I thought it sounded fitting given that my online alias is Swicky.

So after reading lilsusie’s AMA on r/leagueoflegends (which should have been on r/starcraft in my opinion but it would get more coverage on the League Reddit and still attract the SC Redditors attention so it’s a win-win) it made me think about how i actually love e-sports. Whether it be League of Legends, Starcraft 2 or Dota 2 I love them all equally and how i devote so much of my time in watching this games and learning about the players and basically making it my hobby in knowing a lot of facts about them (ingame and out).

I love it so much that i even spent my hard earned money (Read: student loans money) to go to France for Allstars 2014, it was one of the best moments i’ve had. The energy of the crowd, the passion was just overwhelming even though i was sat there listening to the French casters not being able to understand any word they said but still being able to be hyped up by them and the crowd was an experience i would happily do again. I was even blessed to meeting multiple pros and icons there including Locodoco, Travis, Dan Dinh, Froggen and THE ENTIRE SKT T1 K TEAM. I met them in the airport when i was waiting for my flight home. Just in the little monorail going from terminal to terminal we were next to someone who looked like Poohmandu but we didn’t want to say anything because we weren’t 100% sure it was him and didn’t want to come off rude but when we got off the monorail we saw he had an SKT badge on his bag, so we initated fangirl mode and asked for a picture and felt like we’d met a god. After that he went a different way from us so we accepted that we wouldn’t possibly see any more of them. Oh we were wrong. My friend said he spotted Kkoma (SKT’s coach) as he was going to the toilet, so I re initiated fangirl mode and went to go ask for a picture from him, then suddenly the god himself emerged from the escalators, it was Faker. I was shaking that i was basically meeting the best Lol player in the world with no crowd whatsoever around him so it wouldn’t be a rushed encounter, we got a picture and asked where his team was, then he held out his arms and said “Here” and suddenly they were all there like he summoned them so we got pictures with them and with Shy who was also nearby since it was the gate for the Korean flight.

It was after this i was shaking and realized, i just basically shaking and amazed that i met these people who basically just play video games for a living, nothing special to an average person who would have the same reaction if they met someone like Jennifer Lawrence or Brad Pitt but we had this reaction with someone who just plays games and i’m sure many of you would have this same reaction. It was the moment that i realized that this is becoming big in our world (given it’s been like this in Korea for over 10 years with the Brood War scene). It was then i realized that e-sports is happening and happening quickly.