What it takes to be faster than Wyk
Frank Zappa has said, “most rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read.” It’s more or less the same for esports.
So few in our staff are writers by formal profession. My managing editor is a photographer by heart, and our Dota writer is a trained journalist (which is writer enough for journalists, but too journalist for writers). And I, without this job, would be an unpublished hack. We’re all still trying to find our unique voices without just totally ripping off Shea Serrano along the way.
As for interviewing people who can’t talk goes, that’s a long story that deserves its own editorial. Suffice it to say that in the esports industry everyone knows all the gossip, but suddenly becomes mute when you say “on the record”. Occasionally we get some good interviews and some exciting features, but that brings us to the third thing…
Only a fraction of the people who click this link will reach this sentence. That’s a number that gets even smaller when you consider that when we promote this article on Facebook, only a fraction of people who see the post will click past the headline. And then, of course, thanks to Mr. Zuckerberg’s policies, only a fraction of our followers on Facebook will even see the post to begin with. So here’s to you, 7-8 readers.
The question is, then, why bother being esports writers?
It’s not as if esports writers are paid super well (what writing gig is?). In our office we live like college students on allowance: unlimited samgyeopsal after payday, then instant noodles and fishballs for the rest of the month. For those of you who wish to enter the profession of underpaid gig writer, the secret is in saying yes to every press conference assignment with free food. The free lunch will be your bread and butter, sometimes literally.
The product is also too often not worth the effort. Did you guys know it takes hours of research, drafting, proofing, and most importantly, tournament watching to churn out a generic esports news article? What more, the bigger features with interviews, or on-site photography? All for a single click and a 5-minute read. Writing is a monumental waste of time.
People have said that we do what we do because we love what we do. Don’t be ridiculous.
Who can love writing dozens of fanboy articles for TNC Pro Team only to have fans still flame our page just because “Mineski” is in the title? Another part of our job, which is publishing press releases and product pushes from corporatized gaming brands, doesn’t exactly inspire feelings of affection. In fact, more often than not this job breeds a feeling of intense and unbridled enmity towards teams that seenzone interview requests, peenoise Facebook commenters that don’t run out no matter how many we ban, and clients and competitors who still insist on using the spelling “e-Sports”.
(A note on the spelling of “esports”. Just as in-game there are casuals, in the world of esports reporting there are also casuals. And these people still use “eSports”, “e-sports”, or “e-Sports”. Please, help us catechize the ignorant.)
It’s not love but, perhaps, sometimes the work is exciting. For big coverages, for example, like The International, publishing articles is like going into a fast draw duel against Wykrhm Reddy. We’ve gone into coverages pre-writing two entire articles drafted on the website, each article congratulating the other team, and then publishing the right one at the last moment. Getting clips for social media is like live courtside photography, and we’ve got a smooth system ready for taking the Twitch clip, downloading it, running it through our video editor for memeing, and then posting it on our page.
I still remember during our Boston Major coverage of 2016, when EE and Team NP pulled off a 5-man wipe with a perfect starfall. Behind the scenes, after we got the clip of that play, we knew we had less than 5 minutes to post it before everyone else in the world started sharing the clip. Imagine four guys suddenly shouting ideas at each other and at a beleaguered video editor trying to cut footage faster than his desktop can BSOD. At that point we’d been awake for maybe 20 hours already, during the entirety of which James Reid’s Energy Gap was on non-stop repeat on the loudest computer in the office. The result:
Anthony Bourdain describes his kitchen crew like a rogues gallery of cutthroats surviving off of cigarettes and the smell of frying meat. My editorial staff is the same minus the coolness but with all of the same grit, and I am prouder of them than I let them know. Instead of pots of boiling stew, we’ve got computers that take 5 minutes to open Photoshop. In lieu of the blistering heat of the kitchen, we have the brain-melting all-nighter of a four-match playoffs where each series goes to a game 3. We don’t have perfect souffles; we have beautiful plays.
Case in point, here’s another video, from the same sleepless Boston Major coverage:
Imagine it is maybe 4am, and you’ve been watching Dota since 9pm, and preparing graphics and articles since noon. And that play happens. I’ll be damned if we we weren’t all jumping up and down when Madara took the game. When we realized the Naruto song fit the timing perfectly as well, we were applauding the editor. Once it was posted, our knees gave way and some of us passed out on the milo-stained floor. Energy, energy gap.
Other moments of note start coming to mind now as I write this.
In MET events, when the event is technically over and everyone starts to pack up the equipment, it’s always us at Mineski.net that are left out of the group photo because we still have to make posts and a recap article — so we take our own group photo. I remember when we set up the first-ever Free Data Thread (I swear, we were the first to do this) in the Barangay Mineski Facebook group and those of us who are camera shy got our chance to “cast” WESG for fans with low internet access as “Jared Mineski”. For our last The International coverage we camped in the office with a projector, tubes of Berocca, and All-Day Mart fried chicken (which, by the way, is fresh at 4-5am). Good times, good times.
I say again, don’t be ridiculous. Of damned course we love what we do but that’s not why we do what we do. You can’t help but do what you’re meant to do.
For the forseeable future, expect us to keep doing what we’re doing, rejected interviews, late night coverage, Peenoise comments and all. And if you read our work and enjoy what we do, thank you and keep giving us clicks. Explore our revamped website. Check out our event trackers on the right side of the front page. DON’T send us your Mineski Infinity password change requests (we have nothing to do with Mineski Infinity). And so on.
We’ll see you at our next The International coverage, cheering for Mineski, TNC, and Fnatic and you hopefully staying up all night with us.
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