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.
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.
