sym vs streaming
so on my way to work, i remembered a clip from one of my old streams, where i got ambushed (raided) by a bunch of people who demanded halloween candy and ran, before throwing toilet emojis when we figured out where they had come from. in the clip, the audio clip of people following me played a few times, and i got overwhelmed and flustered.
and it felt weird because i knew that most, if not all of that energy, was part of a fabricated persona.
now, i don't think all of it was a persona, but, i do think that it was an overly-dramatizised version of myself at the time.
at the time, i was streaming fairly often— i had friends who were also streaming, and we hopped around and were guests of each others streams, often streaming at the same time. i think i wanted to be a streamer? and as a streamer, you kind of have to play it up for the camera a bit to keep people’s attention.1 the year after, i had a realization that i didn’t really want to be a streamer, i just wanted job security in something i liked doing. on top of that, it made me anxious to be perceived in people’s eyes, since i personally indulge myself in the world of my ocs and fiction a lot.
i dunno what it is, i just don't want you to look at me.2
i got a bit more lax with streaming over time. i think what truly did it in is when i did college level math homework on stream with dan, and got bullied by chat the whole time. it was fun, it was silly, and the most genuine i felt in a long time!
i realized that i didn't want to do xyz things streamers do. i think somewhere in my soul i wanted to make a show out of it, but all it would have done was stress me out, and make me resent it again. coupled with my recovering workaholicism (that’ll be discussed another time), it would have been a recipe for disaster if i was anything other than my authentic self. as of now, i haven't streamed in almost a year. the last time i did a stream was back in january, to force myself to finish a comic on a deadline, and i haven't really found the headspace to do it again. i want to, though. i cleaned up the account, made some of the new stream layout… and i think it’ll be a better reflection of me than i have had streaming in a long time.
the prospect of streaming overall gives still gives me a muddy feeling because of past experiences, but i definitely wanna make new memories! plus, i think it's fun. i used to think of it as like. me being the main show and the pressure that comes with it, rather than me having fun with my friends3 and whatever we get up to— like a little party!
i hope i can reclaim it again. before i tried to stream seriously, i streamed every now and again mostly because i didn't have much else to do and i wanted to hang out.
we'll see though! im not gonna rush coming back, even if i want to at the moment.
as a new streamer at least— you have to have something that makes you different to stand out in the sea of people. whether it be playing up your personality, or doing cool things that bring people towards you. this isnt always the case of course! but people usually want to be entertained, and if you want a job doing it, its your job to provide that.↩
she says, making a blog post to her website that is all of their things about themselves. (don't look at it (
as I usually stream with my friends— streaming on my own is rare because it makes me anxious and feel the need to perform↩