British World of Warcraft content creator Taliesin, one half of the Taliesin and Evitel team, allowed a couple of fans to air their views on the Hong Kong situation at Blizzcon.
Taliesin and Evitel were hosting the World of Warcraft fan Q&A panel with the game’s developers, when a red shirt guy (no, not that one) that Taliesin was holding the mic up to, said “free Hong Kong, revolution of our times”.
Taliesin responded by saying: “Sounds good to me!”
Then a second protestor – the boy who recently baited a cameraperson at an NBA game – interrupted the broadcast by walking in front of Taliesin and the next person asking their question to the panel and started chanting ‘free Hong Kong’ by himself.
Taliesin cut the question short and walked over to the boy – Matan Evenoff – and asked him “Have you got a question mate?” to which Matan responded “yup – free Hong Kong”.
The panel then continued on as usual.
Taliesin’s handling of the situation was applauded by the community, including the young protester himself, who thanked Taliesin:
Taliesin also showed his support of the Hong Kong protest here:
The news comes after Blizzard president J.Allen Brack apologised about the Hong Kong situation to fans at the start of Blizzcon.
There’s a history of people in red shirts asking difficult questions to Blizzard developers at Blizzcon. Here’s the original, Ian Bates, who highlighted a lore mistake to Blizzard.
Then, last year, another man in a red shirt asked Blizzard if their heavily criticised mobile game Diablo Immortals was an out-of-season April Fools joke.
We look forward to next year’s inevitable red shirt person.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
