Celeste Oon - Supplemental Post #4

I want to take a moment to talk about esports players, which, similar to regular sports athletes, occupy their own positions within stardom. Earlier this week, I met the Manager of Education Partnerships at Gen.G, one of the most successful esports organizations. What I was shocked to learn was that Gen.G considers education as a core part of their mission. They run Gen.G Global Academy out of Seoul, South Korea, which is essentially a preparatory high school that provides students with a regular educational curriculum, as well as gaming and esports training. Students that graduate can either go on to college as regular students, become professional players if they possess the aptitude, or go into the esports industry through other roles. Essentially, this high school helps nurture young talent within esports through Gen.G. Firstly, I had no idea that such an institution could exist. But it got me thinking about the ways in which stars are made.

Throughout the semester, we have read various texts that discuss the teams and personnel that go into maintaining the star image: managers, agents, PR, marketers, publicists, etc. A lot of stars acquire staff members as they progress through their careers. But in the case of these young students, they are being trained and brought up into the industry by professionals, even without any promise that they will actually succeed and make it in the end. Though this is not too different from, say, young aspiring actors taking acting classes or attending performing arts schools, most of this type of training has always been reserved for music-related arts. Gaming is a much newer professionalizing field that many people take less seriously.

Moreover, I am thinking once again of the divides between the discovery of “organic” talent versus long-term training systems. The training at Gen.G’s school reminds me, in a way, of K-pop training systems (and frankly, their school is located only blocks away from the largest K-pop companies). K-pop training programs take children from as young as elementary school ages and train them to become potential idols. For many years within popular discourse, this system was positioned against Western talent, which was seen as much more organic, needing only to be “discovered” by industry agents. K-pop idols have frequently been discredited, because while they may be talented, many people saw it as a given because of their training, and idols were instead labeled as puppets. (And yet, people would not generally discredit Western musicians in the same way, even if they had been training since they were young.)

I have nothing conclusive to say, but I find it interesting to consider varying standards and prejudices over how stars are “made.” Because they all, to differing degrees, are manufactured and created. But what are our expectations for star talent? And to what extent is it acceptable for them to be trained and/or nurtured by industry talent?