Masters of Disruption: How the Gamer Generation Built the Future [38]

How comedian Robin Williams took esports mainstream.

This post is part of a longform project I’m serializing exclusively in my newsletter, Disruptor. It’s a follow-up to my first book, Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Built an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture, and it’s called Masters of Disruption: How the Gamer Generation Built the Future. You can find the table of contents, as it unfolds, here. To follow along, please subscribe below. Thanks!

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In May 1997, comedian Robin Williams extolled the promise and perils of esports during an appearance on Late Night With David Letterman. He’d been playing Quake online, and getting duly fragged by diehard players. When he marveled that “there are people who spend their lives” competing like this, he sounded like he was pitching a Black Mirror episode. It marked one of the first moments the mainstream caught a glimpse of the wave to come.