Over the last 2 years or so, I’ve personally tried out streaming, and until recently, I didn’t really realize how lucky I actually was. Though I have stopped streaming for a while due to wanting, I started again in the last few weeks, and honestly, it has been really fun.
I’ve usually held around an average of 15 viewers, which is extremely significant for a channel that’s really just starting off. I’ve also reached a high peak of 98 viewers, which is really astonishing now that I look back on it. I’m already considered a Twitch Affiliate, so I’m able to make money from Twitch through subscriptions and donations. In fact, I’ve probably earned around $1000 over the last 2 years just through Twitch alone – enough to build my very own fairly good computer!
Even with the extremely lucky beginning that I had, it’s been hard to stay consistent. After I took a long break from streaming over the last year, I haven’t reached those same numbers that I had last year, and honestly, it’s to be expected. I wasn’t consistent enough to maintain any form of viewer base, but it’s really been encouraging recently to see that my friends still tune in, even if I don’t really stream that often.
The reason that I say I’m extremely lucky is because there are huge amounts of people who stream for years and years and gain no viewership at all. I was able to find people who enjoyed my stream since I made a lot of friends in a community that supported each other, and I still have many of the same friends today.
Unfortunately, I can’t help but feel bad for the people who haven’t had the chance to entertain people whatsoever. I recently read a post on The Verge that details many peoples’ experiences of streaming to absolutely no one, and how they continue to stream despite the lacking viewership numbers. I honestly think that streaming can be a huge mental burden to someone with a weak mentality – the fact that you might be broadcasting to literally 0 people, even if you put so much effort into your work and gameplay, can be extremely disheartening to say the least. And this can happen for months and even years on end.
I think that many of these streamers should take the same path that I did if they want to become popular, or at least start off with a good baseline in order to make a decent hobby out of streaming. Like I detailed in an earlier post, it’s important to make yourself known in a community before actually dedicating to streaming, as it’s almost impossible to find one specific person out of a sea of aspiring broadcasters.
More importantly, my personal journey throughout this whole streaming process has led me to reconsider how I view my personal relationships. To be honest, I used to be unappreciative of how I viewed friendships, almost taking them for granted in a very bad, selfish way. Because of my experiences with new friends online, I’ve learned to be so much less selfish and it’s actually been a huge growing experience in general.
And as a result of streaming, I’ve also been able to participate in huge projects with a community. I helped to make a lot of cello covers of pop songs for my friends, and even participated in an art/music collaboration that covered the song “Painter”, with over 100 people.
Honestly, streaming and being able to be active in an online community has been a great experience over the last 2 years, in many ways for me. I’m sure I’ll have fond memories and will continue to be involved in the same things for many years to come.
-DZ