A long time ago, a young Fox player from Oregon, by the tag of FatGoku made the Top 100 for the first time ever at No. 69. FatGoku would not only appropriately defend the vaunted 69 title a year later, but climb up the list by the end of the decade, finishing at No. 39 by the end of 2019. That was a year where FatGoku also finished in ninth place at Genesis 6, becoming one of only a select few to ever finish in the Top 12 at Melee’s most prestigious tournament series.
While FatGoku would continue to remain active during the rollback period of Melee, the truth is, FatGoku had done everything that someone with any kind of Smash aspiration could realistically hope to achieve. FatGoku grinded locals, rose to the top of an entire state’s Smash scene, traveled the world to play a fun video game, and was nationally recognized multiple times. In March 2023, with Oregon hosting its first ever major shortly afterward, FatGoku announced a full-on retirement from competitive Melee.
Moving on from competitive melee
Read: https://t.co/IZcX4ISyWd
— Level1 | FatGoku (@FatGoku64) March 30, 2023
Years later, and for this column I decided to hit up FatGoku and see what’s up. What I initially had planned to be a 30-minute interview became a fun 2-hour catch-up with someone whom I share many mutual friends with and grew to love talking to even more. Below is a rough and heavily edited transcript of our conversation.
Before you read it, keep in mind that any changes from our original discussion were made for readability, as well as reviewed by both of us. Normally, I wouldn’t do this, but we share mutual friends and are close enough to where I felt comfortable; just wanted to note it here for transparency’s sake. I also sent a quick follow-up question for one topic and have re-ordered our conversation to ensure it’s readable. The only other note: we mostly talked before Smash Camp: New Lands, so we didn’t get a chance to discuss the results.
Hey! How have you been?
I’ve been really good! My mental health’s been great, personal health’s been great, I’ve been productive. I’m actually just looking for work right now – preferably anything that isn’t miserable, but probably something like a job in a restaurant? I like cooking a ton and, as you can tell with Melee, I tend to want to get really good at things I like. Like, it sounds dumb, but what if I just became the FatGoku of cooking? It would be so sick – like, imagine going from playing Smash to just running a Michelin star restaurant. Oh my god, it’d be so sick.
Any big changes in your life?
Uh, yeah, there’s definitely some stuff there. Okay, um, how much can I talk about transitioning? Do you care if I talk about transitioning, like, more than Melee?
You can talk about whatever you want for as long as you want.
Okay, so it’s definitely transitioning. It’s lit, dude. I take estrogen. I don’t know! Dude, do you like being a man? Like, actively enjoy being a man?
Yeah, I would say so.
Yeah, so, that’s crazy. That actually makes no sense to me.
Like, there’s nothing wrong with being a man, but I just don’t understand growing up and being like, “yeah I love being a man.” That’s just such a cis man thing, and I don’t get it. I just had a totally different experience. At least how I experienced things, and how I experienced gender dysphoria was pretty different from how other people experience those things, even trans people. Not saying that everyone feels this way, this is just how it was for me.
I never woke up living my life “as a man,” or feeling hideous or even wanting to harm myself when I looked in the mirror. It felt more like apathy, since for a long time, I just assumed everyone felt that way. Like, growing up and seeing myself and just feeling nothing – that was just the default to me, and I thought everyone went through the same thing since it’s all I knew my whole life.
For a long time, I was like, oh. Other people don’t think that way? Huh. Okay. That’s wild. And then after a bunch of years, I imagined myself as a girl on my way to a tournament, and it made me feel so happy. I didn’t even imagine myself as, like a model, or whatever, it was just as a girl. And I thought about it a lot.
That’s really great to hear. What would you say made you actively consider the possibility of transitioning?
Definitely seeing and talking to other trans and queer people in the scene helped. I talked to a friend with a similar experience with me, Jolene, and it all kinda added up. I want to say, nine months ago or so when I made the decision? Because when I first was close with Magi a bunch of years ago, I was like wow. That’s so sick that she did that. I wish I could do that. Can I do that? Wow, that’s so cool.
I just really assumed it was normal to think things like this. Every two months, I’d wonder “am I trans?” I’d be like, “nah, it’s okay.” Then I realized that cis people usually don’t think about these things. So, it was a weird experience, but seeing positive examples of this within Smash, where most of my friends are, definitely helped.
One thing that I know makes my situation a little different is that I’m actually transitioning fairly late in life. Or at least relative to other people in Smash. And thinking about it, Magi was actually the first friend I ever had who was a woman. If you never talked to people like her, you just wouldn’t have that perspective. Like, I had relationships with women throughout my life, but meeting trans people on the whole just made me realize that it’s an option you have if you want.
What was your coming out experience like?
It’s kind of funny. I think I only told, like, 15 people total. It was every woman in my life, basically immediately. I told every trans person, and as soon as I realized it’s what I wanted, and I told my immediate family. Then for Oregon Melee, I don’t even remember how it happened. I think I said it to maybe two or three people. Eventually the word got spread and everyone started calling me Zoey, using she/her pronouns, gendering me correctly, and everything.
It was honestly convenient because I didn’t really want to do it all myself or make a big deal out of it if people didn’t know. Maybe a bit of internalized transphobia there, but it was very smooth. I also think a big part of transitioning being so positive for me is that everyone is unbelievably supportive. There’s also so many trans people in the Oregon Melee scene that get it, so yeah, I don’t know. Oregon Melee being so supportive is great. It’s super queer friendly, very mature – even Stiv, who’s so young is so mature for their age.
Is it weird to reconcile this very personal decision with the fact that your semi-public status in the scene will get a large number of people to know what’s going on, even when you don’t know them?
What do you mean? Sorry, I don’t get it.
Well, let’s be honest: like, you didn’t directly tell me or anything, but I knew you transitioned because people in the community have talked about it.
Oh. Yeah. That’s insane. Like, the fact that you just knew my name and what pronouns I used and everything, is kind of wild.
Okay, but, at least in our case, we know each other and have mutual friends. It’s not that out of the ordinary that I would learn. In a broader sense, do you think it’s weird to basically have strangers immediately know about this big life moment for you?
There’s definitely a point where people I don’t know immediately started referring to me as Zoey, and I thought it was a little odd. But ultimately, it does kind of make me like those people, or at least even if I didn’t know someone, I can probably trust them a little bit more.
However, being perceived is just always going to be so weird. Anyone ever talking about me is weird. Like, I was good at a video game, which should be a normal thing. Why am I getting perceived at all? I guess it’s not negative, it’s just weird that someone would remotely care about this, and just know what’s happening in my life because I happen to be good at a video game. The fact that it’s me being trans is not worrisome or anything, like it’s great that people know, but it’s more just about perceiving me at all. It would be equally weird if someone I didn’t know just talked about me losing weight.
Like, how insane would that be? If someone was like “wow, I’m so happy for her.” Go care about something else! But also, I don’t know, I guess it’s kind of cool that people just accept me. It’s a good thing. I’m just trying to live my life and just really enjoy being trans. It’s kind of like a hobby in that there’s different parts of being trans that you can, like, grind. But it’s not really a hobby as much as it is, to me, just stuff that makes me really happy and gives me the motivation to excel in other parts of my life.
That all makes sense. I think I know what you mean, but do you feel comfortable talking about what you mean when you’re putting time toward different elements of your transition?
Voice training is the big one. It’s definitely a grind and quite hard. There’s a lot of things to take for granted as humans, and how we sound is one of them, but that’s definitely up there on things to do that I think would make me happy.
I guess I never always dressed well. It was more like, before I transitioned, I was apathetic about how I looked – whoa, can you believe that? Seriously though, I have to buy totally new clothes, learn makeup, grind my fitness goals more; it’s pretty fun.
I’m weird. My whole life, I just hyper-focus on one thing, and everything else I get good at is usually in service of that one thing. Like, even when I was losing weight a while ago, I did it because I thought it would help me get better at Melee. If I have a goal, I usually always pursue it, but it motivates me in other parts of my life.
Still, I really need to get a job. I had an interview, which was nice. The big three are: get a job, lose weight, and just transition shit. But it all kinda fits together, like I work, get money to transition, get new clothes, get health care – it’s a two-way street. Because transitioning gives me the motivation to improve in other parts of my life, and on its own, it’s a huge part of fulfillment. I’m just so much happier actually working toward something.
Like, to bring this back to Melee, there was such a long time when I didn’t actually care that much. I think it was mostly for me, but I tried not to care in Melee a lot. I played selfishly. I didn’t give a shit about anyone other than me, and so, I think there were times I’d lose and I’d try to ham it up to myself. But it was only really for me and not because of other people or anything like that.
One day I couldn’t do that and I decided to retire that day. I lost and didn’t care, nor could I bring myself to care.
This wasn’t Genesis 9, was it? Where we grabbed food with each other and you told me you were preparing for your matches after you told me you were going to lose to Cruz.
Yeah, it was. I knew it was over and I hadn’t even played him yet. I had accepted it, and then I lost, didn’t care, and couldn’t bring myself to care. But I was actually okay with it. It was afterward, when I lost to Lowercase hero. I don’t know how to describe it. I destroyed him the first two games and then got reverse 3-0’d. Feeling numb afterward was way worse than just being mad. I’d rather feel pain than nothing, so I knew I needed to evaluate myself.
Actually, I think the first time I realized I wasn’t really wasn’t having fun was Summit 10. The online one. That tournament, I practiced so hard for, because I never wanted to campaign for a Summit, and I happened to qualify for this tournament. I had Gahtzu, S2J, Zain, and Spark in my pool. I knew there was just no point in trying to practice for Zain, so I grinded the shit out of the other two matchups: Captain Falcon and Sheik. I ended up beating Gahtzu, beating Spark, and got third in the pool. I think I was the fifth seed too.
I played so well and then I ended up getting 13th, losing to SFAT. It was a really good tournament run. I put all this work in, did really well, and I wasn’t happy at all. It was the first time that ever happened to me. I was like, huh. That’s weird.
You know, I always say the two best days of my life were Genesis 6 and Bridgetown Blitz 2, where I beat Bladewise for the first time. Working hard, achieving what I want, and not being happy was heartbreaking. After that I didn’t know if I wanted to take it seriously any more.
Okay, just really quickly and for the record: where does transitioning go? I’d imagine it’d be at least top three.
Hm. Yeah, that’s fair. Ask me in two years when I’m a hot girl.
Alright, well, on that note, what are your fondest memories in the scene? I know you just mentioned those two tournaments, so you can talk about it more or bring up anything else.
I’ll mention Genesis 6 and Bridgetown Blitz 2 again, even though nobody remembers it.
Hold on Zoey. I remember it.
Okay, well, Edwin Budding remembers it, but I was down, like, 0-25 in sets to Bladewise or some shit. Kind of like what me vs. Derek (Aura) used to be, but the other way around. I don’t know. Dude, it sucks that Derek is good now. He’s so good. But I swear he’s so bad.
I love Aura, but something’s not right in the universe when you aren’t farming him any more.
I know, dude. I hate him. No, he’s actually good. I hate giving him props, but he’s actually better at the game than me right now.
This pains me to hear it come from you. Let’s get back to it: Bridgetown Blitz 2.
Fair enough. I just think the best parts in Melee, and just in life, are when you care, put in hard work, and achieve something. For me, I wanted to beat Bladewise for so long and I legitimately didn’t know if I had it in me. Winning over him was literally the happiest I’ve ever been, because I had such great other memories too. Kind of like a drug.
I still think about it sometimes and get so excited. He was such a big demon for me too. There’s something special about beating someone who has beaten you a million times. It means more when you’re used to losing to one person before you finally defeat them. Me vs Duck might be a “better” win but it’s way less interesting.
And how about Genesis 6?
Genesis 6 was similar in that it’s the best tournament I’ve ever had, and will ever have since I don’t want to top it anyway. God, every set, it feels like I lost game one. It’s actually funny – at the farmer’s market before the tournament, I was so happy anyway, and I ended up playing great. I think not worrying about other stresses in life and being with my friends made that tourney go well for me. Yeah, similar to the Bridgetown Blitz thing, I remember waking up every now and then and thinking about it.
God, I want to just say, I have so many friends from Melee I love so much. I think if I tried to listen to any specific memories, I’d be forgetting too many. I’m gonna say, like, anything with Melee people that has nothing to do with Melee. All my friends are from it, but even though it’s how we met, even if we quit Melee, we’d still be friends y’know? Like if we got dinner and hung out.
Did you feel any social pressure that came as a result of your decision to retire?
I mean, maybe a tiny bit? For me, it was more that a lot of my retirement post was for me more than other people. So I don’t feel too bad about “retiring” and still going to locals or whatever, because I only care about what my friends think and what I think, you know? Like, imagine a random Redditor being like, “classic retired smasher” because I went to a tournament. I don’t give a fuck.
There was no pressure in that sense. It was more for me to be, like, “this is real,” and obviously it still feels real. I still love the game and the scene. I still play, you know? I’m going to play until I die – I’ve just accepted that – but it’s not going to be the same where I just grinded nonstop. No, now I have a much healthier relationship with the game. I love Melee as a hobby, but it’s a shit job.
Alright, I do want to jump into that retirement thing, just super quickly. This is going to sound really obnoxious, but I swear I mean it earnestly: why even write the post out at all? You could have just quietly changed your relationship with the game and no one would have said anything.
You know, that’s a good question. I think about it too. Could I have done what I did and just not post anything? I could have legitimately just decided to not take Melee seriously. I don’t know why I wanted to write that.
I think for me, when I announce something or write it down, it’s more real for me. I don’t think I was ever super in the spotlight, not more than other top players. And typically I am low-key. So when I’m like, “hey; perceive me right now,” it’s more like I’m saying out loud, “okay, I’m clearly taking this decision very seriously, and it’s not a fun thing for me any more, and I want you all to know.”
I actually think it’s more of a self-accountability thing. It sounds funny because I got clowned on a little bit for still going to tournaments, but I would still say my relationship with Melee has definitely changed. Like yeah, if it was my job again, I would be breaking the spirit of that post, but clearly that’s not the case. I don’t know. I like to think I still lived up to it. Melee was not fulfilling any more. People can take what I said how they want. It’s annoying, but I don’t care.
I’ve always said – until a year ago – that the best decision was deciding to play Melee, and the second best was leaving Melee before I wanted to transition. Now though? The top three are cloudy. Ask me again in a couple years when I’m a hot girl.
Yeah, it will certainly be a tossup between being a hot girl and winning Bridgetown Blitz 2 over Bladewise for fondest memory and best decision.
God. I can’t believe I did that [beating Bladewise]. That’s so sick.
Moving gears for a second, do you think that the recent wave of retirements among players, even temporary ones, reflects a bit of a cultural reckoning about the viability of Melee as a career?
I mean, I guess, but also I don’t really think so. It’s, like, slightly worse than it was two years ago. Here’s the thing: Melee’s always and will always be a shitty profession unless you’re one of, like, eight people. And eight might be big. There’s Mango, there’s Hungrybox, there’s Zain, and maybe Cody now? I don’t know. It’s just not a good job. It’s such a beautiful game though, and I understand wanting to give Melee your best effort, like basically what I and every Top 100 player did with Melee. It’s not that the average condition of being a player is worse. I know the online community is so awful, but that’s not really it.
Like, I got into Melee in 2013. That was when almost nobody was making significant money at all from Melee. Maybe Mango? I don’t know. I think retiring from Melee has more to do with people getting older and realizing that not everything has to do with Melee. Melee is not the only thing to care about in life. Maybe from 17 to 25, it felt like that. If I was good at Melee, I would be happy. But I’m 27 years old now. Relationships are cool. Friendships are cool. Same with waking up on time and cleaning your room.
Humans care about a lot of things for a lot of reasons. Mostly, they’re arbitrary. A lot of people choose Melee for their own reasons. It was even my purpose in life for a while. But for me, with age, I just had a realization that I wanted to focus my energy on other things.
Like working toward being a hot girl.
Yes, exactly. I want to say though – I guess some people quit Melee forever, but I have to be honest, even retired players play sometimes. I promise you Armada, Crush, Silent Wolf play, just not publicly.
One thing that I think is pretty interesting is that even though Magi was the first out trans woman on the Top 100, you and essy are both previous inclusions of players who would later come out as trans women. Do you ever think about the implications of that, or how the scene’s changed in terms of gender diversity?
Oh, that’s right, I made the Top 100 before Magi. Hell yeah, get owned.
Yeah, I think about the growing gender representation in Melee a bunch actually. I think it’s actually so sick, and obviously we still have a long way to go. But we’ve made progress. I’m 27 and have been playing Melee for 11 years. It used to be normalized to say the f-word or call Jigglypuff “gay.” I mean, I’ll be real, I was a shithead when I first played Melee.
But it’s much better now. I think it’s a great thing that we’ve changed so much on the whole. Along with how we are much better about watching what we say, the presence of queer people is so normalized in the scene. I think it’s a great change. I love meeting queer people, talking to other transgender people, and it’s such a wonderful, positive, accepting place now – at least much more than it used to be.
There’s a quote I read from someone in the FGC not too long ago about how every person is ultimately their own community. It was essentially saying that at the end of the day, we get to choose who we hang out with and spend time with. I think about this quote a lot. Do you think that your shift in priorities with Melee has given you a fresh perspective on what we consider the “Smash” community? If so, what is it?
Ultimately, the community is largely what you’re gonna make of it and your specific circumstances. An 0-2’r from Texas and Cody Schwab are going to have vastly different exposure to the Melee community despite being in the same “community.”
A lot of what I’ve been thinking about, post-retirement, is what I value in a community and what I want from my relationships and stuff. I don’t really like talking about the game anymore. It’s totally fine to talk about Melee a bunch, but I’ve just done it too much in my life, and it’s not my priority anymore. So I try to interact with people who I think have their priorities a little more similar to mine.
One thing I just want to throw into the void, and hopefully one person reads this and it helps: if you’re having an issue with the Melee community, maybe try shifting your vision in it a little bit. Recently I’ve realized I’m a happier person with my Twitter disabled. I kind of don’t like a lot of the stuff I see on Melee Twitter. If you read a lot of Reddit and think “God, the Melee community is fucking annoying,” I would agree with you if I was still subbed to the Smash Reddits!
There are so many Discords, streams, regions, and tournaments to go to, which I promise – you will find some of the most beautiful people of all time if you search for them.
Any future plans you have in mind that you’d like to share with the world?
Um…let me think. Not really. I’m just kind of grinding. I’ve flirted with the idea of going to Big House, but I’m not sure. Again, see me in two years when I’m a hot girl.
Any last thoughts or words of advice you have for aspiring players or members of the community?
For parting words, I just want to thank everyone who supports me, whether you were just a Melee fan or anyone who has helped me in other aspects of my life. Life is hard and everyone needs shoulders to lean on sometimes. I am extremely thankful for all of the people who care about me.