Streaming

If you have ever watched any streamers live or just their VOD on YouTube, let it be playing games, just chatting or IRL streams, we all have had that thought, “well even I can do this, you play games and talk with people, seems easy enough”. But after streaming for a whole year I can confidently say that I have gained more respect for streamers in general and the metal stress they put themselves in.

Streaming is hard, harder than becoming a YouTuber in some ways, which I will get into later.

Why I started streaming

“I just had time”

That’s basically it. I got my new PC and then covid came, and I was stuck in my house. So as I was going through the list of things I wanted to try out and try to make a career out of, streaming seemed to be a perfect choice.

I originally started streaming on Mixer (R.I.P), because it had a smaller community which at the time seemed like it might be the next big thing (ahem, we know how that turned out). So I set up my profile and went all in.. for almost 3 months that is. That’s when I decided to swtich to Twitch becuase that’s where I usually spent time, so might as well stream there too (this obvious fact wasn’t obvious to me then). I did meet some good people there though, and the community in general as a smaller one was more welcoming to newcomers. But unfortunately after just more than a month later after I moved, Mixer shut down and everyone I knew in Mixer where in a sate of panic and most switched to Twitch as well. Then I streamed for half a year more, on and off, with different stream schedules which eventually led me to stop sometime in 2021.

Why I stopped streaming

 “It’s complicated”

It was a mixture of “me problems” and “how the system works problem”.

Me Problems

I have anxiety, and streaming in English, which isn’t my native language and putting myself out there was terrifying, which did get better towards the end but still I had more than a few times when my mouse cursor will be hovering over the “start stream” button, but I would just pull myself back. Also, there’s the fact that I don’t really like multiplayer games but love story driven ones. And after streaming some single player games, I can say that it sucks because you can’t really get immersed or pay attention to the story because you’re constantly looking at the next screen to see what your viewers are saying or responding to them. Also being a variety content creator while you still haven’t found that unique aspect about your personality is frustrating as some people may follow you because of one game, but they unfollow right when you stream another one.

System Problems

You need to be everywhere, socializing with everyone, being active on other people’s chat, putting content on your social media’s, streaming consistently, preferably a single game (because becoming a variety streamer, if you don’t have even a small following somewhere else is imo really fucking hard). You have to consistently do all this and on top of that, most people do this, so you have to find that unique factor that you have that the other person don’t. The thing is YOU CAN stream without any of this, but you won’t reach anywhere, and I mean anywhere. You need to network a lot to just get your name out there, let it be from other people’s chats, hosts, raids or anywhere else.

What I mean to say is it’s not just playing games and hanging out with people. You have to network, put up a good social media presence, suck up to other slightly bigger streamers, deal with people unfollowing often, deal with hurtful messages, and just hope you get recognized.

Twitch VS YouTube

Throughout the year, as I was streaming on Twitch, I was also editing all of my videos to post on YouTube. And this juggling of making yourself seen on both platforms made me realize a lot about how both systems worked and the type of content the users liked.

Although both platforms have a lot in common, like the importance of networking, setting up a good profile and proper social media accounts. In my opinion, there are 2 main difference,

Type of Content :

YouTube : Quality > Quantity

YouTube’s content quality is ever-increasing. Most times it doesn’t matter how long a video is, it’s the quality that matters.

Twitch : Quality < Quantity 

Here, consistency is way more important than your stream quality or how good your stream layout and stuff is.

Relationship with the Viewers :

YouTube viewers: “I like your content”

I know this is generalizing a lot, but compared to Twitch, if your content isn’t surrounded around your life (vlogs/lifestyle), your viewers are mainly in it for the content. Which seems to be what most YouTubers want.

Twitch viewers: “I like you”

Even if you aren’t a just chatting streamer, for most people to watch hours of your content, they are in it for you. They form a para social relationship (which happens in YouTube’s case as well) and keep coming back for the interactions.

“One isn’t better than the other, it just takes a different skill set to succeed in each” 

Final Thoughts

Streaming/YouTube isn’t for everyone. It might look easy and like a dream job to some, but there are so many things happening behind the scenes, which don’t get enough spotlight. Dealing with privacy, having a good relationship with your viewers, dealing with your own anxiety etc, to name a few. But don’t let that stop you from trying, it’s definitely an experience trying your hand at content creation and learning all the strings attached to it. I learned a lot from my time on both platforms, and who knows, I might just go back and try again someday.