If you’ve been on Twitter lately you would’ve noticed the immense hype surronding the 2018 Counter-Strike IEM Tournament that’s been taking place this weekend.
Basically, it’s a three-day event for the men’s and women’s tournament. Fans gather to watch some of the best CS gamers in the world battle it out before their very eyes. The online game is multi-player based and set in first person. In the game, you have your Terrorists and then you have your Counter-Terrorism unit and within your teams, you use strategy and sheer virtual force to come out on top.
Unsurprisingly, it’s an extremely popular online game and has been for years now.
Sponsored by Intel, the Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) tournament consists of 16 teams from all over the world. Three of these teams qualified from the Oceania AKA us.
It’s a y’huge deal, especially for Australian esport, and the total cash prize is USD $250,000.
And despite the stereotypes that come with a gaming crowd, this is still an Aussie crowd so just like a Big Bash League 20/20 match, there were beach balls and beer snakes throughout Qudos Bank Arena.
😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/d4A4ahpmaU
— Hambo (@hambovegas) May 5, 2018
God bless this nation.
Anyway, so on the homepage of their website there’s this:
Word around the block is, shoeys happened last year and the organisers weren’t frothin’ it so they banned the sacred ritual.
So of course mid-game, a fan decided to do one anyway cos Straya and they ended up copping the boot for it. A worthy sacrifice.
Naturally, a majority of fans protested this breach of Strayanism by taking off their shoe, waving it in the air, and chanting “SHOEY! SHOEY! SHOEY!”
No, really, it happened.
A nation raises their shoes in solidarity to fallen shoeyites. This is weird phenomenon. #IEMSydney #shoey #Australia #esport pic.twitter.com/MX0wUOryji
— Pala James (@OfficialPala) May 5, 2018
STRAYA! A whole stadiums tribute to a guy kicked out for doing a shoey… @IEM #iemsydney pic.twitter.com/m0uY77hWHh
— Mitch (@BY1604) May 5, 2018
Nothing says ‘straya more than a riot over a shoey at #IEMSydney 😂 pic.twitter.com/cccT04lTUq
— Jess (@Kazegamii) May 5, 2018
And then the tweets begun to flow from fans and game commentators alike:
Kickin out a dude for doing a shoey is the most unaustralian thing I’ve seen #IEM #IEMSYDNEY
— here for a good time (@shaundeamer) May 4, 2018
Shoes are out for the boy #IEMSydney
— Bradley Seymour (@tgunAU) May 5, 2018
https://twitter.com/TesterSyd/status/992648312065961984
How do you know you’re in an Australian crowd? Everyone is chanting ‘do it’ while one person drinks a beer out of their shoe mid game. #IEMSydney
— VeganBandit Games (@VegBandit) May 5, 2018
https://twitter.com/J_Mizzlin/status/992341200580456449
Although, the best bit of all of this has to be the confused and disgusted fans streaming the tournament from other countries.
That’s what happens when a crowd don’t care bout the game more than their 15 secs of fame. Plz don’t host any @IEM s in Australia anymore, they don’t appreciate the game. Constant howling and behaving like morons made the stream unenjoyable. #IEMSydney
— AW (@Anmol_Williams) May 6, 2018
Well, sorry for having a culture.
