William Cho · @WillChobra
2nd Sep 2015 from TwitLonger
Quick jot about the #EsportsUnpaid discussion
A lot of these responses have been irking me a bit so I just want to try to change the direction of this discussion here.
(I am not able to put my 2 cents down for a solution atm, possibly an actual blog for that later)
I started as a volunteer and put lots of my own financial investment into the industry. One thing led to another and now I am full-time at ESL.
But for those of us that did make it, or even those that are just volunteering for the love of it, simply saying "I did it, others did it, that's how you have to do it" doesn't give it the right light. You don't have to do it because we had to go through the struggles. That's not why it exists. That's a wrong angle on the situation.
Saying "just do it if you love it and that's how you make it" is also wrong. That's not how you make it. The struggle IS real, and also just cause you volunteered doesn't mean you built something up for yourself. You made a difference, for sure, but if you are volunteering or doing unpaid internships with the intent to go further in the career, it's so much more than simply "working hard". You have to build something new, and that's the whole point of any internship. It's a time for you and the industry to see together if you really do want to stay there, if it's a good fit, and if you have new ideas for the industry/department/job you're looking at.
Both sides of this discussion got carried away with the simple look at fairness in unpaid positions. It's much deeper than that, for both sides. For those of us in any industry, we should be looking to educate on the concept of unpaid work and guiding newcomers in the right direction so they can be armed with knowledge when decision time comes. Part of this is sharing our experience, but there's more. To me, using a 140 character medium to just let people know that many of us made it through volunteering sends the wrong message about how it all works on both ends =/
Also, as we grow more and more, you won't always need "esports" experience to start. Interest and awareness of esports is important, but your skills in a specific expertise is more important.
Maybe I'll talk more about this later, it definitely is interesting =]