South Korea’s e-athletes
January 3rd, 2008 by Roo Reynolds
I got a tip off from Andy Piper via Twitter this morning, telling me to check out a Radio 4 documentary about South Korean gamers. (MP3)
I've long been fascinated by Seoul. There are worse places to turn your attention for a glimpse of tech future. 42% of the population maintain a blog and 40% inhabit virtual worlds of some sort of other. Games like Starcraft enjoy the status of 'e-sports' and the best gamers are not (just) geeks, they're e-athletes.
From the discussion between two Starcraft e-sports commentators, in response to a question about whether Korean gamers are 'nerds'.
I'm not going to say it's cool, but there no stigma attached with succeeding. There's no stigma attached to being intelligent.
Welcome, repressed Western geeks, to nirvana.
If you like foreign affairs documentaries you'll be pleased to hear that there's a Crossing Continents podcast, for which you can sign up here.
Photo credit: 'Starcraft Gamer' by one-11
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