The Reason For My Decline In Streaming Activity

There's something that's been eating away at me for the past few months that I haven't exactly been open about when it comes to streaming. With the way I tend to carry myself during streams there would be no way of really knowing there was something up, as I almost always respond to any questions regarding how I'm doing/feeling with "doin good." In regards to my life outside of streaming things could be better, but it's definitely nothing worth complaining about (so no worries in that regard). However, a number of people have probably noticed a pretty huge decline in my streaming as a whole over the past few weeks (and a small decline over the past few months). Yesterday I announced that I was going to take a break from streaming after doing a rather short and micless cast (except for the very end of the stream). This break could last a few days or maybe a lot longer, but I feel like explaining a bit about what's been going on through my mind for quite some time might help speed up the process. Long story short, I feel that streaming might end up affecting me in a negative way unless I get my thoughts in check prior to jumping back on board.

I watch a variety of streams on Twitch, ranging from the small channels that get 5 views on a good day to the big streamers with at least 1000 views no matter what they play. I watch streams with nothing but gameplay on stream and I watch streams with social media handles, donation notifications, sub notifications, <insert bot here> promoting stream support, and even follower notification (though when you already have partner and sub I tend to not watch if you have a follower notification on top of that). With that being said, there have been a number of things running through my mind when it comes to my stream which do nothing but conflict with one another. At first it was something that I wouldn't give the time of day, the thought of turning my stream into something more than a hobby. I would always say things like "I wish I had partner just so I can get the transcoding" before I actually had it. Although that statement was true in the beginning, as time moved on I would find myself wanting to slowly but surely hit that play an ad button without saying so much of a word about doing it. It's something that I still haven't done to this day, but how much longer will that be the case? Not too long after getting partner I got a sub button, something I thought I'd never get when I decided to apply for it after motivation from others. From then twitch kind of became what youtube was to me, something I normally did out of love and willingness to do so but now with the ability to make a bit of money to go towards things in my life. It was really cool to do exactly what I had been doing for the longest but now get some money in the process, and that's how I always looked at it. Although my youtube channel didn't really grow nor decline as much since I initially was partnered there, the amount of money I got did take a hit due to adblock and such (though I didn't care much about it, I was happy to get whatever came my way since something was better than nothing). The amount of money I made from subs on twitch was really nice however, as I knew exactly what was to be expected due to the nature of having a sub vs. playing an ad with x number of viewers with y viewers being subtracted who can't receive an ad for whatever reason. To this day I'm grateful for each and every sub I have ever gotten from the day subscription was enabled on my channel, especially considering that the only incentives anyone who subs to my channel gets are the standard emotes and sub badge (no sub only multiplayer, immunity from links, or any other special treatment as such). All was fine with twitch, I was treating it just like I was treating youtube in regards to doing the same things that I always did. However, I started to question my own decisions later down the road...

As I continued to watch the bigger streamers on twitch, it started to get to me quite a bit. I would watch streamers getting 10+ subs and 10s, sometimes 100s of dollars in donations time and time again. Some would have sub goals, tons of sub incentives, donations wars, donation incentives, sub/donation notifications all of that razzle dazzle in order to influence people to throw money at them. One of the primary things that seems to drive people to sub to channels is the emote selection, and there's a reason I bring this up specifically. Most of you who have been around my channel pre-SGDQ will know that I have made a ton of changes to my emotes, and this is where one of those conflicting things in my mind lies. I would constantly tell my subs that I simply wanted them to have the best emote selection possible for usage on twitch, basically my way of giving back to them for what they have given me. This could very well be true, but at the same time there's a part of me that's saying that I'm only doing this in an attempt to drive more people to sub to my channel. It could be those who have been on the fence about subbing, those who may not have thought of it in the past, and maybe even those who don't even watch my channel to begin with. There are plenty of people that have never seen me mad on twitch, but there's was one day where I legit raged at some people in someone else's stream over, of all things, MY SUB EMOTES. That was probably where I first started to realize that the idea that I could be making a lot more money on twitch was really getting to me, but it wasn't the last. There were days where I was legit thinking about changing my stream demeanor, maybe even get a sub notification, possibly a bot to remind people that there are a number of ways to support my stream, the whole nine yards. On the days that I feared I would make that change I refrained from streaming, and on the days that I was already live and those thoughts began to surface I would close up stream for the day. At this stage of the game it only gets worse, and I'll elaborate why.

I talked about time and time again that I probably would never become a full-time streamer due to the nature of what it warrants, to become successful there are a number of things that are advisable to do that may not fit the demeanor of everyone. In addition to that, there's no telling how long this particular type of job would last (primarily because it involved how the gaming companies decide to handle to particular "career" streamers have chosen). It honestly pisses me off when I catch myself even thinking about the things that I think, one in particular more so than others which happened not too long ago. If the day ever came that I decided to implement sub notifications and the like, I would find myself jeopardizing some relationships that I've had with a number of online friends (though I won't state any names). Although I feel like that alone should be enough of a reason to keep myself in check, I then start to think of all of the friends and acquaintances that I've had over all of my years on Earth that I still keep in touch with. Aside from family and less than a handful of friends from college, that number comes out to a 0 as far as I know. This starts bringing up thoughts that I honestly could make this transition and still be perfectly fine, which could be true. When I think up shit like that it honestly makes me wonder if nowadays I'm trying to stay true to myself, or simply hide who I truly am. I remember time and time again saying that it's easy to say that you wouldn't do something when the opportunity hasn't presented itself to you, and now I'm actually experiencing that first hand.

So here I am today, 23 year old DsS with a degree in a field he doesn't care much about, whose one dream while growing up was to make money off of playing video games (as a game tester back in the day), now presented with that opportunity, who potentially has a lot to gain and potentially has a lot to lose based on the decision that he makes. This is why I decided to take a break from twitch, because I need a moment get my thoughts in order and really think about what I want to do when it comes to platform that is livestreaming. Regardless of what happen to me based off of the decisions that I make, I can honestly say that I've enjoyed all of the hours of information and entertainment that I have shared with you all both live and on demand. This pastebin might be all over the place in terms of the information it conveys and it doesn't cover every single detail, but I feel like I really needed to get this off my chest. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I'll see you when I see you. Peace