THE SMALL STREAMER GRIND! interview w/ catp0wwer about her first 3 months streaming on twitch

alright we are now alive I think we should be able to hear you now if you want to say hello okay everybody welcome to the disturbing things podcast this is the first episode I've done in this in quite a while I have found cats stream cat power probably around September or so and she was playing star D Valley I thought she would be a really good guest to have on talking about small streamer grinds because I think that you just recently started streaming and you've grown your stream pretty substantially and just in the last few months from what I've seen so I thought that you would probably have some good advice or tips or strategies or just to kind of pick your brain and see how you did what you did in such a short amount of time especially because I noticed your entire setup has changed dramatically and stuff like that to begin with I'll just say hello to everyone in chat thank you guys so much for coming out and supporting and joining us we will be taking questions towards the end I'm not really sure how long this is gonna run typically between one to two hours so if you stick around and you have a question you'd like us to get to we will take questions at a certain point so to begin with this is cat power why don't you tell us when you got started streaming and maybe a little bit about why you decided to start streaming okay I started streaming yeah at the end of September I think I literally met you like two weeks after I started streaming you got like you're actually one of my longest like streaming friends I wanted to stream for a super a long time before I did I started back in like November of 2017 when I first got overwatch I started getting really into twitch then because I was so bad at the game and I was watching people on Twitch a lot to get like tips and stuff and like the more I started watching I was like huh this is kind of cool like I kind of want to do this too and when I first started like getting owned overwatch I was on console I didn't have a PC or like any way to stream really I mean I know you can stream off of ps4 but for me I wanted to be able to have like a camera and like do it like super officially I guess so it took me kind of a long time to get all of that set up I'm sorry if we're still having the audio delays by the way everybody I know my audio is a little bit off I feel bad about that sorry but um but yeah so it took me it took me a hot minute like work up a confidence to be able to actually like hit the go-live button probably longer than it should have which is kind of something i wanted to talk about is like the difference between like preparing yourself and setting yourself up well for success versus when you're just like waiting too long because you're nervous yeah yeah so I started screaming officially at the end of September I have had a pretty cool journey I hit Affiliate in just 11 days Wow and in the last four months I've grown so much more than I ever expected to this quickly we just hit five hundred followers last week congratulations have yeah I have like a decent amount of subs like a lot more than I ever thought I would have had so I'm like super excited about it so yeah I yeah definitely I feel like I could talk about like some of the tips I guess I feel like I that benefited me or like what my journey was like but so you said that you had a lot of hesitancy about hitting that go live button to start with is this something that you still find yourself struggling with just on a day-to-day basis with stream honestly no I feel like the biggest hurdle for me was that beginning year where I really could have started streaming but I was super freaked out about it and after maybe like two weeks of streaming I feel like I had kind of gotten the hang of it enough and maybe gotten enough validation just from seeing that there were some people that were already showing up that it stopped being so scary to me which is why I feel like it's definitely I I think so much of like the stress about streaming is in your head and it comes before you ever do it once you start doing it it is so much less scary than it seems like I was convinced I was gonna be awkward on camera I was convinced I was gonna have nothing to talk about nobody was gonna show up and within just a few weeks it's not like I had 20 viewers out the gate but still I had a small handful of people and it helped me realize like oh there's literally anybody at all interested in what I'm putting out and there will be you know a few people here and that enough was like that that got me over being so concerned of you and it seemed a couple times and saw okay the first one wasn't a fluke like there are actually a small group of people they hear like I'm okay I feel good about it now I found you through star D Valley was that the first game that you ever streamed yeah it was was when I started off with I thought it was a good balance of giving me something to do but wasn't so focused that I couldn't like look at chat and be and talking and stuff I definitely don't play it as much now I feel like I guess maybe one of my tips or something I don't know is that as you're starting out streaming I think it's really good to play around with a few different types of games and see what works best for you I think a lot of the times games that you maybe enjoy playing on your own it's not the same when you stream it alright did stream stardew valley a few times I found that I liked it but it was not what I wanted to make my whole channel about it wasn't satisfying enough to me to play like repeatedly over and over like every stream every week and being a sturdy valley streamer which is point I still play it on Sundays we do start you some days and it's fun but yeah I definitely did branch away a little bit from that after the beginning and you mentioned overwatch too I've you know tried to stream overwatch a couple of times myself more than a couple but when you talk about like having the tunnel in on your stream and you can't acknowledge the audience as much as you want to that was something I really struggled with with overwatch have you I don't think I've ever caught you streaming over watched you stream that kind of regularly i streamed it two times ever once it was like at midnight when I'd had a few drinks because I was doing like a community game night and people wanted to play that yeah I absolutely found I do not have the attention span to be playing a game reading chat being able to talk while I'm doing something that requires heavy focus so yeah it's for sure the same point that I feel like you need to play around a little bit and you need to find like what games help you hit your groove personally and for me it was not over watched so yeah yeah I played in my spare time I don't stream it so is there a specific type of game you would say is probably the most primed for streaming in general and obviously it's not gonna be a one-size-fits-all for everybody but I saw I've seen you play spyro a little bit is there a type of game you kind of gravitate towards or is it just literally a grab-bag yeah I think that's the cool thing about being a variety streamer is that like you are not like having to hone in on any one type of game which is why I chose to be a variety streamer I know there's a lot of people out there that are like if you want to have a consistent community stream one game they know what you're playing they'll come back over and over for me I like being able to stream whatever I want to stream and test out something and if I play it for a day and I'm like oof that's not it then I just move on and the games that I have found do really well for me because my community is heavily heavily based on like chat interaction and viewer engagement not my game play I'm like a very subpar gamer I'm totally fine it doesn't bother me at all that I'm not that great at games but the thing about streaming is that I feel like you don't have to be amazing like you can have people that want to come hang out with you even if you're really just not that good and like just because I want to be your friend and they want to chat with you and they want to be what you're exactly and so for me the games that have worked really well for that are a lot of chiller games like I'm starting Valley Animal Crossing I'm super excited about for the new one coming out but yeah I do I do spyro I have tried like the FPS like online multiplayer games and I find that those are definitely tougher for me but like single-player story games things you can pause without yeah without it like really affecting what you're doing work super well for me I don't know because that's what I had noticed what the overwatch is it's like if you want me to play well then I can't acknowledge shat for like sometimes 15 minutes at a time yeah but with stardew I can't you can pause the game or you can just sit back or you can go into a space where the time stops moving or I found that horror games are probably some of the most entertaining streams that I've done for the audience but it's again not one where I can focus on chat interaction as much and there was kind of a point for me in streaming where I it was really like a weird kind of mental shift that happened because when I first started streaming it was like small numbers and just a couple of regulars coming back and I could easily like sit there and talk to everyone non-stop but once it got to a certain point I realized that focusing too much on chat interaction was affecting the story development of the game or people being able to enjoy the game have you run into anything like that so far while you're streaming with any of your games yes I have like a piece of advice that I hear all the time like before I started streaming I would listen to a lot of like streamer coaching podcasts or like watched videos about or something just because I felt like I didn't want to jump in with no idea of what was going on and a piece of advice that I see given out a lot of the time is always be talking because you never know when somebody's gonna stumble upon your stream and you want to be doing something fun or something exciting and so that they can see your personality and I actually don't think that's great advice because I think there are a lot of games where like the impact of the game suffers because you're talking so much through it and I actually struggle with this I'm really chatty like I'm very very chatty especially I drink on half my streams and so then I get super super javi and so it's something that I feel like I still have to work on where I'm like it is okay to shut up and let people just enjoy the game that you're playing and I did play one horror game ever I played like Man of midian or something oh yeah I haven't gotten to play that yet yeah first of all my game is so heavy on the graphics that it like killed my screen quality so I've learned my lesson about playing really intense games when I don't have a really intense set up yeah but also like there's so much talking and like with life a strange - we played life is strange for like six weeks there's a lot of dialogue and like I know that kind of the thing about being a variety streamer is that people come because they want to hang out with you as a person and they like the interaction and that's definitely what I build my streams around but also like if you are playing a game like let the game have its time to shine - like if you want to be a just chatting streamer and just talk and just do that but if you are playing a game like sometimes it's okay to shut up and let people watch the game a little bit and just like via just chatting streamer over a game okay I'm still learning that well it's interesting too because ivon streaming since March of 2016 and there didn't use to be a just chatting category and if you've been keeping your eye on Twitch stuff since at least 2017 you'll remember that time - there didn't used to be the ability to have just a section where you could just go and chat to your community you did have to use whatever games you could so starting valley would come in handy for that or other games like the games that you could play kind of mechanically go into a muscle memory with the game and not really which is kind of a starti valley vibe for me i think that that life is strange is a really good example because it's almost like a movie it's like an interactive movie and most of the time when people come into a life is strange dream I feel like they know what they're getting into and they're there to watch the play out of the story the drama of it anyway I rel and just chatting I think we're introduced about gosh over a year ago now but not super long before that I guess there was social eating and stuff like that okay so you say it's okay to just shut up and let the game shines do you ever do just chatting streams on your channel are you strictly gaming I don't often do a full just chatting stream I start every stream off though in the gist cat Jack chatting category just because I know myself well enough to know that I have a lot of things I want to say and if I if I want to talk about stuff I'd rather just do it not over a game I think it's a great way to let people show up I mean it's one of the biggest categories on Twitch right now so I also think it's a really good way to find some new viewers especially as a variety streamer that like maybe you're switching games all the time and so it's hard to build a community based just around the game but I think just chatting is a really good way to find new people for your community that are gonna come in and get a taste of who you are and then want to stay because they like you so I definitely feel like anybody that wants to be a streamer based streamer not a game based streamer I think just chatting is a really good tool for that but I don't typically spend like a full four hour stream in just chatting but I think it has a really good place being used when you want to use it because like I think it has a lot of really good benefits yeah and so I had a question this isn't a tangent 'add or segwayed well at all how how do you manage to balance your real life with your streaming life and do you have friends or family that you maybe keep out of the loop about it or are you open with everyone about it and how if they're if you are open about it how did you let everyone know that you were gonna start doing this oh love that question I have I have a few people that know that I stream I'm super close with like my mom might like my family and my boyfriend who I live with I mean obviously I couldn't get away with that without pulling so I did tell several people I did not tell the vast majority of the people in my life because this for me was the prime draw of twitch is that I don't have many friends that are into gaming and real and I'm like I was on Twitter and Instagram and stuff for years before I started streaming and I found myself making a ton of online friends because it was like the one place I could find a community of people that could really relate to me and have shared interests and things like that and so I kind of wanted to keep it that way it's almost like I feel like I have like a dual persona like like a girl cat you know that's all real me like I'm a recruiter at like a corporate firm and I like I'm so boring when I'm not streaming like I feel like I like to keep those aspects of my life very separate because I think I'd be so uncomfortable if like my best friend or my mom just started chatting in my stream I'd be like what are you doing here like yeah I feel like you would act differently I feel like it's a different kind of it always makes me so uncomfortable when but not in a kind of an sometimes in a bad way and most the time it's just like why are you watching it gets me like crazy stage fright if someone I know in real life a co-worker or like a family member I've gotten used to certain family members and at this point it's but sometimes I'm just like Oh what are you doing here oh my god like I feel like exposed somehow even though I'm broadcasting to strangers and I but it's it's completely different when someone that you have a real-life personal connection with sees you I guess in your your performance mode but okay so you mentioned a boyfriend so I wonder if I wonder how you go about balancing cuz streaming and online content creation is full-time you like constant I wonder how you go about balancing timewise energy towards relationships outside of your stream career and trying to build and manage your online relationships yeah this is actually really a good topic because it's something that has become kind of a big deal in the last like two weeks for me so I I mean I literally just took this past sunday off streaming because I felt like I needed to develop more time to my boyfriend because it had gotten to the point where like like twitch is really overwhelming and like one of the biggest things also I feel about twitch is like it doesn't end when you hit go offline like know if you want to be successful on Twitch there is so much like you have to be networking you have to be watching your friend streams that come into your stream so you're building streamer connections you're on social media you're making content for other places and it is so time consuming and can be so overwhelming and I definitely when I first was getting started it was like I wasn't as into it and it was new and it was fun everyone could forgive that a little bit but like as time went on I definitely started to notice like some of my friends and especially my boyfriend who I live with being like you're like really not available anymore like where where have you been my friends like I feel like you're always in your bedroom like streaming or watching streams and like it's for sure a thing because I feel like all the advice that you hear is people saying like you need to be doing this and this and this like you need to be always interacting with other streamers you need to always be on social media and like that is a really good growth tool but that doesn't work for everybody's the lifestyle and for sure it was like not working for me and so I definitely like in the last two weeks had kind of hit a point where I was like holy-moly my whole life has become about stream but like that's not my whole life I have a boyfriend I have five pets that I have to take care of I have a family I'm close with I have a real job like during the day like I have other stuff and it was all being kind of neglected a little bit because I was focusing so much on streaming okay so wait you're working a full-time job no I worked 25 hours a week okay okay I work it from home so like there's no commute or anything so it's like a very which is why a big part of why I started streaming because I felt that my schedule was like super well friend for that yeah but also whole different topic but I think it helps with the streaming thing that it's not I don't need it for a source of income like I have a job I make my money off my job and I'm able to use my twitch as whatever I want to do and kind of take it at my own pace and I don't feel pressured to change what I want to put out because I need more viewers or more money or anything so I guess a whole other thing but to finish what you're asking yeah like it can really I do think that twitch more than any other social media can really like take over your life and like and affect the way you're interacting with other people and the other things that you're doing I had to send messages to some of my friends and be like I'm super sorry this is not personal but like I can't be in your streams this week because when I'm I have to do my own streams and then nice and I'm not streaming I need to catch up on my real life stuff like I need to hang out with my boyfriend and not have your stream up like please don't be offended but I cannot I cannot be always on Twitch all the time so it's definitely something I've been like working on in the last like week and a half and I honestly think that that kind of attitude will stand people out as creators and their potential to grow on the platform because if you are in my experience if you're constantly consumed with twitch and social media it's nothing but a recipe for burnout and I you're going to completely lose yourself in it in the music the moment you want it I'm just kidding you're gonna completely lose yourself in twitch and you'll lose contact with what you actually wanted in the first place and you'll get caught up in what's trending what you need to be doing I've got to be in this person's stream I forgot to retweet this this whole like constant cycle of it and I think people that can separate themselves and have enough respect for themselves to hold value in their real life relationships and stuff like that are the ones that actually have the strongest foundation to because it's to make it long-term because this isn't yes you could blow up overnight for a variety of reasons but in I think that in order to reach like true success as a content creator it's it's better to have like a slow build up to a solid steady growth and if you are just immediately going full throttle baby's bottle on it then you're not going to be able it's like a sprint vs. marathon kind of mindset I guess so you've been recently trying to reevaluate how much time you're spending in twitch and because I did notice I did a tiny bit of research on like your streaming hours and numbers like that just looking at like a regular analytic thing online and I saw that you had started streaming in September and there had been a steady upward growth of hours that you're putting in and then a December I think there was like a drop down in about 20 hours so did you find yourself I feel like twitch and streaming is very addictive did you find yourself getting very like the more I'm streaming the better it is and so you would push yourself to stream warn work yes yes because I feel like um really you see your most growth when you're alive and so I feel like it encourages you to want to be live all the time in order to kind of hurry up the progress that you're seeing and get closer to the goals that you may have for yourself I'm not that you could never gain a follower if you're offline but especially if you're smaller really the one of the only ways to like connect with people and be building your community is to be live and hope people find you and so I definitely feel like I got caught up a little bit like especially because it's so fun at first and I was having such a good time and like at first I was a little bit nervous but then the more I did it I was like no this is great like I want to do it all the time and then I think really it was like the holiday season hit and holiday is like a time for family and being with loved ones and enjoying like this season and stuff not for everyone but for me it is and so I was like am I gonna let streaming affect like my Christmas and like my New Year's the where I have a vacation plan and I was like no no so I think that's why I dropped then because I like some more like pressing real-life stuff hit that month and then since then it's been like oh yeah you know you don't see quite as much growth if you're not streaming quite as long but also I feel better as a person like if I'm more balanced and then the better I feel with myself the better I am on camera it is so hard to sit on Twitch and pretend to be having a good time and pretend to be super into the games that you're playing if you are not feeling great mentally and I was just realizing this isn't fun for anybody if I'm like feeling really depressed or like really burnt out or something and I'm forcing myself to sit here I'm not liking it they're not liking it like why would I do that to myself and so I think the topic of burnout is like super super interesting because I feel like most people go through it at some point I know you have I've heard you a million your videos and stuff where like and I feel like that's really common is that you push yourself too hard and then you end up crashing and you have to take like a really long time and then kind of start over again and so just because I feel like I got started on twitch a little bit late in the game and I've had so many resources to look at to help through this process it's something I've been very aware of the whole time where I'm like I don't want that to happen to me I'd rather scale it back right now and take care of myself and not ever reach a point where it's like overwhelming because I'm all of a sudden like super upset about what's going on so that's what I've been trying to do is find a healthy balance so that I don't ever get to a point of like serious burnout No so you mentioned Twitter and Instagram earlier that you had already kind of built a following on that are there any other platforms used like YouTube or Facebook or tik-tok or like everybody talks about YouTube I feel like it's probably great I am NOT one to speak to that because I don't know it's easier for me to be on camera and have real-life interactions when people are talking to me and kind of giving me things to talk about and I feel like it's so much more organic and more natural like I can just chill and be me there's something very different about YouTube of like having to set up a camera and like I don't know you you can redo it four times if you don't like the way you've said it so then I feel like things are not quite as organic and for me personally that's just a little bit intimidating for me like I feel more awkward on camera than I do on a webcam I know it's the same concept but like it's not it's not the same YouTube is an amazing tool according to everybody else I can't really speak to that I definitely think personally I think Twitter is the best place or I mean outside of YouTube maybe for stream related stuff because people can retweet the things that you post so there's a way to like push that out to other people I feel like with Instagram you really have to like hit their algorithm right for yeah people see what you're doing and also it's such a it's such a visual platform that I feel like it's very kind of more narrow in what you can attract and who is gonna be great at attracting those people but Twitter I feel like is a really awesome tool one of the things I see a lot though is streamers that make social media accounts to connect to their twitch and they only use those accounts to promote their twitch I have some I see some streamer people that they're litter is literally just a wall of going live tweets with like a link to their twitch and I'm like most people are not gonna want to follow an account that has nothing on it but going live they'll just follow you on Twitch because there's no there's no value there's no like when you're on Twitter you're looking for like funny memes and like all it like Twitter Twitter style content and what it's yeah exactly and so what I'm gathering from what you're saying is that one of your biggest I don't know if motivator is the right word things that keeps you with what you're doing is communication and interacting with people Twitter specifically Instagram is more like an aesthetic kind of I don't want to use the word show-off you platform but it's very like look at my setup look at my cool thing that I bought look at my cool face look at my cute pet it's and I use Instagram I'm not trying to drag people use it at all but but instagrams purpose for existing is completely different than Twitter Twitter is fully communication and personality Instagram has personality involved too but it's fully about communicating words and you're talking that YouTube isn't quite on your agenda because this is more prepared con more more like prepared content and you're really in the moment wanting to interact with people especially people that share your passions and I wonder I heard in one of your streams that you have been you had gone to school for a very long time like college something like six years or something does your did your major I didn't go to college so I don't know all the right words and stuff but did your major or what you were focused and have anything to do with what you're doing now is streaming nope Butte College as a tool to give myself something that would better prepare me for real life I feel like I'm a very realistic person and I know a lot of people think of that as somewhat of a negative thing but I am not the kind of person that would ever feel confident enough facing my future off of like the potential of being successful on Twitch you know it's great to have goals it's great to have dreams it's great to shoot for them I could never survive without a back-up plan and so even when I was it was still when I was in college that I decided I wanted to start streaming and I was like that's great but for me personally I am so terrified of like ending up in a position where I'm super financially like struggling or don't have anything that a degree was a 100% necessity for me from the minute I was born so now I was a Spanish major and I won't even like people will sometimes come into my chat and type out a Spanish sentence and I'm like won't read that out loud I'm so embarrassed of the way I sound a degree was not at all in preparation for what I wanted to do with my life but it was like a back-up plan and so the job that I do on the day-to-day basis like nothing to do with this at all I don't know about technology or graphic design or video game related things or anything like that nothing that could tie into streaming in any way this is very much my passion project in my hobby like I don't know I don't I don't like to think of this as a career or like something I'm relying on but something that fulfills me in ways that my responsibility is day to day do not so it's like an outlet mhm yeah for sure now hypothetically if this did get to a point where it was would you be opposed to this becoming your career or this becoming your full-time gig um I would not be opposed to it I know honestly I'm a little bit shook by how many people I see that stream full-time maybe it's because I'm a bit older like I'm 25 almost 26 and so maybe for somebody that's 20 what they need in life like the financial responsibilities that they have are a bit different and so the the streaming can satisfy that for me in my current stage of life I do not foresee myself ever being able to get what I need out of just streaming alone so will honestly know I would probably never stream full-time and the stress factor of just never being able to know if it's gonna continue month to month because really you could accidentally say one thing one time that pisses people off and you you drop half your subs like I mean that's dramatic but like you know but it's realistic to it happens like once a month at this point okay every other month there's someone new on the chopping block and you're just like hoping to God that you're not the one that slips up nowadays oh my god I'd be terrified and and it's not even like you have to do anything wrong people just grow out of you sometimes like I think when I watched here like things I learned on Twitch in four years whatever video that's one of the things that you mentioned that really stood out to me that I think is so true people go through stages of life and the stuff that you have to say is no longer relevant to them or especially it's the variety street where you move to playing something else that is not interesting to them and they don't want to stick around for it and like that's okay there's nothing wrong with people growing out of you but having an entire career that like you're only financial like success whatever of your life is based on whether or not people want to continue to with you is for to ever ever ever ever know so I would never be a like I might stream full-time hours you know if I ever could but I would always have something else I don't think I could ever be my full career do you think that streaming could launch you into a different type of career what's an interesting question I know a lot of people are able to use like streaming to leverage them into success in other areas like you can get bigger on you know twitch and then use that to have a youtube to and then between having a youtube and twitch and having content on multiple platforms or then like people go into you like working in gaming or being an announcer on something and stuff like that exactly possible but also it's like that very teeny tiny top like 1% upper echelon level of people that are able to leverage a full career out of just streaming and my particular philosophy in life is I like to set very small incremental like step by step goals that are very achievable I think setting goals that are really big set yourself up to be disappointed with what you have because you are not getting that big top number and so I don't ever like I would never say my goal here is to leverage myself into a gaming career and be a streamer because that's so far away if it even was possible that I don't even really like to think that far in advance I would rather just do what I'm doing right now have little tiny goals for my stream and like see what happens so you have do you have any goals right now my biggest goal for 2020 is to hit a thousand followers I don't know I think it'd be cool to have that four digit number I guess I the feeling you'll probably hit that five summer personally if you've hit five hundred and three months with your trajectory looking at your stats and I mean it depends if you were to stop if you were to start streaming only once a week or something if you keep up the momentum you have no I imagine that you'll probably be beyond that by the end of 2020 I'm just personally I'm not like guaranteeing that or anything but based on your what you've already done so far your energy your confidence in yourself and that's why I asked if your schooling or anything did you do anything like drama as a kid or were you center stage ever or anything like that I never did anything quite like that my boyfriend actually works in the film industry Wow between the two of us we do a lot of writing we write short films together I've actually acted in a movie of his that is available on Amazon Prime was like I've acted before it's not really my thing um I was a psychology minor actually though and for a very long time a big like my big life goal was to be a therapist and so it's like two sides to this argument number one being streamers are not your therapist like I drive me nuts how many people decide like oh you know we've become really close like they go into a stream and they use it as like a place to vent and and treat streamers a little bit like like a therapist so I don't agree with that but I do think that helped me like be set up pretty well for like I I think I'm better at talking to people because like I've interned at mental health clinics and stuff I worked with a therapist for a very long time I think just a little bit of that peace of like getting used to talking to people being very open to listening to people caring about other people that kind of thing has helped in a sense um but no it's not like I ever did like drama or like I wasn't I don't know I wasn't in theatre as a kid or anything like that but yeah I definitely think I learned a lot of skills both through my formal education and like through my passions that have helped me build a community because I really legitimately enjoy hearing other people's like what they have to say I like giving advice I love talking to people okay so you started looking up twitch tutorial kind of stuff around 2017 is that right what led you into that path how what what put twitch on your radar um well actually the first time I ever learned about twitch my older sister's husband was like hey I'm streaming this game that I think you might like like we play games together they live in Texas though and I only see them about twice a year and our big thing is that we get together and we play games and he's like my only real life gaming friend streaming this game and I know you're not here but I think you'd like it do you want to tune in on twitch and I was like what's that I don't understand and so it started that way where I learned like oh my god that's so cool like I don't have to sit and watch full youtube playthroughs like there's there's like an other avenue for like learning about gaming because I would always sit and watch like like YouTube gaming like walkthroughs and everything like I liked watching games but I hadn't even known until 2017 that there was like a live place to do that and once I learned about it I was like this is really interesting started finding little people more and more but it really was the overwatch thing that helped me find like I started spending active time on that and I'm like I'm a very big planner I'm not super spontaneous I don't really like doing anything without being well informed and so from the second I was like hunt which is really interesting to me I could see myself maybe doing that I knew if I was going to do that I wasn't just gonna like throw myself in willy-nilly and see what happened like I needed to know what was up I wanted to understand like I'm not very tech savvy so I needed to know what's obs like how do you set us up what's the twitch lingo I'd go into people's chat and they'd be like Potter's and I'm like what the hell I was like I'm so are removed from this community that like I knew I needed to make an effort to understand so I could see if like because it's one thing to be like that's cool but like you don't really know if that's cool if you don't know anything yeah right yeah yeah and then the more I started looking into it and the more I started deciding that it was something I wanted to do I just thought like the more I watch twitch the more I listen to twitch related media the more I like made an effort to get that involved in my day-to-day like headspace the more real it felt and the more natural it felt to actually get started on it so I don't even feel like I was necessarily looking for like a bunch of twitch tips cuz I like needed advice it was more like just being in the car and having on a playlist that was talking about like twitch made it feel like all of a sudden I really liked it was like a natural part of my life already before I even hit go-live because I had been spending so much time invested in twitch stuff you seem like you just enjoy learning about things yes I do yeah yeah yeah okay so again terrible at segues but since you've been on twitch for about three months now I imagine that you've probably run into a couple of trolls along the way okay so good all right well not good that you have but good good that you have the experience I wonder how you handled your first troll or how it affected you mentally and if they still manage to get under your skin now and if you have any type of advice for dealing with trolls in the moment mm-hmm okay so yeah at first totally got under my skin I feel like with anything in life you get desensitized with two things the more exposure you have to them so at this point trolls don't affect me that much um I'm also lucky that I have a super awesome group of mods that like at least one or two of them is there through every moment of every one of my streams I'm almost never mod less and they are so Swift with the banhammer anyway half the time I'm so I'm so chatty that I read a message I ended up talking about it for like 30 seconds so it takes me forever to actually be current and like catch up with chat so honestly half the time I never even noticed trolls I'll go down I'll be like two people more bands that's interesting like I don't know what they said like the mods just catch him before I ever have to deal with it but every once in a while one will slip through and I just try to remember they are there to rile you up and if you respond in that way you were giving them exactly what they want if you do not acknowledge it they will just get bored because it is boring if you're trying to troll to not be acknowledged like I think I mean in all of life I actually think that's one of like the the biggest punishments you can give someone is just completely dismissal and I know it whatsoever just like I don't find you interesting at all goodbye and that's sort of a psychology major right how I choose to treat trolls every once in a while there's somebody says something that's funny enough that all comments on it I feel like I see a lot of videos going around Twitter of like streamers that like have these hilarious responses to trolls but I feel like you have to have a very certain personality type to be able to actually like handle a trolls super well and but for the most part I think the best advice is literally just they're not they're just I just don't even acknowledge just move on so I don't think that they really affect me more than maybe grabbing my attention for five seconds to read the message and I may stutter a little bit as I try to be like okay we're skipping that one and go back to what I was talking about but like I know people are people are like that people are gross like whatever it happened have you noticed that I hesitate to use the word trigger but that's how it feels for me like if I'm in a good mood and I'm streaming and I'm feeling great or whatever natural comes and it says something that I'm already internally struggling with anyway like a rude comment from whatever kind maybe they say that I can brush off the first time maybe it happens again for the second time that week and it starts to just kind of get under your skin to you to the point where it's kind of deflated your energy at all if you have dealt with that is there anything you have done to circumvent it or to try and combat it or are there things that you tell yourself yeah I definitely know I can relate I am lucky that most of the trolls I get are like your standard like 12 year old idiot that's like just being annoying but I have had a couple of like very targeted comments at my appearance in a way that actually like stuck with me in days after streaming and obviously I mean I I don't like that like you know that's rough but again I just feel like like the more it happens the more you start to just get used to it at least for me and I mean no I don't Eve I don't have any real tips on how to deal with that other than like a therapist someone to talk to to where you're struggling with something somebody said like talk to somebody about it or like really sit down with yourself and assess why it was so upsetting to you in the moment I do feel like sometimes people come in and they will really throw off my energy by saying something that is like really distracting or like I'm trying to keep an eye on it and make sure the mods will grab it or something and I feel like it it really diverts my attention a little bit and totally throws a wrench in kind of what I've got going on no for the most part I just try to remember that they're doing it on purpose it's not even what they're saying about you is true like they're doing it on purpose they are pulling out whatever they can to try to get a reaction out of you because that is how they need to get attention and that seems like a serious them problem and not a me problem so I try to remember like that's actually quite sad that that's how they're choosing to spend their time it's almost like I pity them and if they're not a 12 year old then I do pity them as a 12 year old I can at least kind of be like okay you're 12 but if it's someone who's oh yeah yeah oh then I'm just like what is wrong with you like literally like are you okay okay so you you started streaming after heavily researching because you personally like to be prepared you enjoy learning so you binge Dalat of content so you kind of already had a feel and an understanding for twitch before you even step stepped foot on the platform and did you say that you had tried to start streaming in 2017 or did you say that about it okay all right so you did a lot of research on the the area the field that you were interested in going into you came into it prepared and I know that you've had a stream setup upgrade and that I've seen how did you go about deciding that you're gonna upgrade what all was included in the upgrade if you don't mind sharing those kinds of details I know that you changed your whole back job I think you got a new chair was there computer upgrades that went into it so you could stream better games yes first thing I did was I put more RAM in my computer so it would not be so slow all the time second thing I did was buy a capture card because so many of the games that I wanted to play were not on PC and I did not want to be limited in the content I wanted to provide I think that that was a great move I did move my entire setup around my room because I I don't know this is a topic that I feel like it could be kind of controversial amongst some people I think twitch is a super visual play and the I know people like there's that whole debate where like you get a ton of guys being like oh wow you're a cute girl on Twitch that's why you're successful because you're pretty people watch pretty or whatever and like I don't agree with that but I do think there is something to be said about a nice-looking visual whether that be like literally the assets you were born with or like maybe you're wearing a cool shirt that somebody might want to comment on or you have set up background that looks appealing in some way you have an overlay that looks nice I feel like it makes you look much more professional and much more interesting if what is showing on your camera is like pretty like high quality so I've seen some streams where people you know it's their like a teeny tiny blob down in the corner with all the lights off that I can barely see or they've got their whole room showing and it's super messy and super like not visually appealing and so for me I realized like hey if I'm just gonna be streaming I want to be presenting the best version of myself possible and so I wanted I wanted it to look nice like everything including what was in the background like I wanted it to be nice but like you know when people go to click on you maybe you're recommended on this like the recommended small channels or maybe they're looking for the game you're playing and they see your thumbnail that you really have just enough time maybe between your title and your actual image on the thumbnail that like you have to try to grab somebody with that and then if they do come into your stream you've got like maybe 30 seconds to a minute for them to decide if they want to stick around and obviously I think the biggest reason people should want to stay is because of your personality but you can't always glean somebody's whole personality from 30 seconds like especially if you're in a quiet moment of the game where are you really focused and you're not talking or something and so I feel like it's important to take advantage of every aspect of streaming and like every every Avenue that you can and so you know being in a good mood being funny whatever I don't know being engaged that's all great too but there is a visual aspect to twitch that's why it's different than other places people can see you and see what you're doing and so I decided to reorganize my background because I wanted it to be cleaner I wanted to be cuter I wanted it to look more attractive to anybody I actually did it by this but my boy forgot me this for Christmas which was awesome but again something as small as a chair do you know how many people come into my dream and they're like oh my god I love your chair like I love your setup and it's little things like that like different people every person looks for something else like or looks for something different in the streamers that they go for and so you never know what might catch someone's eye or what might be interesting to someone and so I think trying to like fully take advantage of it the visual the audio whatever the actual gameplay you what you're saying all of that I think it all matters and so yeah that's why I went through all that because I wanted I wanted it to look better and be more professional because I think that matters if someone was getting into streaming would you tell them to prioritize upgrading their PC over there set up as in their background backdrop or even they're focusing on like an aesthetic upgrade as in getting the getting the chair chair could be different though because chair is also just good health-wise to have like a Rio for sure but as far as like and did you do all of them at the same time did you up was it just like you stop streaming one night and it was your old set up and then a week later you came live and you were like new PC a new background who this or was it something that you gradually did over time I I did the whole background thing overnight it was I literally woke up one day and I went Mac don't like it anymore and I just moved my whole room around so that was a totally all in one time thing the chair was a Christmas gift came a few weeks later and I was like wow amazing like that fits right in with everything I've been doing but ya know I just woke up one day and I was bored and I was like I'm gonna make a change and that was an easy way to make a change without costing me a ton of money um I think in general if you're talking about PC specs versus like aesthetics I think a lot of it depends on the games that you're gonna play I think some games are so like they require you to have a computer that runs really well that if you need to upgrade something and you're playing something like overwatch where it's online and it's like high quality and you're trying to run a stream and maybe you're even trying to watch your own stream to on the Internet at the same time to keep up like what's going on and it's just too much for you to run everything at once then in that way I would say definitely upgrade your PC first because nobody wants to watch a lackey stream like nobody wants to watch a stream that's that's stuck equality it's like a cold even if you like the person's personality like I'll go in on my friends stream sometimes and I love them but they're lagging or their microphone is peaking really bad or something and I'm like dude I love you but I cannot I forgot to click off like ooh I definitely yeah I think that's absolutely the most important part I think having a microphone I know people have different opinions on this I think a camera really helps unless maybe you think I don't know you're so terrified of being on camera that you think it'll be worse if you were on camera but I definitely think having some of that like basic hardware is definitely where you should put your energy first but I do think there is a lot to be said for making an attractive background and having an aesthetic looking view and as far as the being scared of being on webcam thing I think that there are some creative ways around that I can't remember the name of the program now to save my life but there's a webcam app that you can get on Steam that you can turn yourself into like a cat or a hamburger or stuff like that it's like an avatar thing so you don't actually have to be there but its mouth moves when you talk editing hey shady lady here just wanted to say the application is called face rig and it's available on Steam for $15 it's fine to use for twitch but if you're looking at it for YouTube content you can only use it for non monetized YouTube content if I upload this YouTube I'll make sure that I have the name of that app in the description box blue yeah there are creative ways around it or you you could keep your camera off if you want to i'm with kat on this and i think that no matter what you think about yourself people would rather look at you then not be able to connect visually with the person that they're watching especially on twitch that's just the way the platform is I've said this before in the past but yes you can grow without a webcam but you're at an insane advantage if you are giving people something to connect with cat to do anything on your list specifically that you wanted to touch on yes actually I do one of the things that I feel like I see a lot of smaller streamers not doing and I think this comes from a place of maybe like feeling a little bit insecure like maybe if you only have one or two viewers in your stream you might feel like it doesn't make a difference but rating people is a super super awesome way to grow it help me or like want them to give them to viewers like what that's kind of lame like whatever no I don't agree with that at all I think obviously everybody would love to be rated and get you know new viewer brought into them that way but when you rage somebody else it is such a good way also to get your name out to that community and maybe the streamer will be like give you a shout out or something or they may ask you what you weren't playing and if you were playing the same game or a similar game it gives you an opportunity to be like hey I was playing started to like if I rage you while you're playing stardew and and then people in the chat can be like oh whoa another cool starting player and I mean even if nothing actually comes of it although I have found a lot of times just me rating somebody else has introduced me to their community members who will then come follow me and come back again but even if nothing actually comes of it you've made somebody else's day you not know like who can be so excited and so happy because of getting a raid it fosters this really good sense of like you trying to help support the community and give back because like sometimes people do nice things for you too and I feel like it overall I just think rating is amazing and I see so many people that in their streams and don't ever raid anybody and I'm like what are you doing you never know who you could meet by going and like throwing yourself into somebody else's stream and like even if it's a bigger stream or sometimes maybe somebody that you've always wanted to get to know and you're in their community but you don't want to self-promote and be like I stream - well rating is a great way to do that so then they know that you're a streamer as well like I think I think rating into other people's channels regardless of the amount of people that come with it is a really awesome tool that I don't see enough people taking advantage of all the time I mean if there's nobody playing the game you're playing or nobody live that you know like whatever it's fine to industry without a raid sometimes but like I see some people that never raid anybody and I'm like all you're doing yourself a disservice new friends and at the very least you could be making some people's happy and it doesn't cost you anything like you do would be able to have two viewers cuz this it's interesting to me cuz it's like when people are streaming it's like they are chilling in their bedroom or in their living room their game room or whatever with the door open and they're like sorry that's my clock but they're like the doors open and it's like anybody wants to come in as welcome to come in that's kind of the vibe of a stream I feel like like I'm letting people come into my bedroom here rating is sort of like even if you're only bringing two people or whatever or a hundred people it doesn't matter you're kind of like walking in that person door and you're handing them like a pumpkin pie or something like walking in and giving them a gift at the same time and so it's maybe you know they don't like pumpkin pie but everybody for the sake of this example everybody loves pumpkin pie but yeah you're you're bringing a gift in you're introducing your community to them your I think that there's also like a subtler thing going on where by rating people you're saying that you because you're also putting them on your channel you approve of the content so much that you've got like a stamp of approval so it's a very like subtle thing where I don't know and I think that it's probably one of the best networking tools I love to write other channels because I like it's it's like friends supporting friends kind of thing like you're helping build each other up and I had seen this I'd like to hear your thoughts on it but because this was just kind of a thing I'll just see stuff on Twitter sometimes it just makes me like type like a 20 long tweet response about why they're wrong and then I delete it because I've at least developed some sense at this point but it was this person that it said that hosting and rating was all was taking away from you because you were essentially like advertising for other people like base like saying you're you're coca-cola person but you're like oh you know I sell coca-cola but if you don't like that there's Pepsi over there and like why would you ever do that as a coca-cola representative because maybe people never would have known about Pepsi and you could have still had those sales it was that kind of mindset and it's just like to me it was this like scarcity like ego driven selfish kind of mindset that I was just and I'm not an that person and specifically but that that talking point and that I hope because I do see this kind of attitude I won't use the word rampant but prevalent on the twitch community in general it's a very like selfish narcissistic ego driven me me me mine mine mine kind of I like which I don't necessarily like to see taught by people with followings in and they're touting themselves as like coaches or industry professionals or whatever I don't like seeing people taught that because I feel like it's only making us more like fighting with each other instead of harmonious together oh you're 100% right in this your city mindset like that term I love I love talking about that because just because you introduce you know one of your viewers to somebody else does not mean they don't like you anymore if they never come back again because they found another streamer that they liked better then chances are they were never going to be a longtime community member anyway if they really like you and who you are they will keep coming back but maybe like for me I only stream at nights because I work during the day but maybe I have viewers that are on a different time schedule and would like to watch streamers that stream earlier in the day and I can introduce them to somebody that won't even conflict with my schedule at all or somebody that streams on other days or whatever like it doesn't mean that they won't watch you anymore and in fact I actually think it's great because I like I have so many friends now where I go into their streams and I see people from my community that I sent there and I'm like oh my god hey and like it gives me an extra opportunity to connect with yeah well in my community and it I feel like helps build up like this rapport of like you know I'm the type of person that wants to promote everybody that has helped me and everybody that I'm friends with and like I have a promote your stuff channel in my discord so that anybody in my community can go tweet when they're going live and I heavily encourage everybody to go watch them even if I'm live too I mean you can always have two tabs up I don't feel like it's stealing anything um but I think it makes you look even better you need that person I mean different people like different things or value different things but I would rather be attracting a group of people that want to share and build each other up and so maybe I lose a viewer because of it but whatever they weren't gonna be my best friend for life anyway after seeing somebody else one time they're over me like that's okay they were gonna go at some point I think it's okay I think there's so many more benefits that any like potential negatives to promoting other people and sharing your community and that kind of thing that I think it's ridiculous I don't I don't think I don't believe in the scarcity mindset at all I don't and then there's a question in chat from Jess Martin 96 this one's gonna probably be a little bit of a spicy spicy conversation but she I'm assuming she says what are your opinions on large streamers saying they would rather raid another large streamer over help a small streamer so this is a question of numbers at the end of the day and how like I think that this could also be extrapolated out until like the YouTube sphere of well if you don't have a hundred thousand subscribers then I'm not gonna return your DMS it's the same kind of mindset of value based on metrics online metrics mm-hmm I mean I think it's incredibly telling of where their priorities lie I don't necessarily like I see the benefit of reading another bigger streamer because then it gets your name out in front of more people and then that person might give you a shout-out and you might gain followers from it so from a business standpoint that's actually a really smart move but from a personal caring about other people's standpoint if the only people you ever raid are like the intentions behind it are that you think it will benefit you more and you'll get something out of it I think that's taking half the fun out of twitch because I don't think everything should always be about you I think it's awesome to be able to make friends of all varieties I think you're really limiting yourself in terms of the people you might could connect with and I think it is in a in a way a bit a bit selfish but also I don't think you owe anybody anything so I don't think just because you got rated twice as a smaller streamer that means that when you get bigger you owe it to raid all smaller streamers and help all their channels especially if it's people you don't know so I don't know I'm a little bit torn on that because I'm like oh well they're making some smart business moves like great but I would feel bad if I never paid a little bit back to people that had supported me or tried to return some favours I was gone for me personally um I typically like to raid people that are either on my level as far as numbers or under it's rare that I will raid someone but it does happen but I'm usually and some of my community members here can probably vouch for this if I'm like gonna raid someone who has two or three times my numbers I never go any higher than that because I and I think large streamers might hate to hear this but I feel like I'm throwing my raid away if I'm like say I'm sitting at 30 40 average viewers and there's a streamer with a thousand viewers and I raid them I feel like I'm kind of throwing that raid away because they're already at that such a high level and I know because I have streamer friends that hit those types of numbers and people this is when they get on the partner grind and they hit partner and then they suddenly feel like people stopped supporting them because they already have success in other people's eyes but I feel like my 30 viewers won't help that person with a thousand as much as it would my friend who's streaming for four hours in a row to two viewers and I could go completely change that person's entire week let alone night the a thousand viewer person probably won't necessarily notice that I even rated them and for me as a smallish mid-to wiggling back and forth because I keep burning out I'm such a fake but that's been my experience I usually prefer to go for people about my level or about around my numbers or under and I've noticed when I was hitting like a hundred viewers and stuff like that that if I did rate someone who had like two or three viewers it would kind of [ __ ] them for a second they would completely like and I know because I've been on the receiving end of like huge raids to where it's just like the most intense stage fright that hits you because you're like all you're used to you're three or four people hanging out or you're thirty or forty and then suddenly you have a thousand and you're like I don't know who any of these people are I'm scared I don't know what to do I got to call my mom and cry like kind of thing which so I don't really long answer short to what you're asked I think the what you're asking is large streamers who refuse to support small streamers they will only support people who they deem on their level and worthy enough I completely disavow that and I would I would want nothing to do with the person that had that kind of mindset personally but I think that for a small streamer that it's like you said earlier Kat about experimenting with the type of game that you play it I think you should also experiment with who you raid when you raid them there are numbers the games they're playing because I think there's something to be said about streaming star do and then rating another star to streamer because you know that your audience is already enjoying started content and I've had times where I was streaming a horror game and then I took people into an ASMR stream so that's gonna be nobody from that raid is really gonna stick around because they were in this high energy you know adrenaline mode and I've taken them into soft whispers time for bed like I don't I so I think that it's smart to kind of like stick in a certain genre when you're rating or for me I will also try and find people who are similar personality types to me or like cat you're a good example I feel like we have kind of similar energy even like esthetic to a certain point and I've noticed like when I rated your stream and I go into your stream like a week or three weeks later so in my community members are still hanging out and that makes me go like I know them I got their type okay cool I picked a good stream to introduce them to you it's when I see people sticking around in streams that I've rated that I feel like more connected or on the same page as my audience which makes me feel like I'm not completely off like off task or off I don't know what the phrase is I'm looking for or like off and you know like boomer level it's like like try I don't really understand what what my community is into I guess so I guess the the probably the major question that they were asking there's people that only support people with high numbers or people who have got let fame go to their head is probably another I don't I don't I don't I don't think it's good if you only support people with high numbers I can see the value in doing it sometimes and I can understand from a business standpoint why that's a good move but if that's literally the only thing you're okay with and that's literally all you ever do and I don't know yeah but something's wrong with me about that it just I think it just makes it clear what your priorities are and I think what what I value in a person is somebody that cares about other people and if all you're out for is yourself and not about other people and then yeah especially with that community aspect if you're sending people somewhere you know they won't enjoy just because it might benefit you then again you're not caring about your community so yeah for sure I grew up I said okay so we have a question here from it's angel Rose it says what are you also gonna be y'all are in a spicy mood tonight chat but what are you always fuse on calling out bad stream or behavior versus cancel culture or is it the same I I'm gonna let you go first cats I have a lot of thought okay alright I this has been really relevant for the past couple of months I think well really the whole time I've been involved in streamer Twitter but I've been involved with stream or Twitter twitch all of this for almost four years now March of March this year I'll be four years for me so I've gone through many phases and my like presentation on stream the way that I interact with others the feelings and thoughts I have about certain types of streamers and stuff like that and I've gone to this kind of like [ __ ] point where I don't care I don't care what that streamer said I don't care what that streamer is doing on their stream I just don't care like it's not that I don't care about anybody but it's like if that is how is that affecting me how is this now it's different if someone is actively using their platform for hate but I do not take it as my personal responsibility to flag this or to point it out or to they're there I won't say this definitively there may be some exceptions because I have called out people in the past and I will say from my experience that I stopped doing it and there's a huge reason for that it's because it's so toxic like even if I'm in the quote unquote right in doing it I still have to deal with that person's people coming after me and that is a ripple effect that lasts almost forever you're also in blueprinted now or imprinted now on the Internet as having this argument or disagreement or whatever it is and I mean I used to be very like in my early 20s like hyper political like yelling at you you don't know what you're talking about wake up sheeple kind of like so i've got a lot of experience it's like debating people online and then now that I'm 31 I don't remember the last time I debated someone online my blood pressure just I don't have time for it do not want to spike my blood pressure I don't I really don't care there's a there's a difference when it comes to very like obvious abusive situations or things like that but again I don't feel that the platform I'm trying to build is the right platform to target and point out people that are doing things wrong I think there are other way more qualified people to do it I think there's something to be said about a ripple effect online pointing out people that have done something that needs to be criminally punished which I think that people that are in the know on YouTube will know a very specific situation about a youtuber that I'm like kind of hinting at there it's like a ripple effect of people circling around it will eventually actually get legal repercussions for those actions now as far as like canceled culture and stuff goes this has just been happening non-stop like I said earlier every week there's someone new under the chopping block and it's yes sometimes it's like they quote/unquote deserve it but I also think that the bullying that takes place even when people are like really toxic people and are like easily hateable figures I think that the bullying that comes out of canceled culture is just as bad as the toxic behavior they were representing in the first place depending again I'm not talking about extreme criminal abusive examples I'm talking about people that that said a bad word or people that unless they're saying it like with hateful intent but still even these these kind of like hateful examples I still think that there's like a nuance and stuff that goes in with it because even these controversial figures that will get like banned off the social media and not for just because people don't like the way they talk about things not necessarily because they're they're hateful people that need to be criminally persecuted but because they are saying unpopular opinions or they're they're presenting themselves in an unpopular way I think there's something really dangerous about this like witch-hunt kind of stuff that's going on right now especially because we have seen public figures kill themselves over this literally there has been and I don't think that that should have been the outcome because I think that education and the betterment of people should always be the purpose and the motivation but it does feel like when this this canceled culture witch hunt kind of thing happens the motivation behind the mob mentality is make this person suffer as much as they want their garbage and they should want to die like because of we've perceived this to be so wrong what they've done and and again I want to stress that I'm not talking about people that have done like clearly abusive or horrible things I'm talking about a difference in opinion essentially at the end of the day anyway that's my home wanna log on that I've been thinking about it a lot recently though cuz because it keeps every like every week I see it on Twitter and I have to bite my tongue about it because I'm like I am NOT going to turn myself into a punching bag for either defending this person or call it condemning them I'm not gonna III don't I don't want this to be my platform I don't want this to be what I'm known for I would rather just focus on what I'm passionate about instead of what I'm passionately angry about yeah no I agree with that percent I think definitely I mean you know same disclaimer if we're talking like literally abusive you know whatever that's different but in terms of like people just making a mistake I try to think about it like where I I've done shitty things in my life that I'm not super proud of or super excited about like and I would hope that some people would be kind of understanding about it and give me a chance to try again or at least not publicly condemn me in front of thousands and thousands of people and like completely ruin my life but it's just also not yeah it's not the vibrant energy I like to have in my content so I might have certain feelings about some people but no I'm not like I'm not like a big quote retweet err being like oh my god here's my thoughts on this debate like it's just not what I tried to talk about I literally have had Twitter beef one single time with one person ever it was in March of 2018 it was because I tweeted that I wish that I was more artistic and the person responded it was like then just do art and I was like ooh what an annoying what are you having like why it's like they're their tweet was like I hate tweets like this just do art lazy like it was so attacking and I was like you know why are you starting to fight with me and I quote retweeted it and that was the only time I've ever done that my whole life like I can literally remember the one time I had an internet fight like it it's just not my mo it's not my vibe I don't feel like I can have personal thoughts all day long about an issue but I don't pick up my fingers and sit and type it out online because it attracts so much drama I don't want to be caught on other people's issues I don't want to be surrounded by negativity and hate and things like that I'm just like no it's fine so no I don't I don't really believe in call out culture like not that I don't think anybody should ever be called out when they do something wrong but I don't participate in it at all right that's how I've grown to be and like for me like a particular hot spot from you is always like the whole boobie streamer debate always and I mean that's just been my whole life even back in high school like prior to twitch and so when I see it happening on the twitch platform my first couple of years on Twitch I was almost always participating in the debates I was almost always and there was a cup there was a couple of times where I had specifically called out a person that I saw doing some you know a someone saying some gross [ __ ] about quote-unquote boobie streamers I would create the initial tweet that would then go viral and I would gain followers out of it and there is this hole being rewarded for that and so it's like oh I should keep doing this then because this is working or this is getting me viewers or likes on my tweet or people's support that I'm saying this so this is obviously how I should be using my voice I've personally decided in the last year or two and I think that this is up for everybody to decide on their own but me personally I've decided that unless I am like if I had you on my podcast now cat-like kind of coming at me about how I present myself this is a moment where I would engage in the debate and defend myself but if I just see something scrolling through Twitter that has absolutely nothing to do with me I'm not going to make it I'm not gonna put myself in that situation so if I if I interact with it personally if somebody leaves its comment on one of my tweets or something or they come in my stream and they say something unless they're another like content creator there's just a random trail coming and saying I'm gonna block it ban it but if it is another person that is a peer or something like that and again not just something I see them post on their Twitter if I see them post something on their Twitter that I disagree with I'll probably unfollow them I won't even say anything about it I'll just unfollow them which is what I think we should be doing as far as quote-unquote cancel culture goes stop drawing attention to these people just stop supporting them so yeah if I had sown in my podcast or if and I do my best to not bring people on that I think that I would argue with in the first place cuz I don't I'm sure that's entertaining for people to watch but it's not something that I've it's like overwatch I don't play overwatch anymore because I don't my blood pressure can't handle it I dunno in a fight with people I don't want to I'll do everything I can while still being authentic and real in my my perspectives and stuff but yeah unless someone specifically is in my path and I you know or say I went to like I was on a panel at twitchcon and someone said something and I was the only quote-unquote that was the only girl in this situation and these people are parroting something at that point I'm like it's my responsibility to represent this talking point but other than that I I'm not gonna because every three months streamer Twitter it does the whole circle again and it doesn't matter what you three months ago now you got to say it again cuz you got to get those clicks you got to be relevant and I'm just not here for it anymore it's like I just sick of it at this weight I'm like y'all just focus on what you love focus on what you like yeah it's a it does and it sucks because like part of me never wanted to be an adult but I've been trying to adult as hard as I can for the last couple of years and this has been part of it and I'm like man I'm so responsible and mature now I don't even necessarily want to dive into the boobie streamer debate at all I think that people should just make the kind of content that they want to make as long as they're not hurting anybody I do have another talking point on your paper I'm also gonna look at all over the place at this point let me see you know what I actually do have a topic okay I think honestly it's almost a little bit like I'd like your advice on it or just even to know if this is something that you struggle with as well I want to make sure that it's not just a me issue maybe it is and that's cool too if I find out it is that's fine I'll work on myself but I think one of the things that I run into a lot with streaming is like you know as the content creator you are the leader of what's going on you control it whatever and it's like you need to be playing the games you enjoy' you need to be putting out the content you lose support and approve of and blah blah blah and take care of yourself and great I totally agree with all that what I struggle with a little bit is thinking there are people that pay their hard-earned money to subscribe to me and it is because they expect a certain type of content they expect me to be there on the days I've scheduled to be there you know there are certain games that I've committed to playing and so a constant like kind of kind of back-and-forth struggle I go with is what if I wake up one day and I don't feel like playing the game I said I was gonna play do I stay true to me and be like that's not gonna make me happy today or do I have a responsibility to my community that has supported me and oftentimes paid for the content they're getting do I play that game cuz that's what they wanted to see you know what I'm saying like I wonder how you define your own personal boundaries and you draw the line at doing what I need to do to be having a good time and enjoying myself and enjoying what I'm creating here versus when is it so selfish that all you care about is yourself and not about the community that you do you like maybe or maybe not a responsibility - I think that I mean I'm the queen of flaking out so I cancel streams more often way more often than I should I've had to apologize to my community way more often than I should but it's also because I am the queen of burning out and it I do feel like my boundaries around myself need to be protected at all costs even if it means that I'm not going live because really there are thousands of people alive that they can go fill their time with I will get messages sometimes that were like you know I was looking forward to your energy or something like that and I can relate to that as someone following content creators who go I post a video every Monday I go live at this time and like I will sometimes like wait a couple of days and be like oh Monday is coming up I can't wait to see their new video and then Monday comes around they're like sorry no video this week and there is this like disappointment that another youtuber video won't fill that void so I do think there's some responsibility you have to take it depends on your long-term goals if you're just doing this for a hobby I would say to always prioritize your mental health your well-being if you are trying to make this a career then you and someone said this on my like life update YouTube video I did where I was like it's so hard for me to keep a schedule and all of this kind of stuff but they were like if you want this to be full-time which I have said that I would love this to be full-time then you're gonna have to treat it like a job you're gonna have to show up on time you're gonna have to deliver when you're asked for something you have an opening checklist you have a closing checklist you got to do your duties the in general what I would say for someone who is like a small streamer meaning both of us and probably some of the people here in chat I think that you should probably be fine with changing the content that you were gonna play that night or canceling a stream even as long as it wasn't some kind of big hyped up event like my friend Mia just did a charity stream yesterday for Australia that's not something that she could have cancelled be cuz of the amount of promotion that she had put into it people were expecting she had been promoting it for you know two weeks or something so people maybe has been saving their money to come in and donate to that charity event that day or maybe there was she had a very particular raid that she was going to get at a specific time that day there was no way she could cancel then it's situations like that or say maybe god this is difficult for me though because like I've done like Tarot Tuesday's so every Tuesday I do Tarot for me it's gotten difficult to sit and talk for five or six hours in a row non-stop because I'm dealing with like health problems and stuff and so Tarot started to become like anxiety inducing for me because I knew that I had to sit on camera talking nonstop for five hours and I don't like focusing on my health when I'm live when I do it's it's because it's like I can't do anything to get it out of my my thought but it got to the point where it's like I just can't I can't do this anymore what I'm going to try and compromise my community instead is make youtube Tarot videos so if you really are looking for my take on Tarot I have pre-recorded content that I can record over the day and I don't have to stress myself out with the breathing stuff that I'm dealing with or like you know I did like a final fantasy Friday series where every Friday I was streaming Final Fantasy and I got you know a little over halfway through Final Fantasy 10 and I just decided I didn't like the game that much I really tried to like it because my community loved it my community loves Final Fantasy in general and I should have liked it and honestly I would probably like to watch someone else play it but the sheer level grinding that goes into it I just could not handle and I got bored of it and when I'm sitting there bored it's like you said earlier if you're hot if you're angry on stream your communities not having a good time if you're bored on stream your community is not having a good time yeah so I would definitely say prioritize your mental health first and foremost as a small streamer who's coming into it as a hobby that wants to eventually grow it into a career prioritize your mental health first and foremost your well-being and your interests because again if you're like well everyone's expecting me to play spyro tonight I guess I got to play it but instead you're like eyeball and overwatch you know like I really just want to like beat up again G today then you're gonna have a way better production of overwatch because your that's what you're feeling that's the spark you have inside that night and you can put you by spiro any other night or whichever game it is or you could never come back to it again if that's the case maybe you're just over Spyro like I was over Final Fantasy or whichever game it is I think you should focus on what you want to do and I think this is especially important for people that find themselves stuck in like I stream overwatch every day or apex or League of Legends or Wow and my community expects it and it's hard if you have grown a community that expects a certain type of content and then you change your content suddenly and you see it may be a 50% decrease and viewers and you start to lose some subs and stuff and that'll make you feel like you're a slave to your content I have to go back to Wow even though I don't like it anymore and I really just want to do piano streams now I think there's techniques and methods you could do to like phasing your content to a different style but as a variety streamer it doesn't seem as daunting because you're not like I have to stream overwatch for eight hours every single day because I'm under contract from Blizzard like I feel sorry for people that get stuck in contracts like that personally I think that you're doing great on your stream honestly I think that you have cultivated a very devoted audience to use that word which is a word people probably describe - so I'm not saying that derogatory or to make anybody feeling you like weird or anything I think that your audience clearly adores you and they are very supportive like last night of us on your stream and you were joking I don't remember what you were drinking but it was some kind of maybe an alcoholic drink or something truly you were joking about that and then one of your people went on Twitter and was like tweeting at the company for you like you're you're people that watch you your audience are like diehard and for someone who's only been streaming for three months I think that's incredible I think that your research into this industry I think that your psychology based thing has also given you an understanding of how to interact with people properly and how to connect with people I think that you've got a really good Sippi for what you're doing and I think a lot of people could learn from you and how you've gone about doing this because it's not a small feat to hit affiliate in 11 days and it's not a small feat to go to build your thing three months like three months and you're already averaging between 12 and 20 viewers in general and I think in for most of them to be regulars you're almost at a hundred subs already like I think that's incredible growth for someone who just started on Twitch in September and we're now only in January and I think it's a promising start and I think you could totally do this full-time and this could be a career and I asked if you had done drama because you are a naturally like expressive person and I very naturally like dramatic not in a bad way like because drama set like gem what I mean by dramatic is theater drama like like a thespian kind of thing you're very expressive and all of that so I think that I think you're a great guest tonight and I'm really glad you come on I'm glad you're wonderful community was here and if there any last minute questions in chat drop them now and I'm going to give cat power a second to talk about what she's got coming up on her streams and a little bit maybe if she has a schedule coming up over the next couple of months or she has any plans going on and where they can find you your different social media platforms yeah okay well thank you first of all thank you so much I wanted to be on a podcast for like literally like my whole life anyway we've been doing a Spyro playthrough before that we were doing life is strange we did the first one the prequel and I think we're about to hop back into the second life estranged game but also continuing on with Spyro I don't know I'm a little bit torn sometimes about what I want to play like we just talked about but you've just inspired me to play what I want to play so honestly I don't know I don't want to stick too much to a schedule of what we're coming up with because my moods change I don't know it's all over the place i stream Tuesdays Thursdays and Sundays though at 7:30 p.m. if any of you guys want to come and be my friend that's cool but yeah that's it I mean that's really all I have to say this was really awesome I love I love talking I love having any excuse to talk I really want to know what your astrology chart is because I feel like you got to have Gemini somewhere because you are so better than you know what I'll actually I'll be a miss you later if you want I was curious like I'm super cancer balling my other um you know like your full shirt and I'm like oh whatever and all the planets I don't know but I'm so cancer like it's nice you've got a very did I did it at a kind of motormouth like I do or you can just like once you go you're like non-stop you talk that okay sorry you want me to slow down okay and then to finish out the podcast tonight and if you guys would like to stick around I would love to read someone but there's a couple of people in love Sophie wants you to know that she's proud of you and there's a couple of people in quite a chat that are wondering about dealing with social anxiety um as far as streaming goes and if the and I we don't have to sit here and dwell on this for too long but if there's anything that jumps out do you suffer from social anxiety and has twitch helped you with that in any kind of way or how would you tell people with social anxiety to approach streaming oh majorly like saw therapist four years of many medications literally couldn't leave my house I was so anxious I am so introverted it was probably I think what kept me from starting streaming for so long because I was so concerned I was going to be so weird I will say if you if you don't stream at all um maybe if you're worried about it I think there's something entirely different about being on camera than being face to face I love the removal that comes from twitch where I can be myself but I don't have to be out in public I actually think twitch has been an amazing tool for helping to get rid of some of my social anxiety because it has taught me how to be more comfortable speaking up for myself talking about the things I care about engaging with other people but without all the pressure of feeling like I'm at a social engagement or like a bar or somewhere where I'm surrounded by people and it's loud and like I can't escape so I don't know if you already stream and social anxiety is something that you deal with as you're streaming honestly there's a reason I was a psychology minor not a psychology major I don't actually know how to help you with that but if if the social anxiety is what's holding you back from streaming I would say I don't think it's gonna be as bad as you think it is because I think streaming is actually a wonderful way to help overcome that at least it has been for me that's literally probably single-handedly the biggest benefit that and making an amazing group of friends I probably would never have been able to make anywhere else so I now feel like I have a community of people I can talk to you about what I care about those are the two things that which like really does for me I will absolutely say that twitch has been a tool for confidence building for me I've struggled with social anxiety a lot of people would say that I don't but that's because I put on a good front I'm a very like loud obnoxious person was and I'm kind of chilled out in my like the older I get but as a teenager I was loud and obnoxious trying so hard to be the class clown and like but it's because I was so anxious and that was me trying to like conquer it I was yeah absolutely I would go to school on the first day of school with normal nails and I would come home and my nails were to draw because I was so overwhelmed with like being surrounded by people I didn't know they're judging me do they like me do I look weird what did they think that it like those constant thoughts and that's something I've struggled with still to this day oh I'm sure I'll always struggle with to some degree I do feel like I have come in check with it I'm a very confident person now um I still have insecurities and stuff it's not like I'm totally cured or whatever but it's which was a big big step in that for me once I got live the first time the first couple of times and I started getting people that one time you tell a joke and then you see like two or three lols go off and you're like oh [ __ ] I do I'm funny like like people come in and they they will echo like you'll get on a tangent talking about something you're passionate about and someone in chat is like hell yeah totally relate to what you're saying that's awesome and you're like okay I'm like you're validated you feel validated and after about a year of streaming on Twitch it had built me up to this point I do think that there will come a point where people have to face an ego problem and keeping themselves grounded but I absolutely would say that twitch has been a huge tool in helping me overcome social anxiety between streaming on Twitch and working a customer service job at a coffee shop where people expect to I worked at a coffee shop job and it's an a theatre a movie theater so it was people wanted to talk about pop culture topics and stuff like that between the two different things the practicing with strangers in real life just having like fleeting conversations with people and then the online where I could be fully myself and like practice some of those skills on the online platform those two things have turned me into like the most confident version of myself that I've ever been and Victoria saying the biggest struggle is talking to yourself and it's intimidating when people are watching but not chatting turn off your account stop thinking about people watching you stop checking the viewer list and seeing who came and stop worrying about that that's going to exacerbate the anxiety just keep yourself focused in the moment on what you're feeling in a good way don't let that kind of stuff creep in and take control and if you find it taking control it's probably best to end stream for the day and only stream when you're feeling at you're if you're a small streamer who doesn't have anyone chatting to you yet that's what I'd say if you're if you're off in your head negatively talking that's not a good way to build your platform at the beginning and it's probably going to encourage more trolls to pick fun at you honestly because they see that you're already like hurting and they know they can they can get you so yeah any advice to get yourself out of spiraling thoughts guide see that's again we're cat saying not a psychology major that's a constant struggle for me to I met it I guess meditation and when I say that I don't mean sitting indian-style like going home or cross-legged I know it's not the right phrase but going like Oh more whatever I don't mean that sure work your way up to that if you want to be like a full-time monk or something but I mean noticing that it's happening being present and going like oh god I'm thinking about I'm comparing myself to other girls again I'm thinking that she's prettier than me and that's why you know or I'm thinking that I'm this happens to be a lot of got insomnia I've got problems sleeping because my brain goes out of control so I'll turn on filler content meditation things that rewire my brain that teach me positive affirmations or positive uplifting words so that my brain has to focus on it and my mind will still get distracted and then I'll notice that I'm thinking about that stupid thing I did four years ago and how that person probably still thinks I'm such a loser and then I'll go no I've got to listen to this this meditation thing I've got to listen to this guy telling me to breathe and think about my toes and like release my MA like I will I have tried to pre-program my brain intentionally it's a very intentional process it's not easy at all but yeah I think they will cut it there cat if you have anything final to say after I just went on a whole like ran it again I did my best to try and like like not interrupt you as much because I've got the worst about like like commandeering a conversation so I tried to do my best to like not like everything I wanted to go over yeah my list is mostly complete I just really want to say thank you so much for for doing this with me I know you know I am a smaller streamer so I really appreciate you asking me to be on here I feel a little bit weird trying to give any kind of tips because I'm like haha that's like an assumption that I have like I don't know any level of expertise that I can offer someone which I don't feel like it's true but to be asked I guess and I hope that maybe anybody at all learned anything at all today or just you know learned nothing but had a good time watching I don't know I had a good time talking so I was lit of it I think I've been amazing I'm really glad that you were able to come on and I think just because you're a quote-unquote small streamer doesn't mean that you don't have value to contribute you clearly know what you're doing even though you said you're experimenting and working it out but that's why I think that you have like valued to offer because you're not just like oh playing overwatch for six months in a row and wondering why you're not growing you're trying new things out and you're experimenting you're like a scientist mind so yeah I will see you guys tomorrow night make sure you check out Cat Power and thank you all again so much for being here everyone have a good night bye

Channel: HeyShadyLady

Views: 7,874

Keywords: twitch tutorial, streamer grind, twitch grind, streamer tutorial, twitch tips, twitch, streaming tutorial, beginner streamer, how to grow on twitch, starting to stream, start on twitch, best way to grow on twitch

Id: l2KKrswL1dg

Length: 90min 1sec (5401 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 14 2020