Meet Julia Childress -- StarCraft II eSports Pro
Team Dignitas’s Steve Farrant recently interviewed Julia Childress, a Diamond league protoss player from Vancouver, BC, where she streams regularly on TwitchTV and goes by the name Ailuj. She made her first major tournament appearance on the main stage at MLG Providence in a match against zerg player Hwang “IM.LosirA” Kang Ho and has since continued to promote the StarCraft II eSports scene and interact with the community and her growing audience.
Gender doesn't matter in SC2. When you play ladder, do you sit there and wonder if your opponent is female or male? Most people probably assume they're playing against a male, I know even I do. Would it matter if you found out your opponent was a girl? Maybe if a particularly proud male found out he'd lost to a girl he'd be a bit bitter or even feel the need to BM, but for the most part, if there were more girls around playing StarCraft no one would think twice about it.I guess the only reason it's perceived to matter now is because there are so few girls that play, and everyone's still trying to figure out how to classify us. In reality, we're the exact same as men who play; we have people in bronze, we have people in GM. Just the fact that there is a smaller population of us is what differs at all, but I really believe that we're a representative sample of the StarCraft community as a whole.
You can check out the full interview here, and follow Julia on Twitter here.
Comments (73)
My ex used to play Starcraft II, but If she even mentioned on the forum that she was a girl she was temp banned and her posts deleted.
Blizzard, if you're going to get serious, start by firing sexist moderators.
It's good to see that when you can't handle the truth you just cover it up.
You shouldn't have labelled her an "eSports Pro", you were leaving yourself to ridicule. I was highly offended, and didn't receive an apology. I'm not only disappointed, but also very angry (especially that you delete my posts? WTF don't try and hide the truth).
Soooooo where's that NesTea interview, eh?... :-D
And diamond? I just wanna shout out she is unique, Witch is nice.
:)
Could a man who's in diamond have ever gotten on a pro team? The obvious answer is no. So lets stop kidding ourselves. Julia happened to get paired up against Loisira in the open bracket at MLG. An attractive woman vs a Korean progamer - putting that on the main stage was a no brianer. Check Six picked her up because... *drum roll* ... attractive women are marketable, especially when they're rare (in the case of SC2)! That does not make Julia a progamer, and it's actually quite insulting to people who are actually fighting to break into the pro scene and have the skill.
If Blizzard wanted to help the women in our community, they would have picked to highlight someone like Flo who is actually on a team due only to her skill as a professional SC2 player. The way that this story is framed just creates a double standard for women (which is sexist), and that's not helpful at all.
http://quanticgaming.com/articles/News/StarCraft-2/70/Quantic-Flo-Gender-certainly-does-matter/
I’m so sick of people saying that only gm’s or master’s have any right to put any input into this game, yes they may be better at the game but everyone is entitled to share their opinion and provide feedback.
And for those of you who may be wondering I am a male and a master player so hopefully what I said will carry more weight!
My hats off to Blizzard and to Julia, keep up the good work!
Yet, she's diamond and is getting put on the front page for the fact that she is a girl.
Blizz, this is who you SHOULD have been highlighting.
Even though Julia isn't very good, she does stream and make it more acceptable for other girls to play this game.
Either way, you sad, jealous, nerd trolls keep harping on her about her looks and success so far.
Navi is a masters level zerg and lets not forget Flo, a masters level terran, both are American too if you are trying to stay over here. Honestly, I have yet to see a guy get promoted on this website for anything less than GM, lets not start with a diamond now just because she is a girl.
But she's in diamond league and a team picks her up for MLG... because of her... skill?
She also streams on twitchTV.
She's able to win against high masters, and won a showmatch against maximusblack 2- 0.
Everyone should be supporting her and eSports, because all this shows is that if you work hard anyone (regardless of gender) can become a professional gamer. Which is awesome in my opinion.
I've watched her stream once or twice, and she is no different than any other Diamond level player - trust me. Once she was being coached and she spent more time reading the chat than actually listening to what the guy was saying.
I'm not saying she has absolutely no potential or isn't a nice person. I'm sure she's passionate about Starcraft and could potentially be good some day. But right now she's not good and she shouldn't be being referred to as an eSports pro.
Why does it matter that she looks good on her webcam? The way you say it you're holding it against her, but it seems like you would do the same if she didn't look good.
She is an up and comer and since she gets paid to play she is one of those lesser known professionals you were just asking for.
Being one of the only women who aspires to be in the pro scene will get her interviews and stuff, that's a given. But calling her a ''eSports pro'' is just insulting to all the people trying to go pro that are better than her. A man in her position would never have been refered to as a pro.