Korean Geek Culture

Instead of writing my final paper like I should, I have for you what might be one of the last blog entries from Korea I'll make.

Yesterday Hao-Hua's friend Travis came to visit--initially we were going to go to Namsan Tower, but Hao-Hua and Travis were both paranoid that the heavy rain would trigger a mudslide that would kill us all.  So instead, we went all the way over to Sinjeong station (way the hell over west) to go see a live Starcraft match.

Yes, you're reading that right.  Starcraft.  And televised, to boot.  We wound up going to the GOM TV studios in Sinjeong.  While the outside of the building looks like a small, abandoned school, the studio itself looks a bit like this:

Trojan Vision, eat your heart out.

If I didn't know any better, I would think this looks like some kind of ESPN Sportscenter game show or something.  It really does make an MMORPG look like a sporting event...and I'm told it gets even bigger for the finals.  The audience seating area was only three rows of chairs here...apparently, for the finals, they get a stadium-like arena in which to compete.

As someone who's worked at a TV station before, it was really fascinating to watch the whole production aspect of the show come together.  I could've cared less about how the games turned out (as I haven't played any iteration of Starcraft in many years), but it was interesting to see how each camera was preparing for each shot, how the jib camera nearly killed us with each swing, and how the commentators (who were to my immediate right) were reacting to each game.  Granted, I couldn't understand a word they were saying, but it was funny whenever they started going, "Ohhhhh!  OOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"  (The text really doesn't do that justice.)

There were also a pair of English-speaking commentators who were doing their own thing independent of the Korean commentators, though I couldn't hear a word they were saying--for all I know, they weren't mic'd up at all.  Apparently they do an English edition of the same broadcast, but the Korean commentators were so loud that I don't think it mattered in the end.


And then, of course, there are the players themselves.  They're all little boys (there were no girls playing the day I went), and can't be any older than 18 years old.  They really do take this seriously, even if it would normally earn them who-knows-how-much ridicule at an American high school.  (Don't pretend it isn't true...)


And despite all this, we were all geeking out to some degree, although I bet for different reasons...