Melee commentary discourse I guess
I’ve been a hater before. For a few years, when I was just starting to get some semblance of relative skill (PR’d in upstate NY) I was burdened with a jealousy for people who were getting commentary slots. In 2014, when I started, it seemed that ALL the commentators were competitors. This led me to develop a plan to commentate: Get good as a player, gain a reputation, then leverage that into time on the microphone.
In practice, that’s not really how things worked. Commentary for post-documentary events was more competitive, with majors requesting a reel or body of work from prospective commentators. Gaining a body of work required time on the mic at regionals, or the less-common local with a stream set up.
I was attending most regionals I could reasonably get to, but ended up being too good to get time on the microphone, yet not good enough to become known as one of the top dogs. I was competing with Jmook, Cody, and 2Saint - among others. I found myself in the liminal space between commentator and player (Sick use of liminal). To become known as a player, I would need to really step up my play - but since I was happy with my growth of a player and aspired mostly to gain a footing in commentary… well it was frustrating to say the least. This manifested in lashing out on twitter on a few occasions at commentators gaining traction on the national level(Sorry Jackzilla), as well as Ludwig who had been gaining momentum himself at the time.
In 2018, A year after graduating college, I tweeted something about dealing with this jealousy, which led to a long DM convo with my soon to be S tier friend and multi-year podcast co-host Wassabi. When I say it took years to get over these feelings I really mean it, it’s documented in real time. The act of making the podcast was the only thing keeping me sane inside the melee community, as I dealt with the feelings of powerlessness, self doubt, delusion and adulthood. I’m much happier now within melee, and even though I doubt it will ever become some sort of career, I’m confident in my ability to keep it a firm part of my life – until my hands fall off.
All this is a preamble to my hot take, or perhaps more accurately, my sympathy to the haters on twitter.
I’ve been there. I have felt the frustration of watching players I’d beat in bracket rise in the community. I double eliminated Jorge at a Smash con, for crying out loud. His reaction at the time has made me a life-long fan of his (extremely mortified at losing to a player named Poonslayer7)
My sympathy extends to the commentators, too, who will receive hate until an arbitrary amount of time passes and they cross a critical threshold of acceptance. Online hate sucks ass in a bad way. I hope they don’t let it deter them, though frankly I don’t think they need to defend themselves so vehemently either. Support each other and keep your chins up, don’t give any oxygen to the people who are giving you a hard time. Mute/block and keep doing your thing.
To keep things from getting too boring, though, I’ll try to unpack some of the problems within the space, why this conversation keeps popping up, and figure what we can do as a community to lessen the frustrations on our perpetual middle class citizens.
Acknowledge how hard it is to be a player
I’ve been a mid level player for about eight years now. My placings at majors have never gotten better than 49th (65th at collision) and I placed at virtually the same spot on the NYC PR this season as I did 6 years ago. I’m like 0-14 against Jflex, and 0-2 against Jsex. Honestly, if I didn’t have UMF and/or Jake getting 2nd at genesis 2022 I might’ve lost my passion for the game.
We often talk about how hard it is to be a top 10-50 player, where sponsorships are scarce and the commitment level required is massive. It’s (likely) exciting to be a newly minted top 100 player, where your future looks bright and you have momentum. What goes unspoken is how it feels to be at my level - where we’ve had plenty of chances to truly break out but have come up short. Where we battle with insecurities associated with stagnation or decline, having players that we saw when they were new (often as literal children) get way better than you.
So, frankly, these feelings get taken out on the most visible folks, the commentators. This is not deserved, but these are a tribal sort of feelings.
If we don’t know you for your gameplay or background, it’s hard to see you as part of the tribe. We don’t think you are going through the same angst that we are. We see you as a climber, an outsider.
I’ve come around to feeling like it’s more important that a commentator knows what it’s like to be in a player’s shoes than for them to know what’s happening in the game. This is a community, and we want to know that the people on the screen represent us. This is a difficult task, no doubt.
Acknowledge how hard it is to be a commentator.
Before I come across as too chummy with the haters, listen to this. Shut the fuck up for a second. Commentary is hard, we have never agreed on what makes good commentary, and you’re not helping by shitting on it.
There’s clearly a lot that can be improved across the board, but I can’t keep seeing the argument that our commentators need to be good players. It’s a zero sum game. The time it takes to do a block at a major or get time at a local is time and energy spent not improving at the game.
Legacy players like Toph, Vish, Scar etc. have spent more time as commentators than competitors at this point. HMW is the only person really trying to make both happen, and if you follow his twitter for a second you’ll see how little financial reward is given. It’s not sustainable to do both, straight up.
We need more voices on the microphone, we need more competition. I’ll be the first to say it, I think some legacy commentators could step their game up. Giving more people the opportunity to commentate leads to better commentary all around.
That being said, it’s already a difficult gig. Every SINGLE commentator at these big events are concerned about how they sound, considering how they could be better, and somewhat insecure about if they sucked. They don’t need haters yelling at them, because guess what? It blocks out any real feedback.
Why do you think the commentary feedback threads on reddit stopped? I actually don’t know why, but I’d put money on them becoming toxic and unproductive. Talk shit in private discords, it’s way more fun and everyone does it. If you really feel the need to give feedback, make it polite and don’t be reductive. It will certainly be more effective than flaming.
How to be happy as a melee player
Yea, this is what it all boils down to. We’re all dedicated to something that’s less of an eSport and more of a martial art - without the health benefits or lessons in discipline. Our top player states repeatedly that his main motivator to improve is rage. Rage! Our #1 is vegeta, folks. Past number 1’s are retired, working tirelessly to regain their title, or wear a pillow during sets. This shit is clearly challenging.
I doubt the top 100 echelon will glean much from my perspective, but my fellow 65th thru 257th-ers might. Here’s what I’ve learned:
The happiest Melee players don’t optimize their lives for results, clout, or even skill
The happiest Melee players have made friends with similar goals, and keep friends without them
The happiest Melee players feel anguish at losing tough sets, and frustration at placing seed
* * * * feel the highs of making an upset, and contentment at placing seed
* * * * touch grass and eat vegetables and take breaks from twitter
* * * * recognize that literally 10-15 people make a living from this game, and a traditional career can let you travel to more majors
There’s obviously no good universal advice on how to live your life. We’re all just young people trying to figure shit out. Commentators, TO’s, non-top-player community figures are ALL looking to involve melee in their lives because they love the game and the people they meet within it.
I’ve been writing this for an hour and really need to do my job. Thanks for reading. Hmu if you’d like to talk more.