Every day I wake up and ponder the same question: “should I stream today?”
If it’s not in the form of a question, then it’s in the form of an assertion: I should stream today, which I usually think with a bit of a sigh. Maybe this has somehow become my new existential mantra: if I’m not seen, then am I even real?
Have you ever seen Scott Pilgrim vs. the World? The movie about Scott, the gawky college dude who meets Ramona, the super cool manic pixie dream girl, and he wants to date her, but has to defeat her 7 evil exes before her heart can be his.
Well, “being a successful streamer” is my Ramona, and I have to defeat my 7 evil excuses for why I struggle to stream consistently 🥴
Why does consistency matter?
Wait a second, before we even dig into what makes me constantly fail at my dreams, why does it even matter if you’re consistent anyway? Shouldn’t you just be able to boot up your stream whenever you want, and your audience will show up, too?
Unfortunately, no.
Imagine you’re standing in front of a very tall set of stairs that leads to a mountain summit. You’ve tied your little shoes nice and tight, you don’t want to be here climbing all day. You want to be at the top of that mountain yesterday.
So you’re going to get to the top of the mountain faster than should be possible by going really hard right out of the gate. You get yourself a nice running start and take leap after leap (after leap) up the stairs, muscles tensing and burning with each upward plunge, your breath eventually coming in shorter bursts, and your vision beginning to subtly blur. Coming to a gradual stop, you realize you won’t have any more energy for awhile, but you’re confident because you must be close to the top, anyway, right? Upon assessing your position, you realize with exhaustion and defeat that you’ve barely made a dent in the climb and now you have no motivation to even keep going at all.
We’ve all heard this tale time and time again in stories like The Tortoise and the Hare. Slow and steady wins the race. Pacing yourself with one gentle, sustainable step after another will get you to your destination in much better shape than those who try to take it in leaps and sprints occasionally when their energy allows. Some might not ever make it to the top at all.
Stepping away from the metaphor and making this a little more personal, though, people are simple creatures and “out of sight, out of mind” will take over at a certain level of absence on your part.
“Oh, wow, I haven’t seen you in forever, I totally forgot you existed” is a very real thing on the internet.
On top of that, the social media algorithms do not reward flaky inconsistency. These platforms want to make money, dammit, and you need to be churning out content to keep their userbase entertained as often as possible (but not too often, or else they’ll get content fatigue).
So what stands in my way? What are my go to excuses when I know I need to be making content, but I just can’t muster the energy for the day?
Here are the 7 Evil Excuses I use to avoid streaming:
- I don’t always want to be on camera
- It’s mental illness, luv
- Analytics are discouraging af
- Streaming feels like high school
- It’s hard to strike a good work-life balance
- Tech difficulties suck
- I just feel like I’m wasting my time
I don’t always want to be on camera
One of the biggest reasons I end up canceling a stream has to do with my ability to feel “camera ready” on a daily basis. Back when I was working at a coffee shop, you only needed to show up with a smile, ready to serve customers and perhaps chat with them as they waited on their Chai Latte. I didn’t feel this immense pressure that I had to be beautiful at all times on the job. This let me relax a lot in my daily work routine, and ultimately working as a barista was something I was able to stay more consistent with than streaming.
Why do I feel the need to look good all the time as a streamer? Because you never know when you’re about to have a standout moment, your new golden clip, the one you’ll want to post all over your social media for months to come. You never know who’s going to raid you that day; you never know who’s watching. So I want to look presentable since everything I’m doing is being video archived on the internet, where nothing ever dies. Of course I could just YOLO this and not give a heck what I look like, but I’ve definitely noticed throughout my years of makeup artistry & cosplay, that when I’m in a look I’m proud of, I tend to have higher confidence and perform better.
There’s been so many times in the past where I’ve gone through 5 or more outfits, or several different wigs, or different makeup looks, only to finally give up, realizing that I can’t stand how I look that day and there’s no way I’m going to appear on video in this condition. A pile of dejected “costumes” will lay in the floor as I slump into the covers for a Netflix binge instead.
This is certainly “just mental health things” but the hurdle of being perceived on camera is one of the deadliest nails in the coffin of my ability to stream on a daily basis.
This line of thought could lead us into a discussion of the pros and cons of vtubing or streaming without a camera, but maybe we’ll save that for another day.
It’s mental illness, luv
Being a full time content creator and struggling with an extensive cocktail of mental health disorders is no laughing matter. I keep thinking at some point in my life, I’m going to have it all together and just be able to manage my mental health while still being a normal functioning member of society, but that day has yet to come.
The biggest mental health hurdle I struggle with in regards to being a consistent streamer is my bipolar disorder. Not only do I go through long-form mood shifts (a couple of months of general depression, versus a few months of an energetic upswing leading to overproduction and mania), but I also find myself rapid cycling through these extremes on a weekly and sometimes daily basis.
What this can look like for me is at the start of the month I have planned an over ambitious schedule of daily streams, multiple weekly youtube videos, a new podcast series, an ambitious art project, and a handful of collabs. Two or three weeks into executing this plan I’ve hit my limit and expended all my energy. So I disappear for weeks (sometimes months?) on end because I can’t keep up with the routine I set up for myself during a manic period. As time passes, slowly my energy starts to return and I begin plotting my “come back to streaming” which usually has a bunch of bells and whistles and yet another over ambitious schedule of events.
This back and forth continues and continues(and continues) and I have yet to find the balance, hence my sporadic & unpredictable production schedule over the years.
Analytics are discouraging af
I think the worst part of streaming is how tied my self worth is to my view count or my follower count. I know this isn’t just a struggle for content creators, because everyone who uses social media is subjected to the comparison of who has how many followers, and who gets how many likes. Life as a full time streamer, though, means that your view count (or like count) is directly linked to your paycheck and how likely brands are to work with you.
The sad truth of streaming: if you’re not popular, you don’t make money.
Throughout the many years I’ve been streaming, I’ve struggled greatly with comparing my analytics to my friends, or other streamers I follow as we all grow. Time and time again I’ve seen people start streaming years after I did, but they skyrocket seemingly overnight and have double or triple my numbers in a fraction of the time.
This often makes me question what I’m doing wrong, why I’m stagnating and getting nowhere, which in turn just destroys my motivation.
On the flip side, as view count and follower count grow, something that is generally considered a good thing, I often find my anxiety growing as well. There’s a pressure that comes with more eyes on your content: a fear of judgment, wondering who everyone is and if they’re watching you with good intentions or not. A desire not to disappoint anyone or cause them to click unfollow.
Likes and dislikes, follower and subscriber count: these are all publicly visible numbers as well, so the realization that everyone else can see you failing or succeeding adds another level of self consciousness into the mix. I think this is one of the reasons I like my website and blog so much: there aren’t numbers associated with it that are publicly visible. No one knows how “popular” my blog is or isn’t. It’s just content speaking for itself.
If I could just turn off follower count, likes and dislikes, then I would. The vast majority of my stress and doubts comes from whether other people like and follow what I’m doing. Which is definitely wack, and I need to stop caring about what other people think; but that’s like asking a dog not to chase a rabbit. It’s just in their nature 😩
Streaming feels like high school
I was genuinely surprised how much social politics, cliques and drama circled around twitch my first year on the platform. Here I am now, seven years later, and I can’t believe anyone wouldn’t expect those things on such an ego driven social platform.
When I think back to high school, I remember walking down the hallways and wishing I had more friends, that I was popular. The various cliques huddled around each other, and I could feel their passive judgmental gazes as I walked by. I considered myself a social butterfly, but this was really just a nice way of saying I didn’t belong anywhere. Now on twitch I see the crop up of different groups, not too different from the “jocks, freaks and preps” of high school: the edgelord FPS players, the wholesome minecraft SMP squads, the Square Enix anime nerds, the cozy animal crossing gamers, etc.
According to psychology academics, clique formation is actually not unique to our high school experiences — the existences of Twitter cliques boils down to our human nature. Dr Michael Muthukrishna — assistant professor of economic psychology at London School of Economics — says this “tendency to form in-groups and out-groups” is a core part of human nature. Not only that: this part of us long outlasts our teenage years. Robin Dunbar — professor of evolutionary psychology at University of Oxford — tells me that clique formation is “a natural pattern” for us which “remains a feature of our social world throughout life.”
Twitter Cliques might feel like high school, but their existence is tied to our human nature; by Rachel Thompson
Seeing these clusters of liked minded people networking with each other, raiding and collaborating creates the ever present FOMO that we’re all suffering under lately: I want to belong. I want to be part of the group, what can I do to get the invite? Couple this with all the social media gurus shouting “NICHE DOWN, NICHE DOWN, NICHE DOWN” at us and you have a delicious recipe for a wayward content creator selling their soul to the algorithm.
Don’t even get me started on the social politics, cancel culture and drama aspect of Twitch.
The subtweeting, moral posturing and virtue signaling; the rehashing of tired topics like booby streamers and starting soon screens just for the sake of engagement farming on twitter. It’s exhausting and mind numbing, but once again: all the cool kids are doing it, so maybe you should join in too so you get some likes and follows out of it.
The worst part of all of this is that the aglorithm rewards engagement: if you don’t post engaging content, your posts start to get buried under the dreaded “shadow ban” in favor of “better” content that keeps users on the platform longer. The pressure to participate in the dog & pony show is at an all time high, and your morals are at stake as you question: do I want more eyes on my content, or do I want to stay untainted by the trending topics and buzzwords?
It’s hard to strike a good work / life balance
Streaming is an extreme sport that requires not only the high energy levels needed to multitask and entertain while playing a video game, but also marketing skills, editing, networking, social media strategizing, and so much more. All these tasks are done while sitting in a computer chair. So, naturally, my physical health has fallen to the wayside while I try to juggle all the various tasks needed for planning, creating and promoting a successful stream presence.
How many tweets have you seen like this?
Recently I’ve been trying to prioritize getting into the gym so I can sort out my physical health, but this has caused my stream hours to slip. Healthy body, or healthy career? Decisions, decisions.
And what about time to socialize with my friends and family, time for self care and grooming, time to spend outside in the sun touching grass, and just some nice free time for relaxing? I have never gotten the balance of work and life right while I’ve been pursuing a career as a streamer.
Streaming also invites a strange blurring of the line between work and play. All my favorite hobbies become content. My friends and social activities turn into collabs. My viewers can become my friends, advisors, pupils, romance interests, enemies, etc. Where is the line, and how do I recognize when its a step too far? This is a complicated dance of Boundaries that I have yet to master.
Truthfully this has been the most painful stress in my streaming career
It has caused me to walk away more times than anything else on this list. Parasocial relationships can make you to feel like strings are attached to your paycheck in a way that I’ve never seen before at any other job. My 9-5 corporate data entry job was simple, yet soul sucking: I did the work, the paycheck was mine and I don’t owe them anything else besides my 40 hours.
Sadly, the amount of times I’ve received messages from “loyal” viewers who were angry that I wasn’t giving them enough attention even though they donated $x amount of money would probably surprise you. The emotional guilt and manipulation that comes along with the paycheck can sometimes make streaming feel like a mistake, and I find myself pining for the days of grey cubicles and a clear “clock in” and “clock out” time.
Tech difficulties suck
There’s nothing worse than getting your hair, makeup and outfit all done up with social media posts prepped, only to find out your lights or camera aren’t working, or your microphone has a weird high pitched noise on it all of a sudden, or your OBS deleted half your scenes somehow.
There are so many different technical components to streaming and at any point one of those things could just stop working or malfunction. This is often completely out of your control and is just part of the job: dealing with technical difficulties without absolutely losing your mind.
What’s worse is when these issues happen while you’re already live and sometimes you just have to end the stream early because you can’t figure out what’s going wrong, and the screeching sound on your microphone has made your stream absolutely unwatchable.
All the work and effort that went into preparing yourself to go live in the first place is totally destroyed and now you’re ready to trade your streamer lifestyle for the vanlife minimalism lifestyle instead.
I just feel like I’m wasting my time
As time goes on, streaming on twitch is seeming less and less like the best use of your time if you’re trying to grow an online career. The amount of time and effort that goes into producing one youtube video that might continue gaining views and followers for months, even years to come, makes all the effort that goes into a stream (that’s no longer worth watching just a few days later) seem a little pointless.
Especially as short form video content like Tiktok, Youtube Shorts & Instagram Reels start to become the main source of entertainment, and as Twitch starts to destroy itself from the inside out with its overbearing, unskippable “1 out of 6 ads” invading the content and chasing the viewers away.
I’m beginning to question if the 20 hours I would have spent streaming that week might be better served producing a nicely polished youtube video and a handful of shortform videos instead.
Taking this even farther, I wonder why I spend so much time at my computer at all. I have over 3500 hours logged in a game like Overwatch, and yeah my reaction times are top notch as a result, and I usually snatch things out of the air as they get knocked over with lightning fast speeds… but couldn’t that time have been better served at the gym? Or learning a language or musical instrument? The monetization of video games has created a built in excuse for a bit of laziness in myself, since I’m “making content” not just lounging and playing games, right?
so how do I defeat the excuses?
I don’t know that I really do. Every day is a struggle to find the motivation to do something, to make something, to be something. Even writing this blog has been a 3-day struggle, and I keep side glancing at Minecraft or Overwatch thinking how much easier it would be to just chill out with my friends for a little bit. But I push through. I think that’s what it always boils down to, is pushing through. Sitting in the frustration, the procrastination, the existentialism and then deciding to move forward anyway.
There are two scenes from movies that destroyed me as a child. [spoilers for 20+ year old movies ahead]
One was in The NeverEnding Story when our hero Atreyu is on a journey through Fantasia in search of the Childlike Empress, with his trusty steed, Artax. At one point, they stumble across The Swamp of Sadness. It is here that Artax, a powerful vessel who helps Atreyu through many trials and tribulations, is finally swallowed by his own despair and meets his end by sinking into the Swamp.
And the second scene that broke my lil heart was in Homeward Bound, a movie about three pets (Shadow the Golden Retriever, Chance the Boxer, and Sassy the Himalayan Cat) who believe they’ve been left behind forever when their family goes on vacation. The trio go on a journey through the California wilderness to return home and find their family; and as they near the end of this voyage, our kind-hearted friend Shadow finds himself stuck in a deep mud pit. He’s a bit old, and struggles to climb out of the mud before he finally sinks into defeat, even though the fun-loving Chance is begging him not to give up.
Hunting these gifs down even brought some tears to my eyes. It’s interesting that in both of these examples, Shadow and Artax are giving up in spite of being cheered on by those who love them. Their defeat costs their loved ones just as much.
I don’t want to give up in the Swamp of Sadness or the Mud Pit of Despair. I don’t care how old I am, or how hard it is, or how tired I get. I want to keep pushing, and climbing and growing stronger with every hurdle I overcome.
I might need to adjust my strategy, or ask for help, or sit down and rest for a bit like Shadow did before he finally gathered the strength he needed to drag himself from the mud pit in spite of all odds. But I’ll keep going no matter what. I won’t let a bunch of silly excuses stand in my way of following my heart.