Ovilee May, e-sports gaming host, streamer, and League of Legends meme queen, joins our ongoing coverage of CES 2021 to talk about what it’s been like this past year being a gamer in quarantine.
Although “gamer” isn’t really an accurate enough description of May, especially after she dropped her gigantically popular (and hilarious) song and video parody “WAP” (meaning “Weak-Ass Playas”) this past October. “The first thing you have to know is that whenever I do work with Team Liquid…things get crazy! The ‘WAP’ video idea was a huge collaboration. I wrote part of the song, one of the directors wrote part of the song, and we just kept throwing it back and forth,” she says. “Eventually it just spiraled out of control into the video that is now on Twitter and YouTube,” she laughs.
As far as actual gaming goes — what she’s most known for, of course — May mentions a few of her favorites from this past year, including Stardew Valley 1.5. The game has been updated, “so I’ve been playing it again, nonstop. I’ve probably going to break, like, 500 hours playing that game.” And of course Among Us and Minecraft. “But I mean, I have my Stardew Valley ‘Shane’ plushy right here — with detachable chicken! — so I guess you could say I’m committed.”
You can’t talk to Ovilee May without mentioning League of Legends. What was is it like without the sold-out arenas she’s used to? “You have to think about it this way: I started watching e-sports when LCS didn’t exist,” she says. “So to me it seems like a higher quality production. But it does stink a little bit to not be able to follow the teams,” she says, referring to how the season prior she was able to follow the teams from city to city in person. “To not be able to do that in 2020 really hurt.”
But not everything is so dramatically different, and May mentions that teams probably won’t be needing to adjust the way they train and practice. “Everybody is still in their training facilities, or their office, or their apartments,” she says. “The only thing that is going to change about the players is that they probably won’t be going into the studio. It won’t be that same LCS effect.” The changes will fall mostly with the production and content creation surrounding the league.
After giving her thoughts on what teams will break out this year, she notes, “We’re going to [be able to] see how the teams have developed this year,” and what effect playoff and tournament mechanics have. “We just don’t know,” she says.
As far as what comes next for her, May says, “In terms of projects that I’m pumped for, I’m going to have a pretty big project and a pretty big change coming up. Hopefully, that will be announced by the end of January.”
