Interview with Davard, Fnatic Social Media Manager

Yoann: Hello everyone! Today I’m with Davard, social media manager for Fnatic! How would you introduce yourself?

Davard: Hey, I’m Davard and technically I’m a social media manager for esports, I guess people will mostly know me for running Fnatic’s Twitter account. I also lead live coverage for Valorant and League of Legends. I’m usually the guy telling the stories and also shitposting.

Yoann: That’s nice! When and how did you get into esports?

Davard: So I did a film and games design degree a few years back, after finishing my degree, I was kind of looking at like, where do film and games crossover? I feel like that works well in esports!

I started working in these kinds of glorified Internet cafes running tournaments. I ran the London Branch’s Overwatch team and their socials. Then Covid hit, and we had to shut down the arena.

And during COVID, I knew someone through work who had a really small League of Legends team. So I volunteered to do socials for them over a summer to build some experience. And I applied for an internship with Fnatic and I got it. I started as an intern and very quickly ended up steering the ship on social media. So I was kept on, and I was made a social coordinator. And recently I got promoted to social media manager.

So it's been like a two-year journey and it's been really fun!

Yoann: Awesome! Is there some kind of rivalry with the other community managers?

Davard: Yeah, especially at Fnatic, we have the most famous rivalry and esports with G2! 

Of course this year in Valorant not so much, because they're in Challengers NA, but it’s still very present in League of Legends. But I think it’s something that will probably surprise most people it’s like the social media managers are quite friendly with each other, behind the scenes. It's kind of a game of how much you can troll each other, but there’s a lot of mutual respect!

Yoann: That sounds fun! What's the daily routine of a social media manager?

Davard: It’s a hard thing to narrow down because the nature of socials is sporadic. I guess what repeats every day is a team meeting in the morning, where we'll look over any posts that need to be posted by the business or any content we can make.

But also see what's trending, what's happening in the world... Also if there’s any Valorant update such as the Night Market, Can we jump on that? What kind of trends can we do? That kind of meeting dictates the day from there. It really varies each day.

Yoann: Okay. How often do you travel with the team?

Davard: It really depends on the business's needs. I wish it was any tournament I cover. I went to VCT Copenhagen last year and that was to both do the coverage and to assist with like a little café event we had there.

Recently I've been traveling quite a lot to help out with their media days and shoot content for our YouTube and Socials.

Yoann: How is the atmosphere like behind the scenes working for an esport team?

Davard: It’s dynamic because you're in a performance-based industry. So I think the mood depends on the team’s performance. For example, after the win at Lock//In, it was super nice! 

Yoann: I am asking this question to a lot of talent I'm interviewing. How would you describe the finals at Lock//In using only three words? 

Davard: Best match ever.

It was very tense. When I was covering it, I was literally frozen, sitting here and I literally couldn't move. All I could bring myself to do was tweet these stupid skeleton pictures!

I think it actually took a few days to process it. When I watch some of our content from the finals, I feel like I just enter an alternate dimension.

Yoann: That was absolutely epic! Okay, now I'm going to ask you ten quick questions, you’ll have to answer them as fast as possible!

Davard: Okay!

Yoann: What's your favorite social media?

Davard: Twitter

Yoann: What's your favorite meme?

Davard: Spidermen pointing at each other, it’s just a classic.

Yoann: What's your favorite agent?

Davard: Not so much at the moment, but Chamber. Currently playing Harbor at the moment while Chamber is a bit useless.

Yoann: Phantom or Vandal?

Davard: Vandal!

Yoann: What's your favorite skin collection? 

Davard: Glitchpop, still waiting on the Vandal to be in my store…

Yoann: Have you ever played with Fnatic players on Valorant? 

Davard: Yeah for a video with Caedrel. I went 3-15 vs Derke, Boaster, Leo Chronicle and Caedrel. Also bumped into a few of them in Deathmatch before!

Yoann: What's the tweet you are the proudest of? 

Davard: Back when the 'Mage' agent got leaked I made an old-school Runescape meme about him, probably that. Or 1 thieves from LOCK//IN.

Yoann: Photoshop or ms paint? 

Davard: Ms paint, come on now. The Windows Twitter account even complimented my paint skills!

Yoann: Quote your favorite voice line from Chamber.

Davard: "Focus now, eyes off me"

Yoann: Guess how many tweets there are on the Fnatic Twitter account. 

Davard: Oh, I have no idea. The account has been around forever. I'd guess like 200,000 or something.

Yoann: You’re aiming a bit too high haha, the correct one is 58.5K tweets, which is still a lot!

Let’s get back to the standard questions now. So what kind of games are you playing in your free time?

Davard: Obviously, I play quite a lot of Valorant. I play internally with the staff. So we've been doing some ranked. I'm also like on the side outside of esports, RPGs, so I've been playing Persona 4 on the PS5 and that's good, It's a good time!

Yoann: What are your hobbies or passions aside from gaming?

Davard: I play the guitar, I have a Fender Stratocaster. Recently, last few months, I started painting Warhammer miniature figurines. I also set myself a New Year's resolution, to learn photography because I'm always kind of looking to expand my skill sets. You know, I get to go to all these cool events, and it's already kind of paying off. I've already shot some cool events. I did some stuff with Apex in London, I did some stuff with the Valorant boys a few weeks ago on the media day.

Yoann: That’s so cool! What would you change to Valorant if you were a developer?

Davard: I could go on about this for like an hour. I would change the way deathmatches work. I would make it so there's no finish. There's no kill that finishes the game because I think that encourages people to like sweat deathmatch and play it in a way that's not actually helpful, and then also just fix the spawns.

Yoann: What do you think about the fact that Bind will replace Icebox?

Davard: I hate it! Icebox is kind of Fnatic’s map, but it's also my favorite map to play. Anyway, if you ever look on any Fnatic social media, I always use it in the background of posts. It’s like a meme!

And I feel like they haven't made enough changes to Bind, we’ll see.

Yoann: All right. What are your short and long terms ambitions with Fnatic?

Davard: This is a really interesting year for anyone doing socials in Valorant because it's the first year of franchising. I think my short-term goal is to pave out what Fnatic Valorant looks like on social media. And show why we are a team that should be in the franchise league. I think I’ve done a good job so far at making the socials really reflective of the personalities of the team, it's quite bubbly, and charismatic, and a lot like the players themselves!

That's the goal for this year, to really refine that and make each event an absolute banger.

Long term, it's something I don't actually think about that often, but I think just bring each title to the same level and make it all amazing. Like League and Valorant are very much adored and this does have kind of connotations like team performances, but bringing some of the other titles up to the same level would be a really cool long-term goal, I think!

Yoann: That’s great! What would you say to someone aspiring to work in esports?

Davard: I think esports gets very romanticized. My biggest thing is that you have to bring a certain skill set. Instead of just kind of trying to like break into like a very broad industry. I think it's like finding your skill set, what you're good at, and just breaking in through that.

Yoann: Awesome! Is there anything else you wanted to add to this interview?

Davard: With Fnatic socials, I do quite a lot of it, but it's never a one-man band. I have a really solid team behind me, so shout out to them!

Yoann: Thank you so much for your time!

Davard: Thank you!

Davard’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/davard_