In Korea, a female politician is set to be elected to the national parliament, but a misdemeanor in League of Legends stands in her way. She allegedly shared her account with an ex-boyfriend in 2014: This boosting is now being accused by political opponents. She is expected to withdraw her candidacy.
This was the trigger of the conflict: On March 6, a political party in South Korea introduced its top candidate for the national parliament: Ryu Ho-jung would have become the youngest member ever elected to parliament.
Ryu Ho-jung has a background in the gaming industry. She was the chairperson of a university eSports club, worked for various gaming companies, and attempted to establish a union.
In South Korea, gaming is much more ingrained in the fabric of society than it is here: It is seen as an important task for parliament to enact rules for eSports and gaming.
Former Starcraft Pro Raises Allegations
However, on March 10, her candidacy was harshly criticized. Hwang Hee-doo, a former StarCraft pro-gamer who now sits in parliament for another party, accused her of:
- Ryu “boosting” her in LoL
- that this is a serious misconduct
- it is essentially like having someone else take the exam for you
In Korea, boosting online accounts has become a crime.
2014 Boosting Incident Burdens Politician for Years
What exactly did the woman do? According to her statement, it involves an incident from 2014. She let her then-boyfriend play with her LoL account because he wanted to play some placement matches with a friend.
It is said that her LoL account was boosted from Gold 1 to Diamond 5: That is quite a leap.
Her boyfriend was so good that her account ranked so high in the solo queue that she could no longer play with her own account. Therefore, she created a new LoL account.
However, Ryu Ho-jung used the “boosted account” to participate in a LoL tournament that was only intended for women.
Ryu has already faced trouble for this: She dishonorably lost her position as the chairperson of an eSports club back then – and now the controversy seems to be harming her again.
Politician Apologizes – But Opponents Demand Resignation
This is how the conflict continued: Ryu has apologized for her behavior. She stated that she was “careless” at the time and that it was very wrong. This also cast a negative light on female gamers.
She sincerely apologized for her actions back then.
However, the political opponents showed no mercy. It was said: The apology indicates that she does not take her misconduct seriously and dismisses it as mere “carelessness”.
She can only apologize to the gaming community for her mistakes by now resigning as a candidate.
This is the discussion: In South Korea, people are debating whether the politician’s misdemeanor from 6 years ago is enough to force her to end her candidacy for parliament:
- On one hand, she did not gain any financial advantages from her misconduct and “deserves” a second chance
- On the other hand, it is argued that the politician has become popular mainly because of her career as a gamer, so she should know better
Part of the conflict is that women in LoL allegedly need the help of men to reach high rankings. This damages the image of women in eSports. In LoL, a female-only team has now been expelled from the league because they lost 28 times in a row.
