Streaming: Lifestyle, Impact and Consequences

When you make a decision in your life, it can really have some consequences, especially a big one, such as starting to stream or even trying to become a professional streamer in the long run.
A choice such as this one will definitely affect you, but also your friends and family. It very well might change the way they see you and maybe even the way you see yourself. But how? Lifestyle and the impact it has had on myself

I feel as though producing live content has allowed me, and enabled me, to better myself and improve on some key aspects that were previously in disarray. This isn't to say that it hasn't also messed with my daily routine or habits to some degree. For example, as previously stated, I started streaming, also with the intent to overcome a temporary slump in my life which had kind of left me ‘down’, with a not-so-optimistic view of things to come, but one I also wanted to overcome and be done with, especially when I got news of impending membership to ‘the parenthood club’, lol.

So yeah, when I got the awesome news that I was to become a dad, I vowed that I needed to do whatever it took to overcome some psychological hurdles that had been holding me back, not just the financial ones, you know? So stepping out of my little bubble, forcing myself outside my comfort zone, was a crucial point I wanted to achieve and get confident enough that I could later teach, and tell my daughter, that she too was strong, had a will to her, that she could put her mind to something, pursue it and, given plenty of hard work and determination, achieve it. I started getting better, pretty much right after I made this decision. It’s not perfect, but my creepy companion, anxiety, has all but subsided in most situations (if not all of them), I am more confident in my own ability to follow through on stuff I say and promises I make, as well as trusting that others will sometimes recognize my merit and hard work put into something if I freaking do it, and believe in it, instead of wussin' out or giving up because not everything works out… It has also improved, or rather, restored, some of my social interactions as my anxiety had left some of those a little bit more rusty and awkward, but they’re now back to their former state, along with a happy, helpful and social Joe. So, what has actually happened to my life?
Some of the routine and the amount of work that goes into what I do, is not fully perceived by the audience, or viewer-base. They mean well, they just can’t see all of the ‘behind-the-scenes’ stuff, so… either they’re very fast-paced individuals and workers, who are plenty good at multitasking and think I’ll do things in a jiffy, or they never streamed before, but, either way, they’re not at fault but still kind of misjudge the amount of hours I sink into trying to be the best I can, for the channel and for them.

Should this make me privileged or should they worship me? I know that’s how it sounded, hence this joke, but to be honest, it’s not what I meant, at all. It’s just a preamble for me to actually explain that sometimes it’s tough, when it happens with your close real-life friends or family too.

Content production does take a lot of work, while Streaming and community-building even more-so. All of this on top of already trying to fit in 5-6h of freelance work, whilst standing on that famous knife-edge that is ‘starting/continuing’ to look for a steady job and still trying to be a good and present father in my newborn daughter’s life, helping her learn and be able to process such ridiculous amounts of information coming her way these first few months. That said, all of this work takes its toll and sometimes I can only finish stuff very late at night, especially the stream since I love my American continent audience, putting a slight stress on some relationships with people closer to home. This has, thankfully, been changing and people are starting to understand why I do Live Streaming, and how much I love it, as well as the amount of work that goes into it, but I too must strive to understand their Point of View and attempt to achieve the perfect balance so as to not ‘forget’ the physical, amazing, loved ones in my life, as well as the newly loved community I created through my channel. Lack of time, work-shuffling and time-juggling are therefore the biggest changes I’ve seen almost instantly. My mood has improved though, also my ambitions and dreams are awake, I’m feeling better than I did before and actually consider myself a better person and more balanced individual now. The thing I love the most is that I actually think I’m even a more qualified parent now. I have the will, determination and confidence to face more things and situations outside my comfort bubble and can be loving, kind but also serious or even strict when need-be. When it's all said and done, I really do have some of my community to thank, for some good advice, not all of it stream related, and some of them for being fantastic role-models as people AND parents.

First Day of Streaming

After many hours, days even, of preparation, the first day finally arrives. Anxiety takes its place and the hardware seems to feel it, since it either starts failing or falling apart, along with all the preparations.

My first day was in January and it’s been a while now, so talking about it can be kind of tricky, since memory is definitely not my strong suit, or even a strong suit. I’m bad when it comes to remembering stuff, like really bad.

However, your first day is an important milestone and that’s why I think it’s important for me to share with you all that I can actually remember about it. It serves multiple purposes, not only providing motivation but also showing you that not everything goes according to plan. You just need to know how to take this in stride.

So, here’s what I can recall from my actual first day of streaming, as in, my first broadcast. I was pretty nervous, even though I had tried to lay the foundations, do the groundwork days before, really. Still, once you start streaming, you’ll realize that technical difficulties are a given, really. They will come, whether you want them or not, tried to prepare for them or not. So that’s kind of what happened, a few issues here and there with the key bindings I had set up for my stream’s Game Capture but forgot to replicate in another scene, all on the classic OBS.

Once those were ‘resolved’ the audio was still a long ways off of ideal, but I tinkered with it with some help from the awesome ExilePT (@Exile__PT) and a very kind and awesome viewer (thank you mallycakes!), all whilst attempting to play some Darkest Dungeon.

I distinctly remember being sort of pissed (and wrongly so) at Red Hook Studios for the freaking timing of when I actually planned to start streaming (January 2016) and their Darkest Dungeon release, so quite a few big-name streamers and channels were playing it that night and I couldn’t amass much interest from a few people, which, given all the tech difficulties and stuff, is understandable.

But, as with all things I’ve mentioned so far, some bad situations will arise, just so you can learn from them and move on to something better, really. So, once I stopped cursing my lagtop (affectionate pet-name for my laptop, which I also fondly dub, ‘the streaming potatoaster’), it got better… a lot better. I interacted more with the ‘OH so exciting’ 2 or 3 viewers in my channel and ‘Lo and behold!’, one of my other good friends, also a streamer, the awesome Foamz (@FoamzTV) brings in a small support crew in the form of a raid, even throwing out some host love my way.

This, as you can probably imagine, was huge, getting me in front of just a few more people, some of which even dropped a follow on my channel, pushing me out of my comfort zone and forcing me to learn to adapt to a growing crowd, on a faster pace. To this day, I am very grateful to all of the people mentioned above, since they were pretty much some of my first followers, viewers and supporters, helping me get the stream ready for organic viewers walking in (people who enter through the browse features of twitch, such as a person joining because they like the game I’m playing and there aren’t too many live channels with it right now), for the additional engagement and interaction it generated and some of the new-viewer questions.

From there on out, the stream was a blast, I was no longer as nervous and it was really a matter of continuing to try and obtain some audio balance so as to reach an equilibrium and a visual quality decent enough that it still, to this day, consistently makes people question me when I tell them I stream on the lagtop (both the laptop portion of it and mostly even the specs, are the things that really surprise people).

All in all, it was a bad, turned good, turned great, day which kind of evolved into it’s own thing, being both a milestone for my first broadcast but also a learning experience in and of itself.

So remember, when you’re just starting out, all that really matters is that you put forth your best effort to entertain any possible viewers that would walk in. Don’t really focus on the numbers, actually try and avoid knowing how many viewers you have, since it’ll just psych you out if you have none or way too many.

Eventually, some people you might already know, some good friends or even some complete strangers who happen to be awesome people, will drop by and give your channel a chance. If you keep up your effort, you’ll be as amazing as ever when they do, and hopefully get that very precious first follower who you’ll try to convert into a regular that’ll be dropping by often in the future.

And thus, a channel will be born and with it a small community will be formed. But it will grow! Believe! Then keep at it!