The 1 Up Mentality

This thought has been on my mind for quite some time, and I just wanted to share because I think this is something that literally every streamer goes through. This was too short of a thought for a Streambig article, and too long of a thought for a tweet thread. So I just thought I'd make a quick paste and share.

I consistently deal with the pressure of 1-Uping myself and continue to create content that matches the last cool thing I did. I use to feel this way ALL THE TIME after a big event like MOMAM. Where the highs of a month long event where viewership was at its peak, where subs were at their peak, and everything felt great. I'd take a few days off, and the immediate pressure to bring MOMAM like entertainment was super real. I typically would spend the next month or two kind of just streaming whatever and I always got down on myself for not being as good as MOMAM. This year I felt it even more w/ how successful IronMON was going for my channel. I was hitting insane numbers for something I created and I was having a ton of fun, but I was constantly living in this fear of "what do I do next."  I didn't want to pencil myself into just streaming Pokemon Content, and I def felt the pressure of knowing when to move on before my userbase got sick of it. This pressure to create the next thing for me that was going to be as good as IronMON was super stressful and  there was this constant fear of not being able to 1 up that. Like I already talked myself into thinking that whatever new challenge I wanted to accomplish was going to crash and burn. I've sabotaged myself in the past by giving up on cool ideas/projects too soon because initially the numbers weren't as good as "MOMAM" or Mario Maker days.

It turns out, I got into my head and was wrong. A ton of the new stuff I've been doing with YoC have been going great and a lot of that comes from feeling confident in my content, confident in myself, and not giving up on an idea because the first couple of streams don't necessarily blow up like some games. I think as content creators we all fall into that trap too quickly. We want to catch the next big thing, and when it immediately doesn't do it, we give up and move on. This is something that I will prob still struggle with, but I'm learning to have more trust in myself, and trust in the process of "If I'm having fun, and I'm enjoying what I'm doing, I'm putting out the best content I can, and my audience will slowly come around to it." There are absolutely times games will just not perform well. THIS IS OKAY, and it's completely fine to cut bait after while.  But don't be so quick to give up on something, just because it immediately didn't do as well as some of your other stuff. And don't feel like you NEED to have something that is better than the last thing. I poll my viewers on what game they had found my stream from. The list is always diverse and huge! Some found me from Paper Mario, others from SMRPG and other various speedruns. Then theres Mario Maker, then there's Pokemon, and there's just a slew of casual games or random binge games I've played. You have no idea how often loyal, supporting viewers are finding you stream something that you didn't peak with. You're growing your channel slowly and you don't even know it! Don't give up or think just about # of viewers etc.

I'm a firm believer in just being consistent with the content over time will do way more for your own growth + your own mental health. But breaks are good and okay! Your viewers will be there! If you want to stream some random game for a month because you want to, go for it! Have faith in the process you've been using and don't beat yourself up if you aren't always hitting a #'s goal. Have faith in your content, because I know for a fact your viewers have faith in you!