2019

Hey.

It's been a hot minute since I've written a pastebin. I think the last big one was after SGDQ. I figured I'd put together something of a recap. Nothing too huge, but just some thoughts on things about my life and stream and where it's going and what I want to do and yah.

--2019--
-STREAM-

2019 was another really great year for me streaming wise. I'm very numbers oriented and I love to just analyze the numbers each year to see what things worked and what things didn't. I've been super blessed with how the stream has grown each and every year. I have yet to take a step back #'s wise, and a huge part of that is due to so many people that join the community and stick around!  I really consider myself a binge variety streamer. I'll get hooked on a game for a month or two, and then move on to something else that looks fun. I know that can mean certain viewers not having interest in my stream from time to time, so I appreciate if you've stuck around through games that aren't your fancy. If you're someone who only enjoys one game, or watches all the games, thanks for continuing to help me grow. I think one of the main reasons why I have been so successful is I have a great group of mods that and long time community members that really make showing up in chat for you all worth it. I've seen so many people that genuinely say hi to people as they come into the stream and make them feel welcome, and that makes me so happy. It really feels like a family in my community, and it means the world to me that so many people come to the channel as a way of escaping the IRL stuff and just being able to chill and relax!

This year was also a fun year of experimenting. I never want my channel to grow stale, and there's always this pressure of finding the next big thing to ensure new people are finding the stream. Sometimes that pressure SUCKS, but it has led to a lot of really cool ideas that have worked on my channel and were huge parts of growth. Things like Pokemon Stadium Rental Randos, Mafia, and more recently pokemon randos + competitive have been super super great for my stream. A ton of lets plays like Mother 3 and Resident Evil 4, were also just super super awesome to share with you all.  I sometimes beat myself up that I'm not as funny or good at games as some of my friends when it comes to lets plays. But those playthroughs where a ton of people showed up and enjoyed the game with me make me super proud of myself and super motivated to continue to do let's plays and expand my skills!

Another game I tried that I actually really liked but just kind of tapered off with was World of Warcraft. The first two weeks were super fun to play a game of that size with my community. I had to travel a bunch after launch, so I fell behind a bit, but it was great to share that game with my community. In 2020, I want to find more of those opportunities where I can get a bunch of people in the community on board and play games together. Hopefully there are more opportunities!

2019 in general stream wise just felt like a good solid year in terms of consistency for me. Again, nothing insane when it came to like numbers, but good growth, and I felt like I could play almost any game and there would be a great audience there to support it so thank you. I also felt like I could be more of me on stream. You'll prob notice I've been way more willing to curse on stream, and also way more willing to just be real with viewers that I felt were rude to me or my mods, or other viewers. The cursing thing is actually something I'm a bit more happy that I'm myself, but also would like to scale back a lot in 2020. I've always felt that cursing holds its meaning when it's rarely used. I don't like that I feel like I've swore as a sailor, but I also am happy that I don't feel guilty when i sometimes feel the desire to use a word. I'm sure my Mom would disagree, but I feel like I can be more myself and not have to feel the need to apologize about it. Just feel like the stream has felt more natural to me in that area.

--LIFE--
So 2019 on the life side has been an interesting one. Def not a bad one, just a year of self-reflection. I made some decisions about things that had been nagging at me for years and for the most part I think they were  very good ones. It made me realize a few things about myself that I did out of guilt, and not out of what I thought was best to do. It also led to me kind of refinding an old part of myself that I cherished when I was younger. I realize theres a few things I can't live without and I'm taking steps to get back to that part of me in 2020.

Also, this is somewhat personal but I'm very happy to be in a relationship with someone. I tend to keep my personal life private, but dating has been a very stressful thing for me the past few years. I typically don't share that stuff unless I feel very confident in my future with that person. I had a lot of relationships end with people simply because my job scared them away and they were not willing to see my passion for my job, and only saw it as something that could end at any moment. That hurt me a ton, and I really started to doubt if streaming was something I wanted to do, if it was going to impact my ability to find someone who loved me for me. I will do my best to not randomly talk about my GF, because I don't want that to be a focus for me, but Carolyn is amazing and loves my job and supports my job and understands my job. There are so many deep conversations we've had about it, and she makes it easy for me to be me. She shares a ton of my values, and after years of feeling like I had to be someone I was not in order to get a date, it feels incredible that I can just be me and that person loves that. It meant the world to me to see so many people go out of there way to say how happy they were for me, and to see the tweet get almost 1k likes made me feel a very special feeling. I love my job, and I've made a lot of personal sacrifices to make this job last a long time. It felt good to feel like IRL finally paid off as well in that regard. So thank you all for being cool about it and being happy for that!

2020

--Stream--
2020 is hopefully the year that I take YouTube Seriously. I've been seeing so many friends kill it on YouTube, and every year I've tried to do something, I always lose motivation. Because I jump around a lot, i feel like it's really hard to establish any kind of audience that makes sense. One week I might be binging on Mafia, the other I could be doing poke randos, and the next I could be back on ZOOTR. So I'm going to try and take serious attempts at figuring out a solution that works. I'm not even really trying to make $$ on YT atm, I just want to be able to use it as a tool to get more people to my Twitch.

I'm also super excited about the range of games we will be playing in 2020! I'll be starting it off HOT with La Mulana after I get back from AGDQ. This is a game that I feel like a bunch of people have been wanting to see me play forever. It's always scary to start a Let's Play of a longer, more cryptic game. But I'm excited to try my hand at it and get to work. I also think that Pokemon will prob be a big part of the stream in 2020. There are a lot of Pokemon games to play, and I think the last few months has made it very clear that people in my channel like Pokemon. If you do not like Pokemon, I promise I will be doing plenty of other things, but don't be surprised if 2020 has way more Pokemon than 2019.

Also, I really really want to do a lot more community things! Discord Wars 4 is a guarantee, but I've talked about doing a charity marathon where people within my community can stream on my channel to help raise money for a Animal Shelter esque charity. Getting a Dog has made me realize how important pets are, and I'd love to be able to give back in that regard. I also just want to do more stuff like WoW with subs. So if community members have ideas, please let me know!

MOMAM5 is SOON. Too soon. Spike and I have been busy making sure this year is GREAT. The schedule should be done soon, but we have the game list narrowed down and I've shared it with a couple of people, and they all seem very happy with it. We plan on doing more this time around, so expect T-shirts and maybe some other merchandise so you can support that! We also have some cool ideas for incentives that will be different than the last years but I think you all will like a lot. MOMAM is always a super special time for me, and I'm excited to share it with you all.


-LIFE-

This one I'll keep short, because I have no idea where life will take me in 2020, but I do expect to travel a bit more this year then past years. It's nice having someone that you want to go to places with, which makes me more willing to travel! Also 2020 is the year of Japan. It's been a trip a few of my friends and I have been talking about for a while, and it's finally happening. Dates are still TBH, but I'm super excited to finally do this and experience the culture.



But yah, 2019 owned. 2020 will also own. Thank you for allowing me to do this job full time. I love this job. I really mean that, somedays are weird and tough, but overall I wouldn't trade this job for anything. 2020 could be weird at times trying to balance IRL more with my job, but know that the content will continue to be top notch, and if anything prob better now that some IRL things are improving. Have a good one gamers.

- Pie