Twitter loses its mind over ESPN’s Faker article

A couple weeks ago, I wrote that “esports are through the looking glass

A couple weeks ago, I wrote that “esports are through the looking glass.” This was just after ESPN’s broadcast Blizzard’s Heroes of the Dorm competition, a college tournament for its new competitive game Heroes of the Storm. My point was that, as video games start to get taken seriously by traditional, televised outlets, middle America will lose its mind. We already got a taste of this when ESPN shock jock Colin Cowherd threatened to blow out his brains if he ever had to talk esports.

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So what do you think happened when ESPN tweeted out a magazine story about League of Legends?

That happened yesterday. ESPN: The Magazine’s sportswriter Mina Kimes followed League superstar Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok for a couple months. It’s a good piece that digs into some deep questions about youth, craft, and patriotism, and it’s also the sort of feature report that’s only possible with the bankrolling of a gigantic media conglomerate like Disney. But we’re not here to talk about that.

Nope. Let’s take a moment to enjoy Twitter’s meltdown.

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This guy might not like SK Telecom.

(Sorry, this embed was not found.)But for all the flabbergasted negativity, there were some people understandably euphoric that the biggest publication in sports journalism was writing about their scene.

(Sorry, this embed was not found.)And like all Twitter the replies, the closer you get to the bottom the closer you get to pure inanity.

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Ah, the vicious cycle churns once more.

Someday the terrified masses won’t kneejerk to their pained “but that’s not a sport” default. Someday, the world will happily oblige that competition, like chess, poker, bowling, and roughly 70 percent of baseball, can be considered legitimate without physical exertion. 

Until then, we get to sigh and laugh at tweets.

Screengrab via LoLEsports/YouTube


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