Drex's Thank You + Push for Partner Announcement

Hi there,

If you are reading this it’s because you are a really cool person and you have some interest in the things that I do, more specifically you have an interest in my twitch channel.This is a very long read, so I apologize for that, but I really needed to get all of this off my chest!

On November 14th 2010 I did my first stream, back when twitch was called justin.tv. Over the past 8  years I’ve on again off again streamed and over the years it became an escape from normal life… if I had a bad day at work or things were kind of rough at home, I’d pop on twitch and hope to have a friendly person show up and chat with me. I had never really taken it too seriously though minus a handful of attempts at keeping a set schedule. From 2015-late 2017 I basically had no activity on twitch though, because of advancing prospects in my career… I was always itching to come back though. In July of 2017 I started playing a lot of PUBG, mainly focusing on grinding out the solo leaderboards… in October when I finally cracked the top 100 I thought to myself “maybe people will watch this on twitch” so once again I decided to fire up OBS and give it a whirl. After my first stream because of the way twitch retroactively handles achievements I was invited to become an affiliate… I thought nothing of it, filled out the forms and got myself a sub button that I thought no one would ever click.

On October 31st 2017 I got my very first sub, my little brother, quickly followed by 2 other friends. I was over the moon. I remember telling them “sorry guys, I’m really busy at work I doubt I’ll be able to stream much but I appreciate the support!”
The very next day, November 1st I went to work just like every other normal weekday. I absolutely loved my job. I left a very steady job at Target of Nearly 10 years to take the position of Manager for a business concept that would allow me to work with one of my biggest passions in life – animals. The day started out like any other, I came in a bit early and did a quick cruise around the building saying hi to a lemur, marveling at a Bell’s Phase Lace Monitor and wondering how in the heck I was ever so lucky to be in a position like I was. But I quickly realized this morning wasn’t a normal morning, for whatever reason everyone in the building seemed on edge. I clocked in and walked to my office, the door was locked. I thought it was strange, but not completely out of the norm. if someone was being written up or something like that, my office was the office used for those things. I walked around the corner and heard the door open behind me, I saw one of the other manager’s being escorted out the back exit by another manager and our company’s lawyer. My immediate though was “I wonder what the hell he did wrong?” but before I could even reach the sales floor, the lawyer called to me and asked me to please come to the office.

I was asked to sit down across the room from another manager and the lawyer… the other manager delivered the news: “as of today the company has decided to phase out the retail aspect of the company and your services will no longer be needed”. I was in complete shock and it felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. I was speechless, when asked if I had any questions I couldn’t even think of anything to ask. Never in my life had I felt so overwhelmed with a mixed bag of emotions. I was asked if I had any personal property in the building that I needed to retrieve. Immediately I responded “yes I have a snake in one of the breeding rooms”. The manager gave me a snarky look and said that the owner had told her I had no animals in the building. I nearly lost it right then and there, but luckily the lawyer picked up on my body language and suggested she call the owner again. I could hear the owner say “I never told you he had no animals there, he has a snake in the breeding room.” In a daze, I was escorted to grab my snake, walked to the exit, asked to relinquish my keys and told to leave the premises. I hadn’t driven to work that day… So I had to wait in the parking lot for an Uber. The driver was only 5 minutes away but it felt like a literal life time. The ride home was silent.
I got in the house, sat down and thought to myself what now? I called my girlfriend to let her know what happened, I found myself dealing with what would become crushing depression by being angry. The anger motivated me to get a few things taken care of quickly, like filing unemployment. As the day wore on though, depression sunk in… before you know it, it was 1am and I wasn’t even tired in the slightest. I needed someone to talk to but at that time I only followed a couple friends and a few larger streamers on twitch. I randomly browsed through who my friends were hosting and noticed my buddy gerk hosting a stream labeled “tadpog_podcast” playing Mario Odyssey. I hopped in the channel and said hi and was immediately overwhelmed with people saying hi and asking how I was. The streamer introduced himself as Dave and told me that TADPOG was “tyler and dave play old games”, the title of a podcast he and his friend did, but that only he streamed on twitch. I tried to avoid telling them how I was for a few moments but eventually I told the chat what had happened. Getting it off my chest and being met with positivity made me feel much better.
After hanging out with Dave and his chat for a few hours I quickly realized that I wanted to do what dave did. While he didn’t have a ton of viewers, he had an amazing community that immediately made me feel better about the situation. While watching his stream I started working on a schedule for my own channel. I started streaming full time the very next day. Dave shared his community with me every chance that he could which really gave me a big kickstart to my journey as a full time streamer.
Over the next few months I would continue to battle depression on a daily basis, but twitch, whether as a viewer or a streamer always brought light to my life. I honestly feel like it saved my life. The combination of using twitch as a coping mechanism and the sense of community I enjoyed from not only Dave’s stream but other smaller streamers has really been the inspiration for what I want my own stream and community to be.
Fast forward to today and I am ecstatic about how far not only my stream has come but I have come as a person and I owe it all to the friends I’ve made on twitch. A month ago I hit 1000 followers, as of the time I’m typing this I have over 1200 followers. A few days ago I did a 24 hour stream and together we were able to raise over $1000 for St Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Over the past 5 months I’ve partaken in DGDS which has raised over $25,000 for charitable causes, Power Up With Pride that raised over $10,000 for The Trevor Project and Keizathon which completely knocked out Keizaron’s cancer treatment bills. Being able to do good things for other people has become something I want to continue to do on a daily basis.
I’ve been absolutely blessed (which as a non-religious person, is a word I use very infrequently) to have not only the support I’ve received so far on twitch, but the platform to be able to do something bigger than myself… and without all of you none of that would be possible, so THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart. I don’t have words to express my gratitude to each and every person who has followed, subbed, lurked, chatted or just even stopped by my channel. It has been a truly transformative and humbling experience.
But what’s next?
In the past I’ve been reluctant to really speak about my twitch goals other than making it known here and there “yes partnership is a goal of mine”, but I haven’t really done anything outside of that. I see other streamers putting “push for partner” or “path to partner” in their stream title and to me it just seems a little click baity… especially when numbers they are pulling in don’t really support that being a reality. I feel like you should really always focus on building your community and allow them to dictate when it’s time to make that push for partner… and up until about a month ago I didn’t think I was there yet. Slowly but surely on a nightly basis though, we have been pulling in 50+ viewers, with an active chat and a real comfy feeling. Every time a new face pops in to chat someone is there to greet them and make them feel at home. In the month of July alone I have had close to 200 new follows… which absolutely blows me away.
So at the request of several of my supporters, I am going to make a real “push for partner”. I don’t’ know if I will put that in my stream titles or anything like that, but I will be talking about the prospects of partnership a little bit more here and there and be keeping you guys updated on the progress. I don’t ever anticipate, expect or even want to get so big that I can’t keep that comfy feeling stream a thing though, so please, don’t think that that will change. I will however be making an effort to adjust the content schedule (not necessarily the time frame) a little bit as follows:
Mon,Tue,Wed: Speedrunning/Speedrunning adjacent content (casual playthroughs of games or speedrun consideration, learning new runs, etc.)
Thursday,Friday: Castlevania Quest (and when that finishes a new “________ Quest”, there will be a poll to decide on the next series)
Saturday: Sub Saturday: T2+ Subscribers/Patrons will have an entire stream dedicated to a game of their choice. You will only need to T2 once to get this.
Sunday: Off day normally, BUT if I do stream on Sundays it will be viewer appreciation day – Jackbox, Marbles or any other activity we can do that everyone can partake in. If you have any ideas for this please feel free to post it in the #gamesuggestions channel on my discord. I will do these streams at least once per month, with the first one happening this Sunday July 29th at 9PM PST.
I will also be making an effort to branch out a little bit on our raids and hosts. I would like to share the amazing community we have with others, so I will be making a !nominate command. Viewers will be able to nominate a candidate to receive the host at the end of the stream. While I may override this from time to time, I encourage you guys to share your favorite streamers, large or small with this feature.
I have other ideas but I haven’t really fleshed them out yet, so stay tuned for that. I expect nothing from you all, but if you do wish to continue to support me achieve the goal of partner, the most important thing you can do for me is just show up, even if it’s just to drop a lurk! I couldn’t have got where I am without you all and I won’t be able to achieve my goals without you… but know that I appreciate the love and support more than I will ever be able to articulate.

Thank you all so much, I look forward to seeing you during the next stream and I am excited about what the future will bring!