“Ten years ago, I’d have never thought I would be here today,” Andrea Hunter, one of gaming’s foremost players wonders aloud as we rowed out to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Research Station in the Antarctic. “Like, it is so cold, and also, I just could not imagine that after making it as a pro gamer — something I’ve wanted to do as long as I can remember — that I would trade that all away to do this kind of really important research here on the South Pole.”
Before becoming one of the world’s most famous gamers, Andrea Hunter had planned on being a Physicist specializing in the fluid dynamics of the atmosphere. She had finished 3 years of her 4-year program before balancing the pressures of school work and a full time job playing video games proved to be too much.
“My Mom is one of the most supportive people I have ever known. She is like, the ultimate cheerleader. When I was 16, I told my Mom about my gaming stream, which at the time, had something like 250 active viewers when I would cast. She was actually really worried about it at first, which I guess isn’t unreasonable given the absolutely terrible things that the gamer community does to people.”
The gaming community has an unfortunate number of toxic practices, such as its harassment of women and the phenomenon of swatting, where internet users make false reports to emergency services that sometimes end fatally.
“But once my Mom realized that I was gonna do this one way or another, she was immediately like ‘Alright, how do we do this safely, and how do we make sure you’re gonna still contribute to society.’ For her, work and career were never a matter of just paying the bills.
“Like, she has this super idealistic view of Capitalism and the American dream. Like, at a fundamental level, she believes that things will work out pretty well if everyone is willing to actually pay for things that they value. But until we actually start from a level-ish playing field, life is gonna be pretty unfair, especially when people at the top are so willing to take things of value from people without compensating them.
“But anyway, I digress. Sorry, can we restart that? What question was I supposed to be answering again?”
At this point, I had to shuffle through my notes to remember. I had become so enchanted by her story, by her absolutely captivating rendition of her own mother, that I myself had lost the train of thought.
“Oh right, I got distracted talking about my Mom’s fundamental philosophy of modern life, which you, the real-life reporter will have to outline in another article, which could probably go under the Astrology and U.S. Sections of the site. But I do think this one part of her philosophy is important for the telling of this story, so gimme a hot second here to explain this.
“One thing my Mom always said was ‘education isn’t a backup plan.’ She always said, ‘be curious, but be realistic. Life is unfair a lot of the time. You need to make sure that you can take care of yourself always. Anything that sounds too good to be true probably is. And so like, make sure you got the skills you need, then pursue the things you want'”
But we would have to continue our conversation later — we had arrived.
The Admundsen-Scott
The research station rises above the ice like a parody of a secret government facility. Its clean metallic surfaces and small windows remind me of all too many summer blockbusters. But here, the space-age siding isn’t just a set piece.
“When you’re trying to make sure that the interior of a building stays at a balmy 17 degrees Centigrade” — roughly 63 degrees Fenernheit — “and it’s negative 41 on a good day, that building better be outfitted with some heavy duty stuff.”
Josef Lundgrin, the station’s Head of Operations, is a bear-like hulk of a man, who is often mistaken for a walrus due to his sheer size and the walrus-pelt jacket (complete with tusks) that he wears everywhere he goes.
“The exterior surfaces of this building are made of the same stuff they use to insulate rockets, where the reflective surfaces pretty much eliminate heat transfer. When we first wrested this station from the cold dead hands of the group of internationally cooperating scientists who lived here, we had a really hard time breaking through the outer walls because that shit is tough.”
Three months before our arrival, Lundgrin and his bawdy band of ice pirates launched a violent offensive in which they took over the station. None of the scientists we had expected to find here remained alive.
“We probably couldn’t have done it if it weren’t for this magical cloak here. The dark powers I gained by poaching the shit out of these rare and beautiful creatures proved to be really instrumental in breaking through those outer barriers. But as soon as that was done, it was game over for those science nerds. The cloak has some demon-blubber that can absorb bullets without so much as shaking me, so it was smooth sailing from there.”
It was clear that we were in dire straits, but Lundgrin agreed to let Hunter proceed with the research she came here to do as long as we agreed to follow any commands that he, the Walrus-King, issued. Using only our hands and a large decapitation machine, we worked together to decapitate one of the foolish scientists who refused to swear allegiance to our new Lord, eradicating any doubts as to our loyalty.
“Good. Now that I know I can trust you, let’s get you set up with some food — you must be starving from your long journey!”
Mom’s Thought Experiment
As we settled in to the oddly charming mess hall for dinner, we got back to the elder Hunter’s thought experiment.
My mother always whispered this patented thought experiment to me as I drifted off to sleep. And I’ve now heard it so many times that I have it memorized. It’s like this: if you have a 4% chance of making it in a field that you love, and a 60% chance of making it in a field that you’re ok with, but not super happy about, and the field that you’re just ok with pays 13% more, but the GINI coefficient in your country is more than 0.38, then how do you balance those two opportunities?
It took me a while, because I was a slow learner as a kid, but the way I like to think about it is this: in 96 realities, you are going to have to deal with not being paid to do the thing you love full-time. So at least figure out how those versions of you will have enough resources to still have time to spend on the thing you love. And remember that we’ve still got so much room to go before we truly have an equal country.
Andrea Hunter
I didn’t really understand what she was trying to say, so the conversation got pretty uncomfortable at this point. I decided to change topics to talk about the research that she was supposed to be doing.
“Well, before being brutally murdered by the Walrus-King and his evil henchmen, there was a group of scientists who discovered some interesting gravity waves here in antarctica that might be key in understanding the motion of the earth’s atmosphere. And this is going to be super important as humans are increasingly impacted by climate change, inclement weather and the like. My research is looking at whether we can replicatae those waves in a controlled environment, to basically get a baseline we can compare against. Unfortunately, Lundgrin’s assault knocked our gravity machine out of working order. If we’re going to finish this research, I’ll need your help.”
As much as I wanted to see Hunter battle against the whims of fate and contribute to the scientific body of literature, the dead bodies gave me the willies, so I snuck out in the middle of the night.
As I rowed away from the research station, I couldn’t help but feel inspired. It’s wonderful to know that even the world’s biggest video-game celebrities care enough about the environment to submit to the Walrus-King just to do some research into gravity waves. And if that’s not progress, I don’t know what is.