THE NOTORIOUS “MAMA AKU DI TI” STORY
This is the story about two people that made it to the biggest prize pool E-sports competition of all time and a trending quote. TI which stands for “The International” has the highest and biggest prize pool of all time in E-sports record. TI has been organized for over ten years. Last year was supposed to be years ten TI, but due to the pandemic, it was postponed. TI has held the records for the highest prize pool since 2015, which means TI hold this record for 5 years. In 2014 the TI 4 prize pool was topped by Fortnite World Cup Finals 2019 with a prize pool of $15.000.000, while TI 4 had $10,931,103. All of us thought that the TI 9 prize pool was the highest that E-sports could have accomplished with a prize pool of $34,330,069. This year TI has reached over $40,018,400 which is massive for the E-sports community. But we’re here not to talk about the numbers, we’re here to talk about the players who made their way into this massive tournament.
These 2 players are the first to ever Indonesian that made it to TI. Indonesian show their supports towards the players through Dota 2 Community and expresses themself using #IndoPride. These 2 players are Whitemon and Xepher. Which #IndoPride ever reached top trending on Twitter. Matthew Filemon or also known as Whitemon is a 21 years old player that played for team T1. His in-game statistics are insane, as his statistics were mostly above 5th Position as a result of most tournaments. He also reached a 10k MMR (Match Making Rating) on May 30th, 2021. He is in position 5 or people called it Hard Support. While his teammate Kenny Deo or also known as Xepher is a 25 years old player that played for team T1. His in-game statistics are also insane, as his statistics were mostly above 4th Position as a result of most tournaments. He is in position 4 or people called it Soft Support. So how do these 2 Indonesian players relate to “Mama Aku di TI”?
Well “Mama Aku di TI” is a Indonesian words, which translated as “Mother I’m at TI”. It is quoted by Xepher in the post-match interview after a game between T1 and Alliance. Alliance is a veteran team that has entered TI since TI one. After the results of the elimination match between T1 and Alliance, T1 gains the lead and defeats Alliance, this moment bring huge joy to both Indonesian players. SirActionSlacks is assigned to interview a member of the winning team and decides to interview Xepher. SirActionSlacks said that Xepher and Whitemon are the first players to step on the TI stages and therefore he would like to give the opportunity to Xepher to say a few words to the fans that watch them. Xepher asks if he could speak with his national language, and the words that come out of Xepher’s mouth shocked us all. He said “Mama Aku di TI”. He thought that the interviewee doesn’t understand the language and the meaning of it. Even we Indonesian viewers are shocked that 35% of the foreign audience understood the language. These tags are spread around the world through social media. Trending in Twitter, even if you typed “Xepher, Mama Aku di TI” it will pop up in the most searched. The fact that such simple quotes could make it into the trending Twitter is beyond us all. The reaction of SirActionSlacks motivates foreign audiences to search the meaning of “Mama Aku di TI” and it pushes the search line graph in Google Trends.
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