This sort of crazy, kind of odd, idea popped in to my head a few weeks ago. It started after a conversation with my mate Neil, an avid CS:GO player and fan, yet he had no cooking clue what the Telkom Masters was. He didn’t even realise there were these top 8 competitive South African eSports teams. The conversation continued with my friend Hans from Vamers and Brendyn Lotz from HTXT. Both of them seemed a little bit shocked when I started getting overly excited when describing Carbon’s victory over Bravado at the Vodacom Gamers Fest. As I began to try explain further about the events happening around the country, the players and who they were and the South African eSports scene in general – they started to get excited.
I think I may have even convinced Hans to come to a LAN with me.
Who says eSports is sexist? My girl friends and I having some fun at a NavTV Mall LAN at Cradlestone Mall.The truth is, I fell in to this world by accident. I was an outsider. I started educating myself about the scene after I was asked to cover events and news by various entities. Within a few hours of watching professional CS:GO streams I was hooked. I’m not surprised e-sports has blown up the way it has overseas. Tournaments fill out stadiums with people keen to come watch the games.
I get it.
Interviewing Bravado players: Ash has been in enough of my ridiculous videos not to trust me thus that look. The gent on the left is Ruan “Elusive” Van Wyk. My mate Anthrax (CS:GO Shoutcaster) says he looks like a young Johnny Depp. What do you think?I’m not very good at playing CS:GO. In fact I’m still too terrified to go online and play real people. I’m still shooting bots. But you know what I love? Watching it. As a spectator it is fun, entertaining and easy to understand. Once you start learning about the teams and their stories you become even more invested. It’s like professional football (and Manchester United is trying to buy an eSports team right now, because they know the way to my heart).
I want to share this new found passion I have with my friends. I want Neil, Hans and Brendyn to start watching local games and becoming fan boys for South African eSports (cause every fan girl needs a crew of fan boys right?). So I started something new. I decided to take off the stupid YouTuber hat and create a series that gives fanboys and fangirls a look inside South African eSports. I want to share the teams with you, the players and the drama. I’m going to ask serious questions and try give you a little insight in to why I’m so passionate about South African eSports and why you should be too. So here’s episode 1. Be kind, it is different to anything I’ve done before:
