In recent days, Croco – the jungler for Liiv SANDBOX, has become the target of criticism from the Korean League of Legends community after making mocking remarks about veteran player Faker in a behind-the-scenes vlog of the team.
Specifically, in episode 5 of the [Madness] Series posted on Liiv SANDBOX’s media channels, Croco along with Summit and other LSB members continuously used a slang phrase implying “crybaby,” coined by a subset of anti-fans specifically to refer to Faker and a few other celebrities, following the moment when Faker cried after losing to Samsung Galaxy in the 2017 World Championship finals.
In the vlog, Croco not only used this mocking phrase once or twice but repeatedly, along with comments implying that the “crybaby” players (with only Faker being associated with this derogatory term) were merely acting to gain sympathy from the audience. Therefore, viewers understood that Croco’s actions were a deliberate jab at Faker, rather than a simple accidental mention of the term.
Furthermore, this inappropriate conversation among LSB players took place while the team was filming, and everyone present was aware of it. Croco and Summit even told the staff: “Please cut out that conversation we just had, don’t post it online!”
Not only facing criticism for his disrespectful and mocking attitude towards Korea’s Esports legend, Croco has also been mocked by numerous netizens as a “two-faced” person, a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” as his past interview content was dug up.
Specifically, at the beginning of the 2021 season, Croco made his LCK debut after joining Liiv SANDBOX and participated in an interview with Korizon. In this interview, when mentioning Faker, the LSB player emphasized that he greatly admired and dreamed of interacting with Faker if they met on stage:
“I feel… quite nervous about that moment (meeting Faker). It feels like meeting a famous superstar. I think that the handshake between players after a match is a gesture that shows sportsmanship. Whether winning or losing, we still shake hands. However, I am very sad that I and Faker could not shake hands after that match due to health protocols. If I have the opportunity, I would really like to shake Faker’s hand.”
Croco’s interview response at that time warmed the hearts of T1 fans. Moreover, given the good relationship between T1 and the “super rookies of LCK 2019” including DAMWON Gaming and SANDBOX Gaming, the former T1 support – Effort is even currently playing for LSB, this team attracted a significant number of supporters who were fans of T1.
However, less than a year later, Croco has become the “conductor” in a dialogue mocking his senior. This has made him a target of intense backlash from the Korean online community. Without even mentioning who Faker is, the fact that the T1 captain is currently one of the oldest players in LCK is enough for rookies like Croco to show a certain level of respect, whether publicly or privately.
On LSB’s side, the team made a “grave error”. First, it is clear that Croco and Summit emphasized to the staff to cut out the “bad-mouthing Faker” segment, yet the LSB media team still publicly posted it on social media. This is seen as a “dirty media stunt,” exploiting controversial content to attract views.
Subsequently, the team had to remove the vlog just three hours after its release, as the number of dislikes and reports received was too… overwhelming. However, in their apology post, LSB emphasized that: “This is the fault of the media team” for… not thoroughly reviewing the content. And the audience that LSB apologized to was only their fans, not Faker – the person who had just been publicly insulted with quite derogatory terms on social media.
In the past 48 hours, this incident and related keywords have topped the search rankings on NAVER’s search engine in South Korea, and the wave of outrage seems unlikely to stop until the League of Legends fans in the land of kimchi receive a proper response from those involved.