I miss the 2022-23 days of Valorant. Back when people actually cared for the game instead of drooling over the players. Yay, Marved, Aspas, Jingg, Ardiis, Derke etc. were popular because of their gameplay and not because they were cute. Later players like Demon1, Jawgemo, COM, Alfajer etc. too became popular coz of their gameplay.
I understand that the "kpopification" and parasocial behaviour of fans are beneficial for the marketing of the game and for the orgs, but I think it has a negative impact on the community overall. Some examples:
1) if you criticise a player, all the parasocial fans will come at you (PRX and Sen fans are famous for this).
2) Sen fans tried to get G2 cancelled over a meme (a laughing emoji pointing a gun at itself), even though Sen players have made similar jokes in the past.
3) I have heard some PRX fans accused Flashback of some wrongdoings because DRX defeated them. (I don't know what exactly happened, so pardon me if I got anything wrong here)
On top of all that, there are the cringe tweets (you know what type of tweets I am talking about here) . I could write a whole ass paragraph on just that topic.
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