So, I’ll admit I’m not the most OG viewer of the pro LoL scene. I only started watching since around 2021, and became a fan of Faker and T1 because I quite like the storyline of a legend who dominated in the past but keeps trying to compete at the highest level, even though he doesn’t always win. Obviously, even though I’ve watched highlights and analysis videos, I can’t comprehend how integral Faker was to the game in 2013~2017, but the achievements and longevity alone are good enough for GOAT status in my humble opinion.
Now, I’m in quite a unique position to watch and read about various opinions in the pro League scene, since I am a Korean who’s fairly fluent in both English and Chinese. Therefore, I enjoy listening to the casting and streaming of various influencers/experts of people all over the world. But one thing that I am being quite shocked at is how much a lot of people of the Western media tried (and still try) to undercut Faker’s, and T1’s success.
I won’t name any names, but I’m sure most of you know some of the people I’m talking about. But even though most of them do recognize Faker as the goat, there’s so much commentary about how “the road was paved for him to be the goat”, or “T1 was lucky because there was a Korean exodus to LPL”, etc etc. Also, a major argument for these people for disliking Faker are because of “the fans who deify him and say he still is and always have been the best in the world”. This is fair, but the odd thing is I actually don’t see nearly enough people like this in the general community to justify this excuse. Of course there are the select fanatics or trolls, but outside of that I feel like the general consensus these past few years for Faker has been pretty fair and true to his current position. I’m genuinely wondering if these people are reading the “Faker is micromanaging” memes and getting in their feelings about it.
It’s even weirder when considering the consensus of the Chinese media and streaming community. If anyone has a right to think of Faker more as an enemy rival and try to challenge his goat status, it’s the people in the LPL, for obvious reasons. However, Faker is respected almost as much as he is in the Korean community in China. I think a Chinese commentator said it best recently : “You don’t have to like Faker, but you’d be an idiot not to respect him”.
There’s no problem in rooting against a certain player or team, and I actually do enjoy listening to the “other” side of any argument when it comes to debates. It’s just interesting to me why a lot of Western fans (and influencers) are discrediting one of the most undebatable GOATs in all of competitive sports.
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Tall poppy syndrome.
I believe there are more westerners that like Faker than the ones who doesn’t, the difference is that in the East Faker is universally respect it with little exceptions, here in the West is not that polarizing and there are voices that love to thrash talk him whenever he has bad seasons/series.
The ones that talk like he’s washed up, not top LV anymore and the weak link of his team, usually when he’s playing well those specimen talk about how bad the enemy is playing, heater are gonna be haters, just ignore them.
Faker has always had haters
In early days it was the Froggen EU fans who disliked him because he single handedly killed the narrative that EU mids were by far the best
Then it was the Samsung White/Blue fans because they wanted PawN and Dade to he acknowledged as superior midlaners
And since 2015 it’s been Western LPL fans pushing all sort of agendas (2015 was GodV>Faker and later obviously all the Knight>Faker nonsense)
99% of Faker/T1 haters are just haters of their fans
this is the point. Just from my experience in western social media communities, there aren’t nearly enough obnoxious “Faker is the best no matter what and the rest of you are trash” toxic fans to warrant this generalization that T1 and Faker fans are the most toxic. Am I really just that colorblind to my own favorite team’s fanbase?
Faker is the goat and one of the most humble players to play the game. Its the fans that piss people off. Check reddit you see 15 new posts about how keria scratched his balls and T1 are this and that.