Photo: Emmanuel Macron
Emmanuel Macron in spite of claiming to have succeeded in transcending the border of political parties in France, the notions of right and left are still very present in society. They are obviously very personal, but they still make it possible to structure identities for a little while. The world of esports is frankly not particularly connected to politics. For a long time, he was looked down on by the latter, who was not particularly interested in this cultural practice considered “illegitimate“. We spoke willingly of addiction, of violence, even of stupefaction, rather than of performance and records.
But times are changing and politics is gradually taking an interest in competitive video games. The recent reception at the Élysée on the sidelines of the Trackmania Cup can attest to this. For example, we found personalities like Kameto, ZeratoR, CEB, Bulii or even Neo (Team Vitality). The President himself multiplied the calls of the foot, saluting the victory of the Karmine Corp. during the European Masters or wearing a sweater Team Vitality. With the era of influencers where everyone more or less gives their opinion on everything, a question arises. Is the world of esports predominantly right or mostly of left ?
Duke and Tolki, two well-known personalities from the League of Legends scene
Above all, we must take the time to clarify that there is no absolute truth. No one has surveyed the entire esports world and there aren’t really any academic studies on it. However, the subject remains very interesting and two well-known personalities from the League of Legends community exchanged their points of view on Twitter: Duke and Tolki.
- duke : today he is part of the OTP crew and he is renowned for his analyzes and his understanding of the game. But in the past, the homo draftus was much closer to the field. For just under a year, he played the role of head coach at PSG. He then moved to Splyce and then to Team Vitality, sometimes as a headoach, sometimes as a strategic coach. He notably participated in the Worlds in 2019.
- Tolky : he is a man in the shadows, or rather a man of numbers. He has traveled a lot of teams and played the role of coach, assistant coach or even data analyst. Tolki notably went through big teams like Splyce, T1 or Fnatic. In his bio, he lists himself as the only non-Korean with an LCK title.
These two figures therefore know their League of Legends like the back of their hands, but they also engaged in a very Politics to try to determine if esports was predominantly left-wing or right-wing. Before going into details and arguments, let’s also point out that the two know each other. They worked at the same time at splice during the year 2019.
Two very different opinions…
To be completely honest, we found the discussion fascinating and it would be very difficult to summarize the exchanges with precision. We therefore advise you to go directly to the sourceto avoid distortions and form your own opinion.
The discussion started from an “attack” by a Twittos, accusing Duke of being “pro-Macron” and “anti-left”. The latter defended himself by assuring that he was not on any political side in particular, while retorting that overall, in the world of esports, the environment was generally very anchored to the left and that it lacked a bit of diversity in positions. It was in a second time that Tolki therefore entered the dance. Considering himself a “leftist”, his point of view was very different. He felt rather isolated and even argued that most players and coaches in esports were right-wing or extreme right-wing. The two defended their point of view, but it is very difficult to decide… in particular because the notion of right and left differs enormously according to the country used as a reference. In addition, this can change according to the themes. Where Tolki gave great importance to the economyDuke emphasized the societal choices with a Riot Games that is very often progressive on these issues.
You should read a real study to get a clearer idea of the political landscape of esports and gaming. But this cordial discussion at least has the merit of making us think. At first glance, we would tend to consider the esports community as more left-wing, because it is young. But it is true that on economic issues, the balance is less clear… What do you think about it?
esport-lol
All records are made to be broken one day. However, it can get boring when it’s always the same ones who beat their previous exploits. Faker and his T1 team managed to break one of their old records on this LCK day.