The secret of becoming a successful esports content creator

Whenever I open DM’s, do an ask.fm, or anything pertaining to taking questions from people, 90% of the time it’s someone asking me how to break into esports journalism or content creation.

What’s the secret?

What advice would you give someone who is a junior in high school and wants to be an esports journalist for a place like ESPN, theScore, Yahoo, etc.?

While I usually don’t answer most of these messages because I’m busy and a terrible human being who is heartless with no love for his readers, I’m making this blog — wow, I’m so trendy — to talk about content creation in esports and the magical secret you can implement in three easy steps to become super Internet famous. Because that’s obviously why everyone wants to work in esports, the super Internet famous status.

Anyways, the way to make it in esports is:

[REDACTED DUE TO BEING TOO IN-DEPTH AND USEFUL]

No, but really, if I was to honestly answer the question of how to make a ‘breakthrough’ in esports as a content creator, I would say to find a subject that you’re truly passionate about, a form of media you feel comfortable expressing yourself (written, video, musically, casting, analyst work, gymnastics, interpretive dance, whatever) and then simply — damn, this sounds really cliche — do it.

I see a lot of people in esports content creation try to run before they even know how to crawl. How to get to Stage 100 and be a full-time paid worker before even making any content for people to view. We’ve now entered a time in esports where, amazingly, people can make good livings off writing, producing, and doing content around esports without being amazing at a single game.

But that also has a few drawbacks. There are people on Twitter and Reddit who have these grandiose ideas with logos, taglines, and paragraphs of planning but without any actual content.

One of the first esport articles I ever wrote was: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/starcraft-2/231922-gsl-spoilers-welcome-to-the-elite-eight

This was back in 2011 when only a very select few were making money off esports writing. I didn’t write that article to create a brand or to make a living. Back then I didn’t ever think I would make a penny off anything I wrote about esports. I wasn’t on the Team Liquid staff, either. I was just some random dude who made an extremely long — how do people actually finish my articles? I’m so wordy — piece about the quarterfinals of the GSL, the most prestigious competition in StarCraft 2.

How I came to writing that article was basically everyone on the forum was complaining the final matches of the season weren’t worth watching because most of the favorites had been knocked out by perceived ‘weaker’ players. I actually saw a ton of interesting narratives from the final eight players, so I sat down randomly at like 4:00 AM in the morning and wrote everything in one go. No one asking me to. No reward for writing. I just wanted to share my excitement and stories flipping around in my head with the people who were threatening to stop watching the tournament.

I did it because it was fun building larger than life characters out of relatively normal people who played video games as their job.

I did it because I was passionate about the subject matter.

I wrote about it because I’ve loved writing since I was a kid writing terrible fanfiction on Fanfiction.net about generic demon kings and all-powerful ninjas.

I’ve had people talk to me about becoming a writer in esports and then admitting they don’t even like writing. It doesn’t make any sense to me. If you don’t truly love the subject you’re writing about and are just starting out, then stop and find something new. If you don’t like writing, that’s cool, go into casting, or doing Youtube videos, or the other forms of content creation.

From being friends with other writers like Thorin (the CS:GO guy who destroys baguettes on analyst desks) and Kelsey Moser (the LoL woman who writes really insightful articles), the reason why I think they’re both extremely successful is because you can tell they love what they do and are extremely passionate about the stuff they cover. They have fun. They’re being themselves. They didn’t carefully try to create a brand around themselves and magically become popular — they just eventually wound up there.

Don’t start content creation because you think, ‘Wow, I like esports as a hobby and want to make it my job!’ I don’t think there are many people in esports who are doing it full-time now that started doing what they do because they thought their would be a bucket full of cash at the end of the tunnel. They started because they really loved playing a video game or wanted to express themselves on the Internet in a way they couldn’t in real life by writing, Youtube, etc.

If there was one thing I’d advise to anyone in high school or college who wants to be a content creator, I’d tell that exactly that: Don’t think of some mystical distant future. Do what you can now to express yourself and have fun with it. Even if it sucks and no one reads/watches what you do, don’t let the fear of failure take you over — have a blast and make the type of content that you, not the people you want to reach, would find entertaining.

Personally, I love people in esports who you can tell are having fun with their work and are deeply into their subject matter. If you’re not having fun and only doing something because you think it’ll get tons of upvotes on Reddit, then although you might succeed a few times, generally you’ll burn out and start hating what you’re doing.

So yeah, go content create. This isn’t the stone age, person who really needs to get their priorities in check if they’re still reading this long-winded drivel. We live in a day and age where you can get your words, face, and/or voice out through a ton of different mediums.

Stop thinking about how to become successful, and start thinking about having a good time expressing yourself:

1. Pick a format (video, written, all those things I said earlier, etc.)
2. Pick a subject that interests you (A game? A general theme in esports? A Top 10 list of your favorites articles I’ve written in the past five years? Really, whatever you want.)
3. Produce it. Write it. Videotape yourself. Sing it. Mime it. Seriously, stop over thinking everything about it and just — thanks Shia and Nike — do it.
4. Publish it when you feel happy enough with the product you produced. Put it on Youtube. Put it on Medium. Put it on Tumblr if you want.

5. I don’t have a fifth step, sorry.

Anyways, that’s the gist of it. Now anytime ever asks me what they should do, I’ll just link them to this thing that a majority will read a few sentences and then X out because I’m not that interesting.

Thanks for reading, dear reader.

Now go be creative.