The Hearthstone community felt so welcoming to this stranger, someone who has just only been watching and covering the scene and never interacting with it outside of chat. ![]() These weren’t people confined to my computer anymore, they were chill guys who just wanted to have a good time. ![]() At the bar, I did a shot with Forsen and chatted with Disguised Toast. 'Hearthstone' Disguised Toast Interview: Player, Streamer, MemelordĪll I could think was “damn, Twitch chat would go nuts over this.”Īs the night waged on, the party ended but the drinking did not.I somehow talked myself into attending, feeling the need to see what a party full of streamers was actually like. After last year’s Blizzcon pre-party, where I sat next to a photo of Kripp eating cold sliders by myself, I vowed to never go to one of these shindigs again. I usually hate these esports parties, because I’m always traveling by myself and never have anyone to talk to. There was no webcam watching and no Twitch chat spamming memes, just two people enjoying a vacation.Īfter the tournament ended, Blizzard threw a party for everyone who made the HCT such a success. I’d go to get lunch, and there would be Disguised Toast and Hafu dining at the table beside me, eating terrible resort sushi just like everyone else. As a fan of these people for years, it was a bit surreal to be thrown in the same building as them. Blizzard also invited a bunch of Hearthstone personalities who weren’t in the actual tournament to just hang out and enjoy a trip where they can kiss dolphins on the nose. I arrived at the Meliá resort on the island of Nassau in the Bahamas, ready to indulge in an all-inclusive resort stay. Nothing goes together better than a beautiful beach, sunny pools and a busload of introverted streamers who barely see daylight after streaming for eight hours a day. I’m as big as a Hearthstone fan boy as you can get, so when Blizzard offered me the chance to fly to the Bahamas and check out the Hearthstone Championship Tour's Winter Championship, I jumped at the chance, ignoring the redundancy of the name. Streamers like Disguised Toast, Trump and Kripp have built up massive followings moving Azure Drakes and Reno Jacksons around a board, with tens of thousands of fans watching them every night. Unlike the complicated mechanics of League of Legends or Overwatch, Hearthstone only requires a finger or hand to throw cards down You don’t need millisecond reflexes, just an analytical mind and a knowledge of cards. The streamers I enjoy watching the most play Hearthstone, a card game created by Blizzard based on their incredibly popular Warcraft franchise. Streamers have gotten their homes raided by SWAT teams, had stalkers find them in real life or just quit going online altogether to avoid harassment. Twitch chat is prone to spamming threats and slurs when their favorite streamer does something that the horde doesn’t approve of. That said, when the internet hive mind takes over, it gets hard to remember that the guys on screen are just regular folks. They are people like us, who just really like to play video games and record themselves doing so. To a generation of children who grew up watching television, where the celebrities were dictated by a group of old CEOs sitting in a board room trying to manufacture the next Britney Spears or boy band, it feels refreshing how newer forms of media allow us get to pick our own idols. Doublelift, Imaqtpie, Dyrus and Ice Poseidon all seem larger than life to the adoring virtual crowds who sit in front of their computers, tablets or phones, enamored by whatever these guys do on their own screens. ![]() You idolize these internet personalities, who spend every moment talking directly to thousands of fans, even though it feels like they are talking directly to you. When you watch Twitch streams and YouTube videos all day, it gets hard to distinguish content creators from real people.
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