Listen to the Voice of the Next Generation: 7 Questions for Mona ‘Hazelynut’ Zhang

Polygon reVue proudly presents an interview Mona ‘Hazelynut’ Zhang - one of the rising voices in the foreign Starcraft-scene. Not only is she the silver medalist of the SC2GG Commentator Idol, but more importantly she is also one of the brains behind the very promising Collegiate Starleague - where college students battle for fame and glory in the finest strategy experience since chess. Without further ado, this is Hazel’s view upon what Starcraft is today, and where it’s heading:

1) Would You mind telling us a little about who You are, where You come from and how it is to study at Princeton?

Hello everyone. I’m currently an undergraduate at Princeton University with no inkling of a prospective major, and I happen to love StarCraft. I grew up in the United States under the influence of an older brother who loved RTS games and MMORPGs–so instead of playing with dolls, I grew up microing mutalisks (badly).

Studying at Princeton is both wonderful and difficult. The people that you meet in this institution are amazing, and the people that I’ve met through SmashCraft Heroes (a student group here dedicated to the fine art of gaming) are interesting characters. Of course, at the same time, the course load is difficult to balance with other activities and Princeton’s grade deflation really kills future chances at careers. That being said, I love Princeton and couldn’t be happier.

2) You recently took part in and almost won the sc2gg Commentator Idol (of which episodes are featured at Polygon reVue, here), hosted by Cholera. What was Your experience of the competition, and do You think that such events could help introduce a larger audience to eSports?

To be honest, Commentator Idol was a bit stressful at the time that I was competing. I was balancing a couple of different priorities, and public speaking is always something that makes me nervous. It’s especially hard reading negative YouTube comments, but you learn to phase out the really mean-and-useless from the mean-but-useful ones. It was amazing getting feedback and getting to do dual commentaries with Kenny and Klazart.

I’m not sure if commentating is well suited to the “idol” model that’s been proliferated by reality TV shows, since commentaries tend to be very enjoyable, but sometimes unbearably long when you have to watch six in succession. In general, I think any publicity–including more commentaries by undiscovered talents–is good for eSports.

3) You are one of the creators behind the recently formed Collegiate
Starleague, the CSL. Can You tell us how this event came about, where it stands right now and Your vision about its future?

I think almost everyone in this generation played StarCraft casually in the late 1990s–it was a brilliantly balanced and innovative real-time strategy game released by Blizzard. But like many others, I got into competitive StarCraft because of English commentated videos of Korean games, which really introduced a whole new world of strategic depth. After watching leagues like the Ongamenet Starleague, the MBCGame Starleague, GOMTV, and Proleague, I ended up not only enjoying the intricacies of the gameplay, but also the intrigue of the professional scene.

However, in the United States, there’s usually a social stigma against anything like electronic gaming, which is usually considered a waste of time. When I got the idea for collegiate eSports from the team leagues in Korea, I pretty much considered it a daydream. I wanted to introduce this fascinating world to American colleges, but it seemed impossible because of either lack of interest or general disbelief. Coming onto campus, I received a lot of skepticism from all sorts of people–but I also received support from people on campus, including the student government and SC players that emerged from the woodwork after a little bit of prodding. Earlier in the year, I actually became the first female English commentator in the StarCraft community, and every game I commentated became a plug for interest in the Collegiate Starleague.

We started to get a lot of interest from colleges across the country, but what really did it was the Princeton versus MIT showmatch that we organized and broadcasted. I know an elementary school friend who’s also a StarCraft enthusiast, and when I mentioned an exhibition match to him, Yang Yang from MIT really helped get the ball rolling. Princeton and MIT both made promotional videos for hype, and we all advertised the event on YouTube, StarCraft communities, and campus news. We had a live audience and live stream–very amateur productions compared to the Korean scene, but still a step towards bringing StarCraft to the United States as a spectator sport. The showmatch was pretty much the first ever intercollegiate eSport game in the history of the United States. After seeing all the hype, many more colleges answered our call, until finally 25 schools across the nation participated in season 1 of the Collegiate Starleague.

The future is very bright, and I can’t reveal everything that we’re planning to do! We’re starting to get a lot of publicity on the Internet and even in major sources of news. I hope we can reach a point where StarCraft is considered a legitimate, competitive venture, instead of being trivialized as just playing around on computers.

4) Speaking of the future, Starcraft 2 is knocking on the door and iseagerly awaited by a legion of gamers. Critique has been raised against some aspects of the game, regarding how well suited it will be for professional gaming when compared to original Starcraft. However, SC2 promises to be tailor-made for Internet-broadcasting in order to be the optimal next-generation spectator eSport. What are Your thoughts on the matter?

We’ll have to see SC2 before we can actually see how competitive it is. But really, SC2 is something exciting that a new generation of gamers can grab onto and make their own–the metagame hasn’t been pounded out by foreign gamers yet, and we can even stand a chance on the international scale (we lost pretty badly in our match against Tsinghua ._.). I haven’t been keeping up with SC2 updates because I don’t want to be spoiled, but hopefully we’ll see something amazing from Blizzard–which we always do. The bad ones seem to get aborted (StarCraft: Ghost, anyone?).

5) Some ‘Starcraft-scholars’, such as Daniel ‘SuperDanielMan’ Lee (co-commentator with Nich ‘Tasteless’ Plott at Gom TV) and Peanut of sc2gg.com through her podcasts, have told the story about how and why Starcraft became the unofficial national sport of South Korea. Following the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s; many young and IT-savvy men were unemployed in (the very well broadband-connected) Korea, and so they hung out in PC cafés where they played their favourite game to such an extent that it laid the ground for professional competition in Starcraft.

The college environment of today is also a place where young, computer-knowledgeable and broadband-blessed individuals gather, and it is not unreasonably to say that in such a setting popular trends tend to spread fast. Would You say that there is any basis for comparison between the situation in Korea ten years ago and Your college experience in terms of potential for eSports becoming popular, and perhaps even gaining wide acceptance in mainstream circles?

There definitely is a parallel between Korea of 2000 and the United States today, although I’d have to say that there’s still a huge social stigma against eSports in mainstream American culture. I have some interesting stories to tell about that–the first day I came to college, I immediately started arguing with a floormate on the merits of StarCraft versus Ultimate Frisbee, which I ultimately lost because there was nothing I could really do to change his opinion about a game that just involved “kids sitting inside and having seizures on their keyboards.” When someone thinks like that, there’s little you can do to change his mind–simply because the idea of what “sports” is has already been engraved onto the cultural imprint of the United States, and it leaves precious little room for something like eSports.

In the end, I miraculously did change his mind. We’ve been hosting so many SC events here on campus that students can’t help but come in, sit down, and realize that spectating is crazy fun. I think there’s hope.

I definitely do agree with the point that news spreads fast. Just like fml or failblog (which has been plaguing campuses all year around here), CSL has reached random colleges without that much advertising. It involves a lot of word of mouth and facebook stalking, no doubt, but I think colleges provide a really interesting network for StarCraft players.

6) On a less philosophical note, would You mind telling us who Your favourite Korean and foreign progamers are, and why? Also, which English-speaking commentator of Starcraft do You enjoy listening to the most?

My favorites would have to be Jaedong and Bisu. Jaedong because he’s Zerg and amazingly hardworking (reading his interviews makes me happy because he doesn’t succumb to the fame and glory of being a progamer), Bisu for being nice to look at.

My favorites for English-speaking commentaries are probably Cholera and Klazart. Klazart’s commentary between Flash and Boxer on Python introduced me to competitive SC, and Cholera’s historical analogies are hilarious. I’ve recently started listening to Chill’s FPVods, too, since my player-coach here yells at me for sucking at SC

7) Finally, when and in what setting can we You commentating Starcraft again?

Ha ha umm About that! I’ve gotten super busy with CSL, SCH (our student group here), and life in general. I love doing live commentaries–as in in-house, in-person commentaries!–so if you’d like to make a trip over to Princeton, you might catch me here.

That being said, I’ll try to get commentating again. To be honest, I’ve mostly stopped commentating because I feel like I have to improve my game and understanding of SC before I can tell other people what to do–especially as a commentator AND player on the Princeton SC team. Hopefully I’ll improve and be able to provide accurate information!

Any last famous words, shoutouts, rants, predictions or things You would like the world to hear?

A shoutout to all the college students out there–please join CSL! And even if you’re not in North America, try starting collegiate leagues throughout the world. I have kind of exciting news that I don’t want to divulge quiiite just yet, but it involves lots of money, an international cup, and amazingness. Thanks to Sebastian for inviting me here, as well.

This is Hazel, signing out.

Polygon reVue want to give many thanks to Mona for taking her time do this, and do make sure to visit her Youtube-page and view her commentaries here. What did You think of the interview and of what Hazel said? Leave Your comments, praise and rants below. GG!

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Tagged as: csl, cstarleague, esports, hazelynut, mona zhang, princeton, starcraft