On the Digital Generation
Chapter 2b: Starcraft and Self Awareness
While Maplestory was a huge part of me life from my elementary school years to high school years, many of my real life and digital friends in Maplestory moved on or quit. High school was when I became a lot more competitive, especially in gaming. I began to take things like Smash, Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon a bit more seriously, and I wanted to test my limits. It was also around this time that my friends introduced me to this game called Starcraft, which would later mold and shape me for the next few years until mid-college.
For those unfamiliar, Starcraft is a real-time strategy game that involves users building an army to take out the opposing army. It often is deemed as the “video game” version of chess. There are different openers, mid-game strategies, and end-game strategies that all have different strengths and weaknesses. You learn about tradeoffs, theorycraft over the best unit composition and combat techniques, and study different timings to optimize your build.
But more than just the theory behind it, Starcraft also rewards execution. Just like how normal sports have strategy and theory, the success of a team still hinges on the physical capabilities of each team member. This is the same with Starcraft. This was a game that rewarded quick reflexes, quick thinking, split-second decision making, and macro and micro level strategy. You have to know how to adapt on the fly and do on-the-spot theorycrafting and strategy adjustments as the game continues. Even successful businesses like Shopify rest much of their business practices on lessons learned from Starcraft. It’s a very influential game.
The original Starcraft was perhaps one of the first few games that legitimized the E-Sports industry. In Korea, you would have shoutcasters as you would for typical sports games, and spectators would come to watch folks battle it out in a flashy production. I was too young to really get into the original, but when Starcraft 2 rolled around I was hooked.
The Journey of Self Improvement
Maplestory was a game that helped me tap into the joy and wonder of exploration and the beauty of communal experiences and kinship. Starcraft (and E-Sports in general) taught me some other, harder lessons; it taught me that you need to work hard to succeed.
When I was a kid, I generally excelled at most things I did. Academically I was doing pretty well, and musically I was also pretty good. Good enough to compete multiple times throughout the year. I generally had a solid base-level understanding of the concepts of math and piano, and after a bit of practice I would be able to do well.
This was not the case for Starcraft. Upon my first playthrough, I was immediately placed in the lowest league, bronze. Many of my friends had a much stronger base-level understanding of this game, so they started off in silver or gold leagues, one or two tiers above me. To say it was demoralizing would be an understatement, but it was also something I genuinely wanted to work on because I cared. I didn’t want to get good for any sort of scholarship or merit award, which piano and math might give you. I wanted to get good simply because I cared about the game.
Promotion to Silver league after a month or two.
So begins a multi-year process of me constantly learning, practicing mechanics, and studying new strategies. I researched build orders and worked on my speed. Little by little did I begin to see a bit of progress, where after two years I would be able to join my friends in the ranks of Diamond league.
Though I never was active in any sport, the slow, grueling process of improvement was something that I think both the athlete and the competitive Starcraft player could understand. It takes dedicated discipline to improve, self-awareness to understand your particular weaknesses and strengths, and the humility to ask for guidance. And I, like many Starcraft fans, went to the digital to seek out that guidance.
However, while I originally sought guidance for Starcraft, that guidance would scale to a wisdom that shapes my identity as a gamer, as a man, and as a human.
Day9: Being a Better Gamer
When I wanted to get better, there were a few sources that I would directly go to. These were:
- Teamliquid.net, the original Starcraft forums that would discuss gameplay and strategy
- Youtube, specifically Starcraft 2 replays made by folks like HuskyStarcraft or HDStarcraft analyzing pro level play.
- Professional streamers, so I can see their thought process and decision making in real time. Most of this content was pretty generic. I generally came across high level discussions on matchups here and there, and most pro play analysis all took place in short 15-20 minute videos.
However, there was one streamer that dedicated his entire life to Starcraft. His name was Day9. Every day, for 2-3 years straight, he would churn out a video just about a particular aspect of the game. The goal of each daily video was for us to “learn how to be a better gamer”. This was done by covering specific topics (build orders, managing APM, understanding pressure), or it could be analyzing a class of games. But more than just the content, he was also super entertaining! He was infamous for how hard he laughs, how stupid his jokes can be and how captivating and charismatic he was as a storyteller. I initially watched him because I wanted to learn more about the game, but I found myself coming back to his videos because I was drawn into him as a person.
For some context, my life around this time wasn’t the greatest. School was stressful because of the pressure of academics, competitions for piano and math took place almost weekly, and on top of all that, I was the worst in Starcraft amongst all my friends! The community I had in Maplestory slowly dissipated as most of my time was now spent on SAT prep and homework, and I was in a relationship that was quite volatile. My friends at church became competition, and home didn’t become a place of refuge but primarily became a place of training and preparation. With the interests that I had, and without much freedom to play, I didn’t have many real-life friends. And on top of that, my interaction with the online community began starving, so I generally did not feel seen nor appreciated. Overall, I was a pretty angry and upset guy.
So when I saw how jovial that Day9 was in all of his videos, I was kinda puzzled. Chinese men are not known for their emotions and passion, so seeing a grown man so passionate about something, so happy about something, was certainly interesting. His optimism looked so bright compared to pessimism that I adopted.
One night when I was supposed to be doing homework, I wanted to watch a daily as background noise. Most of his dailies are consistently between 30 minutes to an hour long. However, one of his dailies, Day9 Daily #100, was much longer at 2 hours. Unlike all of his other videos, detailing some strategic aspect, this one was titled “My Life of Starcraft”. It was his most viewed video, the one he promoted on his channel, so I figured if I wanted to understand this guy a bit more, I should take a look listen. (If you’ve got time, you should too 😄)
In his daily, Day9 talks about how his life has been shaped and transformed by Starcraft. He talks about his family background, a single mom raising two nerdy sons who loved Starcraft and happened to get good at it. He talks about the gargantuan amount of effort required to seek out his passion to compete in Starcraft; figuring out how to travel out of state for the nearest tournaments, how to allocate Starcraft time with his equally passionate brother on their single family computer, the whole thing. He acknowledges how strange it must have been for his mom, to see her sons so passionate about something so foreign to her.
But he also recounts how beautiful, how unifying the game was for his family. How his mother would refer to her family proudly as the “Starcraft family” when any of her sons would win. How Day9 and his brother, Tasteless, would support each other, even if they had to knock each other out mid tournament. His story of Starcraft rings of the fruits of community, familial support, intentionality and genuine care for the game and for each other. But most importantly to me, Day9 was proud of Starcraft, of his family, of his brother, of the community, of everything that Starcraft had given him.
There is nothing cooler than being proud of the things that you love
— Sean “Day9” Plott
This isn’t the only time that Day9 has shared his struggles, his emotions, and his raw self on stream. Sometimes to him, streaming isn’t just about Starcraft. Sometimes, he would dedicate whole streams praising one of his best friends, Cambria, who taught him relentless optimism and showed him unconditional love, moving him to the point of tears. Once he tearfully streamed a celebration of life for a late Starcraft professional iNcontroL. Sometimes he talks about the human experience, like emotions and how to process them healthily. And sometimes, he’s just plain goofy and talks about whatever he wants, like math.
In all things, regardless of the content, Day9 felt real. This wasn’t just a persona he put on! His thoughtfulness, passion, excitement, and curiosity permeated through all of his content. He was unlike any man I’ve seen; real life or digital. He had no ulterior motives in his actions, he had no agenda he was trying to push. To him, “there is nothing more satisfying than looking at a crowd of people and helping them love what I love”. I could listen to him talk all day about the most mundane things, because he made the mundane sound fascinating.
But it wasn’t always this way. Day9 himself has stated that he was a troubled kid in the past too. I could definitely relate! But then, how did he become the man that he is now? He writes the following in this comment:
Day9: Being a Better Person
This quote immediately struck me. The idea that someone would care to actively, constantly, think about how to make interactions comfortable for the other? I’m familiar with mentally rehearsing conversations in my head, but more often than not it’s an exercise for me to gain the upper hand, not the other! And to do all of that in a conversation where people might have a problem with YOU? Why does this man not think about defending himself? Why is he so bent on ensuring that the experience is comfortable for the accuser, not himself the accused? Huh??
I was so used to a church where I had to save face daily, vulnerabilities cannot be shown, and we had honor and dignity to uphold not just myself, but for my family. I was taught that Christ died and subject himself to shame, guilt, and to the jeering of His creation, just so that we could experience Him later. But I was so dismayed how the church still played by high school rules, where status mattered and weakness was shamed. I was so used to older “wiser” men in my life telling me that men didn’t need friendships, that strong men don’t cry, that childish hobbies are foolish and that our value is in what we provide.
And in contrast, this man, a non Christian at that, helped me see through these lies. This was a man who was confident not in his status and accolades, but in his passions. This was a man who normalized crying to thousands of male gamers, likely also raised in the same toxic masculinity. This was a man who helped others not to lift himself up, but because he wanted to embody grace and comfort to those that may have harder lives than he. This was a man who relies consistently on his friendships and sings high praises for others who have supported him. This was a man who found his digital community to be beautiful, and wanted to share some of that beauty to the world.
To this day, Day9 remains one of the key influential figures in my life. He has helped me see how beautiful and supportive the digital community can be through his own story, and he inspires me and others daily to continue to share that beauty to those who are blind to it. Where the world may see the digital community as a bleak place, Day9 has reaped its many benefits and hopes for it’s brighter future. And I choose to see it like he does, because through his involvement in the community, he has helped empower so many others to become not just better gamers, but better people.
Could you begin to imagine how beautiful the online world could look, if we had more people like him shining a light like he did? If Day9 was able to shine such a bright light to millions of people worldwide, could you imagine how much brighter Christ’s light would shine? How deep and wide His transforming power could reach? Imagine how beautiful the Church’s witness would be, if one day people could ask us the same questions that they asked Day9 above. What an opportunity for us to share the love of Christ then!
I speak so emphatically because I’ve tasted and seen how beautiful the community can be online. I’ve seen how the online world has helped me care about humanity, and how it can help shape me to be a stronger light to the world. I have so many more stories to tell, ranging from influencers like Christina Grimmie to my experiences working alongside digital comrades in global game jams, but these all share a common thread with the experiences I’ve had in Maplestory and Starcraft. And I hope you, too, can see how digital community is not just a place to be saved, but it’s also a place, a community to love and to hope for. It is a community to be proud of, and I thank God every day that He has shaped me through it.