Post-138: Earth’s Longest Insect and Starcraft

I was surprised to learn that the world’s longest insect lives in neither Africa nor the Amazon, but in Malaysia (Borneo). It is called “Chan’s Megastick“. With its legs fully stretched out, it can reach two feet in length. Picture below:
Picture

World’s Longest Insect. [Image from here]


A two-foot-long insect is really reminiscent of a “zergling” of the Starcraft computer game. That game is a common point of reference for all males born after 1980 or so in South Korea. Really, it is. They all know it, in and out.

I wonder why Starcraft became so popular in South Korea. There may be some social significance that I can’t see.

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Zerglings attacking a Protoss enemy [Starcraft]. Found online.

I played the game in the late 1990s and early 2000s a bit. I often tell boys here that when my friends and I played on the Battle.net server back then, we informally resolved to avoid playing against Koreans because they beat us so easily and so quickly that it was just depressing and no fun. (We also half saw them as “cheaters” for some complicated reasons, but I don’t mention that to the kids.)