Dear Sanity,: Twitch creative Saved me

Dear Sanity!

Recently the Twitch Gaming community lost another gaming streamer due to death. He was only 35, a father a husband; and now he’s gone. His name was Poshybrid (link down below), and though I don’t know him I know of the struggles of streaming. I started streaming while I was unemployed back in 2013. I was a mod for two large partnered streamers; they have and do still 24+ hour streams.

Yes, I’ve worried about them. Their families are involved to constantly watch them, coming in to see

how they are. Yes, I believe that 24+ hour streams are hard on the body but that is up to the streamer. Streamer always makes a choice on their stream cause well it’s their stream. I know I can’t do 24 hours, nor would I ever have the time to do one.

As Joe Marino aka Geekdomo wrote in his piece “Dying to Stream” (link will be down below); he ran through his day and what had happened to him and his health. He saw what was going on and acted to change it. The struggle to perform and how to keep up with everything to be a successful streamer.

The gaming community, by many but not by all, believe it’s a competition and that you must get more views/followers/subs than the other guy. Many have warred against each other, trolled, swatted and done such horrible things that many of us would just stream as little as possible so that we weren’t growing. We didn’t put our family, friends and others at risk.

I worked with streamers to help grow their numbers, to help them beat the other guys. Coming up with give-a-ways, tricks and such to get higher and higher on top. They had to get this sponsorship or they must tweet out daily to get the attention of another product they want to be sponsored by. It’s a grueling almost 24-hour job. There is no off switch, it’s on without little down time aka bathroom time.

I work a full-time job, volunteered my time while at work then when I got home I’d stream until I had to work for the other streamer. I didn’t ask for anything in return and I willingly helped others. The toxicity was growing on me and it wasn’t any one’s fault by my own. I should be responsible for how I reacted to things. I started to search on Twitch for something positive to help me through this growing depression. That is where I found Imperial Grrl, now fast forward.

It was in November of 2016, I was watching Imperial Grrl (link will be below) and she was making a product for a guy named Tock Custom. Tock was celebrating his 1 year twitch anniversary and he was giving things away for his anniversary. You didn’t have to sub, only had to follow. He has at least 20 artists from Twitch creative donate time and a product to his /*3*/ day giveaway. Yes, you read it right. This giveaway lasted THREE Streams, starting from 8 a.m. then taking an hour break for lunch and coming back wrapping up until 4 p.m.

I was amazed at the positive vibes, the good people and the well wishes and others that were sharing. I met so many people in those three days that my follow list went from 15 people who gamed to over 150 and it’s still growing. It encouraged me to try not to game stream but to paracord and stream. Yes, I make things out of paracord. I started to do that in December of last year and the doors opened for me. I am a part of a stream team now (building the web site for stream team now for 300+ members). I have grown from 150 followers to now 321 and still growing today. I’m thankful for every single follower, every view and for me lurkers make Twitch. So, if there are lurkers it’s great to have them in the channel.

Pro Tip: In creative we don’t call out the lurkers is bad form.

The twitch creative community has such a welcoming and vibrant culture. We’re here to support each other, it’s ok to talk about being a streamer in chat. You talk about what you’re working on and what you’re doing. You involve yourself in the community as well as not only support the community but in turn supports the streamer. It helps not only to grow the channel but it helps to bridge my community with others. This way the community grows not just by a one channel at a time but it becomes more of a global community supporting all the streamers within it.

How did it save me? One big word: POSITIVITY. You could be having a crappy shitty day and with one greeting or one massive host. It turns into a massive awesome day! I’ve not only seen it happen, maybe been a part of raids, and I’ve had it done to me. It’s turn my depressive end of the year into something that was so fucking magical I can’t even begin to explain it. It’s something you should be a part of.

The winter is the worst point of the year for me to the point where I shut down totally socially. I hate it, 2016 was completely different. From watching Tock, Imperialgrrl, FierceKittenz, Ignaceu, Rabbitman109, DryadTea, Kayosgirl, PharEwings, Lilbluebox and many many more streamers; they helped me pull myself out of my depression.

Pro Tip: Creative streamers do promote others in chat, encourage other creative streamers to talk about their streams and even do group shout out.

(I.E. LilBlueBox will ask for people to put a 1 in chat to show they are as stream and the follow train starts.)

I would love to find a bridge between gaming and creative. PokeYourEyesOutGames (link below) not only plays games but they create; they created GCGG (good community, good games). This is their motto and it’s a very good one. They say that in helping people with whatever they need they are helping someone grown within all of Twitch. Gaming or creative a like an ideal I embrace.

Not only can we grow Twitch but we can help each other. Gamers game, providing content and viewers; as they learn about creative side. The creative can create swag and things for Gamers, there for creating and helping gaming with their brands and swag for their viewers. As they get together this helps with sharing viewers. Sharing viewers isn’t taking away from the gaming community, but it’s to help them.

Viewers grow and help other viewers find more streamers again the idea of GLOBAL community. In the positivity of the creative helping to spread that to the gaming community. This way not only does the gamers get some great swag, but they help the creative community to grow. The creative community will grow with more inspiration and more ideas to make awesome things.

If we can do this, maybe the 24-hour streams will slowly die down. Gaming streamers will be gaining viewers from creative and better help them with networking, sponsors and show that this isn’t a doggy dog world of who can climb to the top. It’s more of a large canvas where we all make a mark and make Twitch a much better, happier and healthier place. One can only hope one day and action at a time.

Well work is calling, talk to you later Sanity.

Best Wishes,

Junie

Links

Poshybrid article (https://www.kotaku.com.au/2017/02/twitch-streamer-dies-during-24-hour-marathon-stream/)
Joe Marino aka Geekdomo’s article (https://medium.com/@Geekdomo/dying-to-stream-ff0ed2e3dfbb#.qx8d3mb4z)

Streamers