playstyle both captivated and greatly entertained me, his play was not what drew me to him and made me a true fan. What fascinated me was two things: the first was his approach to the game. The more I watched him play, the more I felt like there was something different about how he played the game itself. The best comparison I can make is Boxer in Brood War and his triple bunker rush against Yellow. Life has the same kind of killer instinct – an adaptability that's become quite uncommon among top Starcraft II players. If he sees a weakness, he'll churn out 60 lings and kill his opponent. He doesn't obsess over his own game plan, but rather actively looks for ways to win as quickly as possible (presumably so he can go home and sleep).

The second, his complete confidence. Fionn once talked about a Lifephano Zone – where the players who are supremely confident in their ability to come back from any deficit and still win reside. Having come from behind to win in four out of his five finals, Life consistently displays that being down a game or three doesn't faze him; nothing does. Such kind of confidence fascinates and impresses me greatly. Maybe it's because I've been in high-pressure situations myself and know how difficult it is to maintain such confidence that I'm drawn to Life's clutchness, or maybe it's because Life doesn't just look unworried, but bored. Playing against Flash in a grand finals at MLG didn't bother him not because he doesn't respect Flash, but because nothing could ever break his confidence. It just wasn't possible. While many people would find a player half-sleeping in his booth half-way into a major finals distasteful, I found it fascinating but first and foremost hilarious.

Looking back at 2012 and trying to see the big picture, I think Life might actually have saved my interest in Starcraft II. My interest was fading away at the start of 2012 and other than DRG finally winning a GSL, Mvp 2raxing Squirtle for the championship and Naniwa's double miracle runs, Starcraft II to me wasn't as interesting as it had been in 2011, with the beginning of the Korean invasion. This changed when Life came along. His hyper-aggressive playstyle re-ignited my interest in the game, and I followed his run through TSL4 religiously, from the beyond whacky series against elfi to the finals against Creator, where the latter's composure eventually gave him the win. From that point and to this day, I have watched every game Life has played, and it's given me an overview of his journey from online hero to champion that's sometimes hard to grasp due to the separation of the foreign and Korean scenes.

Every player goes through tough periods. I've discovered that whether or not you keep cheering for ”your” player in tough periods and whether or not you keep believing that s/he can still come back better than before decides if you remain a fan. As someone once said ”If you can't handle me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best”. I find that this applies to fandom just as it does to relationships – with one being slightly creepier than the other.

On that note, is it healthy to follow a player so religiously that you have to ask for a temp ban when said player is eliminated from IPL5? Probably not. At times, especially now, I feel like I could benefit from caring less, but I don't. I couldn't. Life's unique combination of confidence bordering on cockiness, entertaining playstyle, approach and great face makes him a player that's, to me, unique. I've watched (tens?) of thousands of games by hundreds of players in two different Starcrafts, and Life to me stands out as the greatest player of them all.

Is this reasonable? Not really. Life has results, but they are not (yet) comparable to the results produced by the bonjwas of Brood War, or even by the most accomplished players in Starcraft II MC and Mvp. Are there players that are playing better than him right now? Certainly.
But none of this bothers me in this slightest – I look at what Life has done, what I perceive as true brilliance, and it eclipses what other players have done.
Does this make sense? No, it doesn't.
But in the end, isn't that what being a real fan of someone is all about?

My name is Amel and I come from Slovenia, a tiny country from Central Europe. I am software developer, computer gamer and avid fan of e-sports.

My favorite Starcraft 2 professional gamer is Johan Lucchesi, ID NaNiwa. When I started playing Starcraft 2 back in January 2011, I played the Protoss race. Back then, I liked the players that were popular in the community like White-Ra, IdrA, and TLO. I heard about NaniWa at MLG Dallas 2011, when he won his first major tournament. Initially, I didn't think this guy would be especially noteworthy. However, I was proven wrong when he showed me a completely different side of himself while winning whole tournament without losing a game. I really liked his calm "It's ok," comment that everyone now knows him for. I could feel that there is something special about this player. He was very calm and retained. Since I was playing Protoss I started spectating more of him and watched his replays. I still didn't pay much attention to NaniWa until around the time when he moved to Team Complexity. No one heard much from him during that summer in 2011, but MLG Providence was the moment when he came out of shadows and almost won the whole tournament. I think that was the first time that I actually rooted for a gamer and had all nerdchills a gamer can have. It was crazy mixture of adrenaline and euphoria. From that tournament on, I loved this guy. He became my favorite player. He showed his unique attitude and personality with legendary "Nani walk" and comedic "bad gestures" versus DongRaeGu. Some time around MLG Providence people started to criticize NaniWa for his bad behavior on Twitter or in-game outbursts. When he moved to Quantic, people started chanting about him not being able to remain on a team for a long time, etc. The Community turned against NaniWa, my favorite player. And after that probe rush vs Nestea during Blizzard Cup of 2011, people went mental. NaniWa was alone in the dark.

I was watching a lot of his interviews, him explaining why he did things he did, why he rushed with probes, why he is changing teams constantly, etc. He reminded me of myself, because he only wanted the best conditions for success, which he couldn't get from the teams. It's not always material things, it's not always the name of the team, psychology is a big deal here too, which weren't ideal in Korea. You being alone with 15 Koreans, with no communication, it's almost impossible to not feel like a robot. Naniwa is a very competitive guy, when he loses his temper, he lets it out on twitter, which is another reason why people didn't like him. But as for me, I understood him. Watching him was like seeing a picture of myself.

After Naniwa joined Quantic to be with Sase in Korea, I would always watched him play, I will never forget his two consecutive GSL RO8 runs, I was just crazy, like watching Arsenal - Barcelona 2011 Emirates game. I think Naniwa was at the pinnacle of his career at the time. It showed how hard work and dedication can bring one's game level to the top. When Naniwa left Quantic gaming, I wasn't sure what would happen to my favorite player and my only reason to follow Starcraft 2. But the guy continued on. I admire his discipline, I like how he trained at home ALONE while he was without a team to keep his pace in the game. I was really sad when Quantic released him, because I thought he would quit gaming, but then in interview with JP McDaniel, he said that he still had a lot of motivation for game, and that he will continue to train from home. Such a big enthusiastic guy! Even though, Naniwa was the top foreigner in the world (Stephano might be a big earner, but he couldn't do much in GSL), he didn't beg teams to accept him. He wanted to go on his own road. Like always, since the day he started playing computer games. He went his own way, even when people didn't support him in what he loved. This strength is the reason why he is the best foreigner in SC2 of all times.

Now I don't follow Starcraft 2 as much as I used to, but whenever NaniWa plays, I really want to watch the tournaments. I can still feel those nerdchills now as if it's still 2011, my best SC2 year. NaniWa is the only player that kept my interest in the SC2 scene, no matter how little time I have now.

I think NaniWa is copy of myself. He is competitive, which makes him rage online and do unexpected things sometimes. That's why people call him "villain" of Starcraft 2. But I don't think he is villain, because if person is really enthusiastic about something he does, there are a lot of psychological chemicals involved. If you lose, you can be sad and go write something on twitter just because of that feeling in your stomach. But NaniWa always knew that, so he apologized every time he wrote something bad, which proves that he does care, and regrets his impassioned outbursts later on. But a part of the SC2 community will always be against him, because they don't understand him. He is very honest person, that is the other thing that connects him with me. Watching him giving interviews is just pure entertainment.

Being a fan of NaniWa has made some big impacts on my life. I learned that even if many people are against you, you can still succeed if you work very hard and have a goal. When you invest hard work into what you are doing, you build some kind of bulletproof vest and no one can put you down. I like to know that there are people like NaniWa in SC2 scene. He doesn't receive high rewards like other top professional gamers, he doesn't have the best training conditions but he is still on the top throughout the whole SC2 era. That is hard work, my friends. Able to survive in SC2 scene because of hard work and discipline, is worth only one thing - /bow for King of the North. Johan Lucchesi is Keanu Reeves of SC2. He is top, he is down to earth, intelligent and honest person. Which makes him my favorite SC2 player.

The odd Terran player that I am a super fan of is nothing short of an entertainer and a fan favorite. His games are filled with over-the-top strategies and excitement. This player not only annihilates his opponents, he plays with them like they are his food; he is so good at StarCraft that he would often make the game look imbalanced. The never-ending hordes of marines rallied out to slay everything in their paths backed up with macro that blows everyone’s minds only serves to make him look more invincible. His showmanship has given us spectacular endgames where armies have been self nuked and medibombs have been deployed (Yes, this is the term now, checkmate).

The game plans which this player has brought to the table are as diverse as they are unique, ranging from creating chaos throughout the battlefield with marines, abusing hellbats better than STXHellbatKing (INnoVation), to revolutionizing entire matchups completely (Like TvP early 2012. He and MKP showcased two styles of the same build that streamlined it all).

This is a player that has:
- Shifted the Terran metagame many times through his innovative strategies and single handedly changed an entire matchup overnight.
- Abused tricks no one else dares try, such as the use of medibombs or extensive raven usage in WoL TvZ.
- Made fans cry because of his questionable decisions at times.

All of this is accompanied by either godly micro or no micro at all that leaves the opponents and fans flabbergasted.

He is Bomber!

I don’t even remember the first game I saw of him, but I remember being thoroughly entertained. Focusing on a player was not really my thing back then, except in MLGs and weekend tournaments, so I forgot about him until he played versus Byun that fateful 20th of July 2011. It was an amazing thing to watch how he macroed so crisply. I remember watching him slaughter Byun the two first maps and my mind was in awe.

He had totally changed how I viewed Terrans (seeing the SlayerS build and hellion spam was making the game quite dull), but because of his thorough demolishment of Byun from the start of the series, I started to pull for Byun so he wouldn't lose in such a depressing fashion. That bit me in the ass as I watched Bomber pour gasoline all over himself and order hellions to fry his being and mental health to ashes. I had never been played so harshly in my life apart from getting scammed in Diablo 2 when I was but a child. The unbelievable turn of events made me so sad for the guy. I was also quite furious at this and it pushed me to the brink. I created this account that day, after a lot of lurking. It reminded me quite a lot of me dealing with girls and WoW-raiding, so I really felt his pain. Watching MLG Raleigh and all of the VODs I could find was therefore such a great “it’s going to be fine”-feeling.

A personal connection and relating to a player is something that should be essential when you are this big of a fan, and watching him get so close so many times is the reason I stick with him. Missing that little edge to win is something I, in many ways, could relate to. I guess finding a player that disappointed as much as I felt I did was refreshing. I felt like he didn't put in the effort and was someone with talent that didn't use it to propel himself to the heights where the victors rest.

Yet, watching his stream and tournament games and reading the interviews made me realize how hard he actually worked to be a successful pro gamer. Watching him stumble in Code S but destroy his opponents in Code A was something that made me work harder and cheer more. Sitting in class while his Code A match versus Heart was going on was painful and reading the results and LR thread was worse. F5’ing the Code A prelims was adrenaline-filled. His endless Code S RO16/32 -> Code A -> U/D / Code A Round 3 advancement -> repeat cycle was so terrifying. It got extremely hard to root for him sometimes. People started regarding him as a lost cause and a law of terror and doom was created by none other than our community’s own amazing writer. Why did I continue?

That is because watching him finally win the WCS Season 2 Finals was as amazing as getting a perfect score on an exams. I felt fulfilled and relieved. The domination he showcased that last series was nothing short of perfection, and watching him fight on in the semi finals deciding game was basically breaking the law. A player to stand behind and root for, especially if you root for that player for a long time, is by far the thing I missed before watching this beast.

Bomber has changed how I view sports fans (because I’m much worse than my soccer friends when it comes to how I act around that specific player). He has renewed my view on hard work, after I regarded it as a reason people made up to make you do dull, repetitive actions for stupid amounts of time. Bomber is seriously amazing at StarCraft II and didn't give up after a Brood War career that didn't pan out. Fans should cheer for someone that is this great, or at the very least, respect him for the effort he puts it making competitive StarCraft II an amazing game to spectate.

This is my story. If you want a summary of DRG's career, then go read this unpublished article that WaxANGLE made me write but couldn't/wouldn't find the time to publish it. So screw you, too, Wax!!

I haven't told this story at length to anyone before. But I trust and love you guys, so here goes.
<3

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Being a superfan is comparable to voluntarily giving yourself Bi-polar disorder. If your favorite player wins, then you're on the top of the world. If he loses, then you feel like shit for a week. It is emotional gambling in its purest form; every fan does it to some degree. Superfans, however, take things to a whole other level: if this was a game of poker, superfans would all-in every hand. It is like an endless mental roller coaster on meth where every win is a jubilation, every loss cuts deep, every little emotion amplified, vivid.

My name is neoghaleon55 and I am a superfan of MVP_DongRaeGu. A lot of people have come up to me and ask, "Why are you such a crazy person when it comes to DRG?" and I usually tell them it's because of how amazing he is as a StarCraft player or how nice and genuine he is to his fans. The truth is, watching DongRaeGu play has always cheered me up, and he was there to cheered me up during one of the lowest points in my life. In all honesty, being a fan of DRG has probably saved my life.

When DRG came to power in late 2011, I was hitting an all time low. I was stuck in grad school for far longer than I had intended, my research wasn't going anywhere, I felt isolated at work and at home, my thesis kept getting revised over and over to the point that I couldn't look at it any longer. And then one day, I just stopped. I just didn't care anymore, about anything, even myself. There were days where I just laid in bed and wish I could just disappear.

During these troubling times, StarCraft and browsing Teamliquid were pretty much all I did. Surprisingly, playing SCII is quite serene when you're a depressed person. There's really no pressure to win, losing is just another normal disappointment in your life, no big deal. When I wasn't playing StarCraft, I would be watching it in the form of GSL/GSTL or MLG. It felt like nice cool sand for me to bury my head in as the world caved over and crashed all around me. That's when DongRaeGu happened.

+ Show Spoiler +

One day as I was watching GSTL, I saw some kid doing a weird Zergling dance on camera. He was so happy and enthusiastic. I really didn't give it any more thought. Dongraegu was just some StarCraft player with a strange name...but then his name kept creeping up over and over again.

Before long he had become the best ZvT player in the world. This was a big draw for me because I was a Zerg player, and by god, I hated Terrans in StarCraft II. If there were anything worth breaking your vow to feel no emotions over, it is hating on Terrans during 2010-2011, they were so fucking broken in the early days of WoL and everyone knows it. I started hearing people talk about him, "Have you heard about DongRaeGu? He shits on Terrans and eats them for breakfast!" I'm like, "Well that's kinda gross, but Yea! Fuck Terrans!" Then Blizzcon 2011 came around, and CatZ wrote an amazing blog about it, along with a very detailed account on how awesome DRG is as a person. It was like something clicked inside me by the end of reading that blog. From that moment on, I decided I was going to cheer for this DongRaeGu.

I started making banners for GSL Live Reports, drawing random fan arts, etc. To my surprise, you guys here at Teamliquid, actually liked them and encouraged me to keep doing more. Not too soon afterwards, Blizzard Cup 2011 happened, and DRG lost. I remember feeling very sad for a week.



However, something happened after BlizzCup. Rather than continuing to feel depressed, I began to feel impassioned. I started writing blogs about DRG, about how cool he was for having been so strong to come back from a 0:3 to even the score to a 3:3 at BlizzCup. I even wrote a small story book for DRG, and for the first time he replied to my work. It felt great! It was like, I've finally done something in such a long time that I can feel proud of. I started writing more blogs and more story books. And everyone on Teamliquid ate it all up. I felt empowered. Then I realized, " If I can't find the strength to do what I should be doing (which was get out of grad school), then I'm going to start doing what I'm proud of doing." That's really where my crazy relationship with DRG began. I remember going completely bonkers whenever he would tweet @ me or come to his fan club to write something. It was so awesome. By then, I was already deeply invested in this player.

DRG would go on to win GSL in march of 2012, and made it one of the happiest days of my life. I was brimming for weeks afterwards. And then he would bomb out of the season immediately after, I, again, felt like shit. However, this time, I decided that it was my turn to cheer DRG up. So I hatched a plan rally his fans to do something nice for him, an art book project. I would then be able to give him the art book at MLG Anaheim 2012, simultaneously getting to officially "meet" him in person for the first time. Everything went well that year, plans fell into their places, and I spiraled further down the rabbit-hole of super fandom. Yet, I've never felt more in control of my own life than ever before. I caused things to happen, I moved fans to do an art project for my favorite player, I made DRG happy, he even said he was happy! I felt like I was moving Heaven and Earth and I was just warming up.

With my newfound powers, I began deciding that there were things in this world that were just unacceptable. The DRG's Fan Club was unacceptable and needed remodeling from the ground up, so I took it over and did just that. Teamliquid's coverage of DRG's performances were also unacceptable, so I started writing my own DRG-News and published them in the fan club. It was completely unacceptable that DRG didn't have his own hype videos when all the other cool players did, so I forced myself to learn video editing to create such a video. You see, DongRaeGu has inadvertently become my muse and he was inspiring me to learn, to create, to have passion and to be a better person.

The amazing thing is, while all this was going on, DRG would personally thank me for everything I did for him. Unlike many other top tier Korean players who would just ignore their fans, DRG took the time to make me feel like what I was doing for him actually mattered. Honestly, I'm not all that certain how much of an impact my work has been on DRG's life, but he tells me regularly that he appreciates it, and that has made all the difference.



Soon after, I began promoting not just DRG but also his team. I made videos for them, hype them up at tournaments, got them into tournaments, and interviewed their players. My efforts slowly gained the trust of the team as well as that of the head coach of MVP, Coach Choi. The team began coming to me for help regarding interactions with foreign tournament entities including IPL, WCS EU, and ATC. With my help, they started getting the responses they wanted from these organizations. Again, I felt very proud and accomplished. Team MVP called me as their "good friend" and DRG would occasionally talk to me at length on Skype. It seems like my life was turning around, there was only one thing left to do: fix my own problems.

I decided that the reason why I wasn't happy was mostly because I had felt so isolated at work and felt like I wasn't accomplishing anything in my life. So I found the motivation to apply myself once again. It wasn't easy, but I tried my best, something I haven't done in a long while. Gradually, things got better. Earlier last month, I finally landed a good position in a pharmaceutical company. The work so far has been enjoyable, the people are friendly and inclusive and I haven't been this happy in a very long time. I even called up my graduate school to ask them how I could finish my degree. Apparently since I had already finished all the course work and had done my research, I now have a time frame of FIVE years to do my dissertation on my thesis. I plan to do that this Winter Break.

Being a superfan is like voluntarily subjecting yourself to having a mental disorder, but in my case, it was exactly what I needed. Feeling the highs and lows of the emotional gamble is better than feeling nothing at all. I am very thankful to DRG for being there for me in my moments of personal doubts, and I'm proud that I could be there to support him when he was going through his own shitty times. To me, DRG has become more than just my favorite player. I no longer idolize him the way I used to. I can proudly say I know him a bit personally: I know how he thinks, I know his character strengths and his personal weaknesses. These days when we talk, it's like I'm talking to an old friend. Although I no longer see DRG as the perfect person, he remains my hero. Being his superfan all this time has taught me that I have the power to do "good shit", that I can make things happen, that I can change people's lives and that I can change my own.