‘The feeling that people enjoy watching and choose to support me is incredible’
In the past month, realizing that it’s 1 a.m. and that I have been playing video games for the past seven hours has become a regular occurrence.
Trust me, it is not as bad as it sounds. Time flies when you’re having fun, and streaming on Twitch is probably the most fun thing I can think of.
While playing video games by itself is incredibly enjoyable, having viewers in the chat to interact with and cheer you on makes it even better. Playing my favourite games with my friends in front of the wonderful little community I’ve built is not only satisfying, but motivating, and in the most simplest of ways to put it, it’s brought me an incredible amount of happiness.
At 6 p.m., I turn on my camera — honestly, I stare at it for a minute to decide if I look presentable or not — open up Call of Duty: Warzone, and fire up the stream and link up with my squad for the night. It’s usually a mix of fellow streamers and real-life friends who provide immaculate vibes.
We spend the night hanging out and trying to win games. Of course, I take the time to read and respond to comments in the chat when there’s downtime in the game — my chat takes every opportunity to roast me, especially about my gameplay. It’s all in good fun, and I genuinely feel like all the people in the chat are my friends.
Every time I hear the chime from a new follower or new subscription, I can literally feel my face light up. It makes me smile every time. The feeling that people are enjoying watching my stream and choose to support me is incredible, and I still can’t wrap my head around it.
I would be lying if I said it was a complete bliss the entire time. I do get anxious for a number of reasons. Sometimes I worry that no one wants to watch and that I’m wasting my time trying to build a following. Other times, I worry that I am going to have to deal with hate comments. In reality, the endless positivity outweighs one or two negative comments about my appearance, being a female playing video games, or general trolling.
There are moments where I feel tired or down and don’t want to stream, but between my friends and my followers, I always get cheered up. But on the other side, there are nights where I don’t want to log off and I just want to keep playing and chatting all night.
When I end my stream, usually because my eyes and back hurt, or the game has literally made me so mad I don’t want to play anymore. I go lay in bed and click through my friends’ streams or look through clips from my own.
While I usually have a headache and am simply exhausted, I still can’t wait for the next day to do it again.
Again, I have such wonderful friends that I stream with and an amazing community of people who come to hang out with me every time I am live on Twitch. I am constantly thinking about ways to do better as a streamer, and to improve my viewer’s experience. I’m excited to grow as a streamer, and I’m excited to keep building my community.
