Dominique McLean, known professionally as SonicFox, is an American professional

esport Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...

s player of several

fighting game A fighting game, also known as a versus fighting game, is a video game genre, genre of video game that involves combat between two or more players. Fighting game combat often features mechanics such as Blocking (martial arts), blocking, grappli ...

s. McLean is recognized for their versatility and ability to pick up a new game or character and master it for professional play relatively quickly. McLean has topped many tournaments, including six

Evolution Championship Series The Evolution Championship Series, commonly known as Evo, is an annual esports event that focuses exclusively on fighting games. The tournaments are completely open and use the double elimination format. As with Super Battle Opera, contestants ...

(EVO) events for five different game franchises. They are the highest paid fighting game esports player in the world as of August 4, 2019, with over $600,000 in earnings. McLean was named Esports Player of the Year at

The Game Awards 2018 The Game Awards 2018 was an award show that honored the best video games of 2018. It was produced and hosted by Geoff Keighley, creator and producer of The Game Awards, and was held to an invited audience at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angele ...

and included in ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

'' 2020 " 30 Under 30" for Games. McLean is openly gay and

non-binary Non-binary and genderqueer are umbrella terms for gender identities that are not solely male or femaleidentities that are outside the gender binary. Non-binary identities fall under the transgender umbrella, since non-binary people typically ...

as well as a furry. They are known to often participate in fighting game tournaments in the

fursuit Fursuits are custom-made animal costumes owned and worn by cosplayers and members of the furry fandom, commonly known as "furries"; a furry who wears a fursuit is called a fursuiter. The term is believed to have been coined in 1993 by Robert Kin ...

of their

fursona A fursona is a personalized animal character created by someone in the furry fandom. Fursonas may be anthropomorphic personas, idealized versions of their owners, fleshed out roleplay characters, or simply digital mascots. The vast majority of f ...

, a blue-and-white

anthropomorphic Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics t ...

fox.

Career

McLean's older brother, Christian, got McLean interested in fighting video games when McLean was three years old. Over the next several years, while McLean continued to play games, they came into the

furry fandom The furry fandom is a subculture interested in anthropomorphic animal characters. Examples of anthropomorphic attributes include exhibiting human intelligence and facial expressions, speaking, walking on two legs, and wearing clothes. The term ...

around the age of ten or eleven, and developed the "SonicFox" character. Around 2011, McLean was playing in non-competitive online ''

Mortal Kombat ''Mortal Kombat'' is an American media franchise centered on a series of video games originally developed by Midway Games in 1992. The development of the first game was originally based on an idea that Ed Boon and John Tobias had of making a v ...

'' games, and their online friends encouraged them to try their skills at an offline ''Mortal Kombat'' tournament in 2012. While McLean only came in ninth at the event, they were enthralled with the competitive atmosphere, and they have continued to participate in various fighting game championships. McLean achieved a 6–0 victory at the '' Injustice: Gods Among Us'' tournament at Evo 2014. ''

News.com.au news.com.au is an Australian website owned by News Corp Australia. It had 9.6 million unique readers in April 2019 and covers national and international news, lifestyle, travel, entertainment, technology, finance, and sport. Staff The organiza ...

'' reported in December 2015 that McLean had not lost a single tournament in the previous 18 months, and that they earned $150,000

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

within the span of two weeks by winning ''Mortal Kombat'' tournaments. McLean was named the "Esports Player of the Year" at

ceremony, earning media attention for their acceptance speech. ''

'' included McLean on their 2020 " 30 Under 30" in the Games category. In 2020, SonicFox was added as a background character in ''

Skullgirls ''Skullgirls'' is a 2D fighting game developed by Reverge Labs and published by Autumn Games. In ''Skullgirls'', players fight each other with teams of one, two, or three characters, attempting to knock out their opponents or have the most cumul ...

''.

Personal life

McLean was raised in

Townsend Townsend (pronounced tounʹ-zənd) or Townshend may refer to: Places United States *Camp Townsend, National Guard training base in Peekskill, New York *Townsend, Delaware *Townsend, Georgia *Townsend, Massachusetts, a New England town ** Townsend ...

, Delaware. As of 2018, McLean was a student at the

New York Institute of Technology The New York Institute of Technology (NYIT or New York Tech) is a private research university founded in 1955. It has two main campuses in New York—one in Old Westbury, on Long Island, and one in Manhattan. Additionally, it has a cybersecu ...

. McLean chose to focus on academics while still maintaining a balance between their professional gaming and school life. In September 2019, McLean came out on Twitter as

. McLean publicly uses

singular they Singular ''they'', along with its inflected or derivative forms, ''them'', ''their'', ''theirs'' and ''themselves'' (or ''themself''), is a gender-neutral third-person pronoun. It typically occurs with an unspecified antecedent, in sentence ...

pronouns, reserving use of masculine pronouns only for those who they are close to, in order to help normalize the use of singular they.

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:SonicFox American esports players Fighting game players Furry fandom people LGBT African Americans LGBT people from Delaware Living people Gay sportsmen American LGBT sportspeople LGBT esports players Mortal Kombat players Non-binary sportspeople Evil Geniuses players Echo Fox players African-American sportspeople People from New Castle County, Delaware Sportspeople from Delaware Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century African-American people The Game Awards winners