Today's editorial cartoon is about Sanghyuk "Faker" Lee's first day on Twitch...and how it could have gone better.



The night of February 6th was a momentous one for Faker, with over 250,000 people from all over the globe gathering on Twitch to watch him play League of Legends. The hype had been building ever since the other members of SK Telecom T1 started streaming, and went full throttle after the official announcement from SKT T1 announcing Faker’s stream.



Faker is not known for showing raw emotions or for talking much on camera, but it seemed that his first day on Twitch had him feeling both excited and tense - a mix of feelings that many of his fans have also felt while watching his first day on Twitch. Unfortunately for everyone, the streaming was marred by significant problems.



One of the main problems was the translator. Having a translator ready on the stream should have been a sound choice, considering how much international attention the stream received. However, when the translator began to cut Faker's sentences and stated that she will be screening the questions and comments delivered to Faker, it felt like the spotlight was on the translator instead of Faker. When it was revealed that the translator was the person who talked as "Faker" on the stream, some fans felt betrayed, seeing it as someone else using his name. Combine that with the few minutes of delay at the beginning of the stream, and it felt like there was a tangible barrier between Faker and his fans.



Another factor that could not be overlooked was the general quality of the stream itself. The content that was shown on Faker’s channel was not directly streamed from Faker’s computer. Instead, Faker’s computer was streaming to a private channel, which was then ‘rebroadcasted’ to the Twitch channel. There were significant drawbacks with this setup; a noticeable delay between the stream and chat, constant delay, and poor sound quality caused many viewers to be quite distressed.



For the fans who had waited for hours in Faker's channel before the streaming even started, it was a huge disappointment. Overall, it seems like the people running the stream misunderstood how to make the stream serve as a fun, interactive experience between Faker and his fans.



We did not wish for a representative to be in between us and the players. Instead, all we've wanted were the players being themselves and expressing their genuine emotions.



However, there is still hope for the future. After all, it has only been a couple of days since SKT T1 announced their agreement with Twitch, and that stream was only their first official day on Twitch. There are still plenty of chances for the stream to be adjusted and done right, given that the people in charge of the streams understand what the audience wants and can organize a good interactive experience for the many viewers, and the players as well.



We hope that this will serve as a learning experience for those who were involved; we sincerely hope that both SKT T1 players and their fans will be able to enjoy their time spent together on Twitch in the next stream.

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