Oh hello there, random reader! It’s been a while since my last long post that wasn’t just about breasts. What have I been up to? I’m glad you asked in this one-sided conversation.
I’ve quit streaming so that’s something. Not necessarily something I’d consider bad, more like extremely liberating.
It’s genuinely freeing to not be a Twitch streamer anymore. It used to be fun, playing wrestling games, and ranking bad ones. I didn’t care about the money or the views because to me, it was just refreshing to just talk to people and do stupid stuff in video games. I didn’t ever see it as a big deal like other people do. To me, it wasn’t about “building a community” and getting all these subscriptions. Yeah, I’ve gotten payouts from Twitch but I never saw it as something to quit my job over and then bitch about why numbers are so low.
It was exhausting mentally to put on a happy face and pretend to be nice to people I actively dislike “just because it’s civil”. “Civil”, meaning, “for the views”. Here’s something about me - I don’t like being disingenuous with people I have no need for. Twitch isn’t a job for me, it’s not my livelihood. It’s just an entertainment website for me and the people I met there, I considered as friends. Big mistake because then you get to see how two-faced a lot of them are. It’s jarring to see someone talk shit about someone else in private and then act all buddy-buddy in public. I hate seeing that. I hate doing that.
It just boiled down to me calling out a former streamer friend for openly flirting with a married man who was being openly flirtatious in public, drawing her art and stuff. It was disgusting. The worst part is that the married man had never seen what the dumb streamer looked like so he was flirting with a cartoon and a voice. Gross. Maybe I could’ve handled it better than posting a cut off photo of Roman Reigns that says “Kill Yourself” on the bottom but it was just exhausting to be around these people I considered friends and I just blew up. Screw that. I didn’t need that drama in my life. I am my own drama.
It was tiring to be in communities where people just cared about views and subscriptions. It was exhausting to be in streams where the streamer’s gimmick is “bullied by chat” and “oh i’m a gamer girl”. That’s like 90 percent of Twitch streamers. That doesn’t make anyone special.
Maybe I’ll stream again in the coming year but I genuinely feel exhausted when I get the urge. Every time I look at the microphone on my desk, I get the urge to start streaming. Then I remember how bullshit my former friends are to me with their clique-y high school bullshit.
The amount of times I’ve seen streamer friends not be in a good headspace is astounding. Maybe you shouldn’t stream if you’re this fragile. Maybe you should just shut up and go play in private. Maybe streaming isn’t for you if you’re this mentally fragile.
