So, The Mary Sue has an awesome article on the brouhaha about the first female pro-Starcraft player.  And honestly, between Becky Chambers, who wrote the article, and someone in the comments who appears to be a dude calling himself EclipseGc, I don’t really think I can add much to the discussion.  I applaud Becky and EclipseGc’s exhaustive research into the world of professional Starcraft playing, and wish them well trying to educate the trolls.  Really, do scroll down about half the page to find EclipseGc’s comment, it’s pretty awesome.

One troll in particular sticks out, but I’m sure you can pick him out for yourself in the comments.  Although I will mention one of his comments where the truth will out, when he says that if they picked her for being cute, they just should have picked one of the K-pop performers who are vastly cuter than Eve.

That sound would be the face/palm heard ’round the world.  Because a woman’s looks will always be the fallback for asshats.

Look, the professional Starcraft world already admits that looks are a consideration for ALL their pro-gamers, regardless of gender.  And I have to say, browsing some pics of these guys, yup.  Those are some fine looking dudes.  And yes, Eve is cute.  And, let’s face it, when you have sponsors for your teams, they go with the pretty ones for the ad-campaigns.  David Beckham advertises lots of stuff, but even before he got fired from pro-Football (soccer to us American wankers) Vinnie Jones, not so much.  And this carries over to ALL professional sports (I cannot believe I just called pro-Starcraft a sport).  Cute athletes, conventionally attractive athletes get advertising contracts and while the whole team might wear Nike’s stuff, who do they put in the ads?  We have an entire women’s soccer league, but how many players can you name?  One right?  Mia Hamm?

So, I get it.

Do I also think that it sucks that there are probably more qualified women who play Starcraft who are not as cute?  Yeah.  I do.  A lot.  But I also think it sucks that there are probably some more qualified guys who play Starcraft who are not as cute, too.  Funny how none of the trolls felt the need to comment on their behalf regarding being beat out by cuter guys.  They just felt the need to bitch about all the “superior men” who were being cheated by this winsome minx, with a nod thrown to the not-so-winsome women, but mostly, about all the guys.  I mean, Becky even gives the example of Slayers_Alicia who showed up to a tournament late and lost, yet was also picked up by the SlayerS.  Nary a peep.  At least not one loud enough to be heard on this side of the Pacific, as opposed to what happened with Eve.  And this in light of the fact that SlayerS_Jessica, who chose Eve, chose her to groom as a pro-gamer.  While she’s part of the team, she’s not going to be competing with them in the big tournaments yet.  They are going to train her up.

Now, I’m hoping that this isn’t just going to be lip service, or a publicity stunt, and Eve really will turn out to be the most awesome-est of awesome gamers.  I really am.  I’m rooting for Eve all the way.

Now, I do have to wrap this up by saying that I do find the idea of pro-Starcraft really entertaining, considering what our LAN parties used to look like.  So, do they consider marijuana a performance enhancing drug, like they should in Snowboarding?  How about Doritos?  Mountain Dew or Red Bull for sure.

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