Should You Start Streaming in 2026?

Samson: Hello everybody and welcome to Grow Up Level Up, the podcast where we talk about the fun and games that help us grow up as well as the games that helped us and influence our lives as we keep growing up. My name is Samson, and joined to me today is my ever mustachioed co host, Sir Dr. J ⁓
SirDrJM: Hello, that's me. How are you doing? You you usually you usually ask me how I'm doing or something, not just say, There's Jordan. So I was like, Is he gonna say more? Is he gonna say more? ⁓ thank you, thank you. I'm doing great. My mustache is doing great as well. I'm ⁓ I I've finished the last day of school here. That's right. I've finished grade two. And ⁓ now I'm preparing to leave my house for like three weeks. So it's ⁓
Samson: Yes, yes.
Gianni: Ha ha ha.
Samson: All right. All right. All right. How are you doing? How are you doing? ⁓ yeah, right on.
SirDrJM: It's crazy all around, but ⁓ you know, I I'm ready for summer.
Samson: So you're telling me after the kids finish grade two, they get sent out into the wilderness of Alberta? Crazy, crazy.
SirDrJM: They do. That's that's actually how our government works, yes. It's ⁓ finish grade two and push them out the door. So into the mountains. Mm-hmm.
vanessa: ⁓ Fight for their lives.
Cam: You
Samson: Exactly.
Cam: Hehehehe
Gianni: Crazy.
vanessa: Survival of the fittest.
Samson: Well, you might have heard some new voices on this podcast because today we got a s interesting topic. And interesting's an interesting word. We got an exciting topic. I'm gonna be asking three special guests the question of should you start streaming in 2026? Before I get into our housekeeping and all that, I want to introduce the rest of our panel coming in hot, our newest streamer, Vanessa. Welcome to the show.
vanessa: Hello everyone.
Samson: Welcome, welcome in. ⁓ we also have friends of the shows. You know him, Cameron, the French dip design.
SirDrJM: Yeah.
Cam: Hello, hello, hello.
Samson: Amazing. And last but not least, Gianni. What
Gianni: What's going on everybody? Thank you for having me.
Samson: Awesome. Well, thank you all of you guys for joining me today. We are ⁓ like I said, talking about like why start streaming in the year 2026? Is it worth it? Is it like worth enduring the hardships, the grind? ⁓ this panel I brought in for a couple a couple cool reasons, I think. ⁓ we got Vanessa, who is just starting her ⁓ streaming journey. We got Cam.
SirDrJM: Enduring.
Samson: Who has been full time streaming, more or less, for about half a year, just over half a year. Annual. And for Gianni, we are coming up on your one year anniversary of full time content creation, as the cool kids call it. So, so I feel like we got a plethora of experiences here. ⁓ and as well, Jordan, our favorite resident streamer. When does he go on? You'll have to hit the notification bell to know. So make sure you do that. ⁓
Cam: Yeah, since January, yeah.
SirDrJM: That's right. Ye you will never know when I'm going live, but if you catch me live, you'll have a good time. Hopefully. Yeah.
Cam: Ha ha.
Samson: ⁓ I like that. I like that. ⁓ speaking of catching us live, if you are watching live on twitch.tv slash grow up level up, come to the chat, say hi. ⁓ just like Perry Chumon is Blaster Goblin, Endless Dark. We had Batgirl pulling through earlier, we had Cryptid pulling through earlier, Eric Mr. The Human plays as well. Thank you so much for joining us live. ⁓ if you're watching the recording later, that's okay.
vanessa: Hahaha.
Gianni: Absolutely.
Samson: You are probably watching this on YouTube at Grow Up Level Up where you can catch all our VODs and replays as well as on podcast services around the globe. But we are usually live on ⁓ gro twitch.tv slash grow up level up on Tuesday evenings around eight PM Pacific time. That being said, ⁓ and I guess ⁓ for Grow Up Level Up's live streaming journey, this live podcast recording thing is how long have we been doing it, Jordan? Like two months now?
SirDrJM: Live or the other thing? Yeah.
Samson: ⁓ this like being live on YouTube as we record our our episodes for the week.
vanessa: you
SirDrJM: ⁓ yeah. Yeah, two months two months sounds right. We we weren't doing it live for a long time. And then ⁓ I think there were just a few a few episodes where we put questions out to the audience, put surveys out to the audience, and we wanted to get some feedback and stuff like that, like like participation. And I think we both just really ⁓ enjoy having that extra layer of interactivity. ⁓ for me, I mean obviously I I like streaming, that's why I do it casually. ⁓ but it was fun to incorporate it into this. So
Samson: Mm-hmm. Very nice, very nice. And why don't we start there? ⁓ like I said, we're gonna go around this panel. I wanna keep it free-flowing. Chat, if you got questions for our our guests or our hosts, feel free to put them in below. ⁓ but I kind of want to explore this idea of streaming in 2026. Like, why do we do it? ⁓ what's the end goal? Is it worth doing? ⁓ and then maybe everybody can share their tips and tricks they have learned along the way. ⁓ Before we dive into that, I also want to frame it as Vanessa and I bumped into each other at the gym, as you do, all good friends. And then I was like, Hey Vanessa, you I I you're posting on TikTok now? Are you streaming? ⁓ and then Vanessa, you said that you're thinking of starting streaming, is that right?
vanessa: Yeah
SirDrJM: Definitely.
vanessa: Yeah, yeah, basically we ran into each other at the gym and I was like, yeah, I have TikTok and then I was posting like some of my streams on TikTok and I've just like been doing that since I saw you. So haven't had too many streams, but yeah.
Samson: Right on, right on. ⁓ and then like I I'll go around everybody and ask this. But how long have you been streaming? ⁓ what have you like what's your what's your kind of goal with streaming at the moment?
SirDrJM: I think ⁓ before you answer that, you should also plug your channel. Give us the give us the the whole link, give us the Instagrams to ⁓ follow and then when when we get to Gianni and Cam, you guys do the same. Pimp your stuff.
Samson: ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah.
vanessa: Yes, hello. I will send that over into the chat in a second here. But basically, I just started just because I wanted to do something on my days off. With Fire Friday, we have a lot of days off. There's five days off, mostly in between our sets. And I love gaming. I grew up watching like Daz Games, if you watch him, if you know him, or PewDiePie, or Vanoss Gaming, and all those guys. So I just, wanted to get into it because I do love it. And then streaming was more of like a, don't we just do it live and just have fun with it and build an audience and go from there. I've been doing it for, like I said, about a month now. ⁓ Depending on how tired I am from shift work and like the days and stuff like that, it's just, if I can, I will. And if I can, I can, it's kind of thing. yeah.
Samson: Okay, okay. Cool cool. ⁓ bringing it over to Gianni. What's w plug your stuff? What's your relationship with streaming, content creation? What's what's been your goal so far in your
Gianni: Yes. Yes. ⁓ man. So, well, first you can find me at Gianni DeCrasta, ⁓ pretty much everywhere. I'm the only one on the internet. So feel free to do a Google and I'll be the first one to pop up. So ⁓ you can find me on Twitch, YouTube, Instagram. ⁓ those are kind of like my primary ⁓ methods of of posting. But ⁓ when it comes to Twitch streaming, ⁓ typically four days out of the week, five days out of the week. The funny thing for me was like Twitch, when I first started, was not really like ⁓ It wasn't an end goal. It was kind of just more a reason to put my face in front of more people. My real goal, ⁓ which which is kind of now also ⁓ another thing that I'm I'm working on, a big project that I work on is is to get into the podcast ⁓ industry. And Twitch streaming was just kind of a way for me to like practice improvising, being on camera all the time and kind of talking to people off the cuff. It was really just kind of a workout session for me in a way. And it's funny because one of my biggest struggles over the last six months was
SirDrJM: Mm-hmm.
Gianni: Realizing that Twitch streaming is like the thing that I look forward to the most in the morning because, you know, being able to interact with my chat, being able to play games that I really enjoy, it kind of it went from a workout session to like my bread and butter. And I think that was kind of the really interesting thing about Twitch was it was not a goal for me from day one, but I just ended up absolutely falling in love with it just by way of using it as like a practice outlet, which I think was really interesting.
Samson: Cool, cool. And and when can folks find you as well on ⁓ on your streams?
Gianni: ⁓ yeah. So I do ⁓ typically Monday through Friday. ⁓ these days though I've been doing a lot of collab streams ⁓ on Wednesday evenings, but Monday through Friday, nine a.m. Pacific Standard time is usually when I'm going live. And then Wednesdays in the evening, usually around six o'clock Pacific Standard. Yeah.
Samson: Right on. Right on, right on. And Cameron the French tip design. ⁓ aka somebody I drink coffee to in the mornings as I procrastinate starting work. what's your what's your streaming journey like?
Cam: Good.
Gianni: Ha ha ha.
Cam: Oh, I casually started streaming last February. I would do like maybe a stream every two weeks or so, just trying to figure it out, doing it on my laptop. And then was not strong enough to do it on my laptop for very long. So then I put it down for a while. And then once I got laid off in December, I was like, what's a thing that I can do where I can continue to talk to people, not feel so like insular in my own home? which is something I think a lot of us feel if we work from home or work part-time or hybrid. And ⁓ so I started streaming every single weekday starting in January of this year. And like Gianni said, it is one of the best parts of the day. it just is, ⁓ it's an absolute blast to play video games, build a community and just ⁓ kind of get that sense of human connection even though we're literally all over the planet.
Samson: Mm-hmm. I mean, I I I feel like that is also transitions into like my first topic of discussion is what are your guys' pros of streaming? I I heard a couple from other folks for Vanessa, it's like, ⁓ it's the end of the day. I can chill out, it's fun. Gianni, you said it's your favorite part, it's your bread and butter of of your kind of creation journey. And Cam, like you said, as well, it's the community, it's bringing people together. Do you guys have any other pros that you like for?
vanessa: Mm-hmm.
Samson: ⁓ about streaming, about being on Twitch and being live, like face to face with tons of people.
vanessa: I think it's just also easily accessible for a lot of people. Like, it's just like people can just download the Twitch app and then it's just like they can watch whatever they want, which I also really like about it. So for me, that's a pro.
Samson: Mm, okay. Mm-hmm. ⁓ like as a as a watcher, like not even as a as
vanessa: As a watcher and as a user, just like streaming, it's just right there, easily accessible, ready to go kind of thing. yeah.
Samson: Mm. Mm-hmm. Very cool. Cam, Gianni, do you have any other thoughts?
Cam: Other pros, mean, I think I was really inspired when ⁓ you did the Gulu ⁓ end of 2025, started 2026 episode, and you were setting goals for yourself. And one of the goals that Jordan had was I want to play more games with all of these friends that I'm making online. And I was like, I want to do that, too. It's something that my husband, Dave, and I talk about all the time is like, we have all these friends that play video games. We see them playing games with each other like
Samson: ⁓
Cam: the FOMO was so real and I was like, this is probably just an easy way to like interacting with people and ⁓ just starting to like feel an actual sense of community that you could tap into whenever you wanted to play games. And so I'd say a huge pro of it is just like actually building legitimate ⁓ like friendships out of streaming.
vanessa: Hmm
Samson: Yeah, yeah.
Gianni: Yeah, that that was gonna be my thing is like I feel like n I feel like the word networking is like a nasty word. Like but you know what I mean? It it yeah, like it's it's such a gross term. Like I th well, I think it's been made to feel like a gross term, but like
vanessa: Okay.
Cam: You
Samson: ⁓ yeah.
SirDrJM: Gianni, you're so corporate.
Cam: Hahaha
SirDrJM: LinkedIn was the downfall of networking.
Gianni: Yeah, yes, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. But like to to to Cam's point, it's just like the amount of like friends that I've made just being present and in people's ears. And you know, ⁓ I I think for me like Twitch streaming has brought out like an I I've always been a curious person, but like that curiosity, Vanessa, you even mentioned, like people are accessible. Like if I just want to like learn what you're all about, like I can just log on and kind of get a sense of who you are in in an hour.
vanessa: LinkedIn! ⁓ man!
Cam: Uhhhh
Samson: ⁓ LinkedIn.
vanessa: Mm-hmm.
SirDrJM: Mm-hmm.
vanessa: Yeah. Yeah.
Gianni: Lurking in your stream. You know what I mean? Like the amount of people that I've just met where I can just kind of like join a stream and just kind of get a sense of who they are. And now I, you know, I've I've made incredible friends and colleagues and business partners that way. I mean, that's really how I kind of made myself into the or I I found myself in the vicinity of all these people to begin with. Is you know, I always give a shout out to like the drop-in, drop-out spotlight games crew because
Samson: ⁓ yeah.
Gianni: It's just something that popped up as a random thing on my algorithm feed. And now here I am, you know, friends with a lot of these content creators that I used to just kind of like watch silently from from the sidelines. You know what I mean? ⁓ and that's just kind of a beautiful thing. It's it's networking, you know what I mean? But like these are all people that I've actually made friends with. And it's it's it's through through Twitch and and content creation. It's a beautiful thing.
SirDrJM: Yeah. I I mean for me personally I I couldn't agree more with well, everything you guys say, but but yeah, that's that's a big one. ⁓ obviously, I mean, ⁓ a lot of this audience and nice nice pin there, Samson. ⁓ a lot of this audience and these people, you know, the people in chat and everything are are kinda funny best friends, right? Followers of the kinda funny games community. And for me, I mean it's you know, following kinda funny from the beginning was
Cam: Perfect.
SirDrJM: inspirational in a lot of ways what Greg Miller, Tim Geddes, Nick Scarpino, and of Colin Moriarty back in the day were able to do leaving IGN. And I think seeing them grow, grow their company, grow their audience, ⁓ I mean, there's a direct through line from that to ⁓ JK Games, shout out to Jerrica and Kayla, friends of the show. There's a through line from that into drop in, drop out, which is, you know, shout out to Patrick and Jake and Cog and Cayman and Josh. I think that's all of them, right? ⁓ and you know
vanessa: Thank
Gianni: There's like a hundred of them over there, dude. I don't even know.
SirDrJM: ⁓ I mean in in large part like ⁓ those connections are how I mean how we all met each other as well. So ⁓ I think that's ⁓ that definitely doesn't go understated. Look, Nate's in the chat too now. Hey Nate. and yeah, yeah, exactly. We got we got two ⁓ two in the chat now, one live. Where's the other one? Where's Phil? What's Phil up to? ⁓
Cam: I know, geez.
Gianni: ⁓ there's Nate, my co-host.
Cam: You'll never see Phil. He's so elusive. No, no, no.
Gianni: Phil, where is he at? Yeah, I I don't even see Phil.
SirDrJM: The the one thing I was gonna say that ⁓ none of you guys mentioned was ⁓ which I find kinda interesting, is you didn't mention really ⁓ playing games, you know? Getting to play games that, you know, for me, streaming is a way for me to go. I missed out on Outer Wilds, I missed out on Dark Souls. I'm gonna jump in. and it's it's you know, what is streaming if not an excuse to play games more? So
vanessa: Hmm.
Gianni: Yeah.
Cam: Mm-hmm.
vanessa: Choo Choo
SirDrJM: That's of course important, but I think it's it's interesting that all of you guys talked about, you know, the relationships, the people watching, the audience, ⁓ or being a part of that audience. ⁓ and I think that kind of really speaks to ⁓ to what we got going on here, not with just us, but obviously with drop and drop out and ⁓ you know, the larger community. So yeah.
Samson: Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, I echo what everyone's saying here. I think like the like Johnny, you said it, the networking, Hey, and of networking, story motors raiding in with a party of eight, welcome in, Mr. Hawks and like everybody in there. ⁓ just chatting about what it's like streaming in twenty twenty six. What
Gianni: Hey, welcome in. Welcome in, story motor.
Samson: Should we do it? What's the pros and cons? We're talking we're still talking about the pros and it's my turn. I think I think the networking thing is so huge. Like, yes, I've done it in person. My last job was a community manager, so I was showing up to all these random events and chatting. But there is something special about like online friendships, more or less, where the and Twitch in general, where you can just immediately start talking to someone and they will talk back. And it's like, ⁓ now there's already a relationship form. And you could just keep nurturing that relationship and you end up being like coworkers, colleagues, friends, ⁓ even though you've never met in real life, which which I think is only something that like streaming ⁓ can do. Like YouTube to an extent, Discord to an extent. But yeah, all these folks from like drop in drop out, from ⁓ Story Motors of course, ⁓ the content mill and ⁓ all all our different little networks. Vanessa, well I'm throwing up a bunch of other names, but you're gonna be friends with them soon, don't worry. the Yeah yeah.
Gianni: We're friendly we're f we're a friendly circle, yeah. ⁓
vanessa: Okay. I'm like, who are all these people? Who are all these people?
SirDrJM: Very true. Look, if if Vanessa doesn't get at least five more followers from this podcast alone, I'm burning it all down.
Gianni: ⁓ easy dude. Easy.
vanessa: Yeah. Burn it down. Burn it.
Cam: ⁓ yeah, no problem.
Samson: ⁓ yeah, we the and speaking of that, I did pit pin and I think I did it correctly, ⁓ everyone's channels over on the Twitch chat. So if you can give all our guests here a follow if you are not following already. ⁓ but bringing it back, yes, I think that is like the coolest part of Twitch streaming. ⁓ personally I always like never like too much live streaming because I get tired playing like the same game. It's also why I don't play single player games often, but that's just me. ⁓
SirDrJM: Yeah.
vanessa: Mm, clear, very fair.
Samson: 'Cause got tired, but now it's like, ⁓ okay, I I shouldn't think of it as like you're trying to stream long, but really like you are building out a network of people and a community to play games with, not play games for, if that makes sense. Yeah.
Gianni: Yeah. Well, I I mean, I was talking to ⁓ Eric, Mr. the Human in chat. Like, I think I've played more like I because I've never really been like that big of a multiplayer gamer. I love co-op gaming. Like that I do enjoy. But especially in this like Twitch journey that I'm on and the I know it's it's another bad word, but the friend slop era that we're living in now. Like I've done more multiplayer gaming in the last like month and a half than I did in like the five years leading up to that. You know what I mean? Because
SirDrJM: ⁓ no. That's a good word.
Samson: I love it. I love it.
SirDrJM: Mm-hmm.
Samson: Mm-hmm.
vanessa: Hmm.
Gianni: i it y again, like you're just meeting other like minded people that enjoy the same, you know, stupid stu stuff that you probably enjoy as well, you know?
Samson: Yeah. Hey, actually speaking of that, before we jump into our kind of our cons of streaming or maybe things that we struggle with, I kinda wanna challenges, I like that. ⁓ I kinda wanna hear about the games that everybody does play in this circle. ⁓ Jordan, can we start with you?
SirDrJM: Let's call ⁓ challenges.
Gianni: Tax.
vanessa: Thank
SirDrJM: Hell yeah, we can start with me. ⁓ what do I play? I mean, I would say, yeah, I threw up the gang piece some.
vanessa: Yeah
SirDrJM: Cam, I don't know if you know this. I'm actually the whitest person you know. But anyways, ⁓ that's a good point. That's a good point. anyways, ⁓ I I do think that, you know, in in my ideal world, if I were streaming regularly, I would be a you know typical variety streamer. I love you know competitive multiplayer games. Obviously, Samson and I have a history of Overwatch. ⁓ I have you know, my my competitive multiplayer roots are in Call of Duty, ⁓ modern.
Samson: Yeah.
Cam: Doubt that I'm from Nebraska, so I.
Samson: Ha ha ha.
vanessa: ⁓ yay!
SirDrJM: Warfare 4, the best one, the original Modern Warfare. ⁓ but I also, you know, I grew up playing action platformers, Spyro, Crash, Ratchet and Clank, Jack and Daxter, all the great Sony first party games. ⁓ but then I love a good RPG. Kingdom Hearts is one of my favorites. ⁓ I just beat, you know, on the action adventure side 007. So ⁓ I I really do think that my tastes vary greatly. ⁓ but that's also why, you know, I can get into
vanessa: Yeah.
SirDrJM: So many of the people we have here, right? I love watching Gianni's Dark Souls streams. I mean, I'm in Cam's chat every morning watching, you know, realistically whatever the hell he's playing. ⁓ but then, you know, again, coming back to the audience, ⁓ you know, shout out to Dodie, who I watch regularly, streaming Kingdom Hearts right now, but also streaming Days Gone. ⁓ Perry in the chat, you know, streaming Donkey Kong 64, ⁓ and Red Dead Redemption 2. Like, games are fun, man.
Cam: Thank
Samson: Yeah.
Gianni: Dodaty.
SirDrJM: You know, I I I would struggle to find a game I don't like unless it's called Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories 'cause that game was trash, but anyways. I hate card battle, so go ahead. Yeah. Yeah.
Samson: Wow.
Gianni: Wow. Jesus. ⁓ my lord. The Disney strays, dude.
Cam: ⁓ okay. Well then, yeah, that's not for you.
Samson: Of cards. ⁓ Cameron, what about you?
Cam: Yeah, I'm all over the place like Jordan was kind of alluding to. So variety streamer, I guess you could say. ⁓ I think what we also talked about earlier is like streaming is a weird excuse to kind of go back in time and play a lot of games because I think an important thing is ⁓ listening to what people are saying in your chat, what they are like alluding to if they're talking about certain games quite a bit. I think it's like, hey, a great idea to just like take them up on that and try things out.
SirDrJM: Mm-hmm.
Samson: No.
Cam: I never played Knights of the Old Republic. I beat that earlier, ⁓ earlier this year because it's just like, I've always wanted to play it and why not do something and have chat be engaged and we all kind of get to experience this thing together. So I'm all over the place, but it was weirdly Fortnite that was the thing that made me like start streaming more often. And I, if you would have told me a year ago that I would be streaming Fortnite like,
SirDrJM: Yeah.
Samson: ⁓
SirDrJM: Yeah.
Cam: once a week, I would not have believed you, but ⁓ I just like having fun playing games with my friends and any game that can give me that opportunity to feel like I'm sitting on a couch like we were back in the days in grade school and junior high, I'm gonna look for that opportunity and Twitch is just such a great avenue for that.
Samson: Yeah. Yeah, and we're just coming off your twelve hour marathon from last Saturday as well. I was in there. That was a lot of fun.
Cam: Yeah, that was nuts. Vanessa, would say ⁓ maybe wait a little bit for that in your journey. ⁓ But it was it was so much fun. And ⁓ again, it's that thing of like, I'm not doing this like for my own like ego necessarily. It's like this is something that like people have agreed to and they want to see in support. And so it's like, OK, well, what can we do to make sure that it's not just me talking to the camera? What can we do to like?
Gianni: Champ.
vanessa: 12 hours, wow. Wow. Yeah, that's crazy.
Gianni: Yeah. ⁓
Samson: Ha ha ha
Cam: bring other people in and get some variety through here. So ⁓ I think Twitch is the opportunities are like so limitless. So why do one thing specifically if you have the itch to scratch to play a whole bunch of different games, nothing wrong with doing just one type of game, but it's like, know, if you want to try something else, try something else.
vanessa: Okay.
Samson: Mm-hmm.
SirDrJM: Mm-hmm.
Samson: True, true. ⁓ Gianni, you're the Dark Souls guy. You're like the Souls games are new to me as well. I never played through them. So watching you play through them, I'm like, ⁓ this is a lot easier than playing through them for me. But other than Dark Souls, like what else do you?
Gianni: Yeah.
vanessa: Ha!
Gianni: Yeah, I mean, I think it's funny. When I first started streaming, I was very much just like, whatever I'm interested in playing. ⁓ you know, but I was really trying to chase the like whatever the new hotness is, like, I want to be streaming it. And I think I realized pretty quickly, and I'm not saying this is the case for everybody, ⁓ but like what I noticed with me personally is like I feel like you're kind of fighting an uphill battle in terms of ⁓
Samson: Yeah.
SirDrJM: Mm.
Gianni: like having eyes on like like everyone's trying to stream the new game. Everyone's trying to stream the new game. So I kind of got to a point where I was just like, look, I was like, I, you know, I I went full time in this thing. Yeah, I want to have fun, but I also, I like, I want to grow a a a base and I want to grow a business. And just streaming all these new games, I just I felt like I was it was like the Sisyphissian task. Like I was just like, there's millions of people that are trying to stream the same thing as me. And
SirDrJM: Yeah.
Cam: Mm-hmm.
Gianni: I I kind of took it upon myself. I remember I was playing ⁓ Hollow Knight on stream because again we talk about like games that we want to go back to and that we never got a chance to. And I had already kind of like cut my teeth on playing a few Souls games like off stream. and I was like, I think I'm I think I'm ready to take on Hollow Knight. I think I'm ready to take on Hollow Knight. And I was I had I was playing through Hollow Knight. I have I now one of my ⁓ regular viewers, ⁓ Yula. Shout out to Yula. ⁓
Cam: EULA.
Gianni: Who was like, Have you ever played Dark Souls? And I was like, I've always tried to play these Souls games. I just recently got into them, like finally, but I've never played Dark Souls One. And I was like, you know what? I'm gonna play Dark Souls One next. So it just kind of became this thing of this long-term project of me trying to basically watch me. I always say this on stream, like it's me falling in love with these kinds of games in real time. But I also knew that I need I'm gonna need a mental break from those types of things from time to time. So
SirDrJM: Mm-hmm.
Gianni: It this long process ended up becoming like, let me take one day out of my week where it is. It's either my freestyle freestyle Fridays or my collab Wednesdays, where I just go, this is just my night to dec or my day to decompress, play whatever I feel like, and then the rest of the week you guys will you'll get what you you you're fiending for. You know what I mean? So ⁓ I have kind of like niched outwards a little bit where it's not I don't necessarily say like I'm I only play the souls titles. We just finished playing through ⁓
SirDrJM: Right.
Samson: Ha ha ha.
Gianni: called ⁓ near automata and so it's a lot of action RPG oriented stuff. ⁓ Eric Mr. the human calls out Bloodborne. Actually it was I think it was Bloodborne. I might be I might be wrong on that one. ⁓ was first before Dark Souls one. So good catch, Eric's he's keeping me honest. Keeping me honest. ⁓ so yeah it's it's it's mostly action RPGs, but ⁓ a pretty heavy emphasis on those souls titles. And like you said, Samson
Cam: Mm-hmm.
SirDrJM: ⁓ yeah.
Samson: Keep it keeping you honest.
Gianni: I was that person where I was like, I really want to love these games. I just hate playing them at the time, you know what I mean, before I really understood them. So I would rather just watch a person play through, you know, a a p ⁓ Bloodborne or Dark Souls or Elden Ring. And then once I really wrapped my head around it, I was like, okay, well, now people can live vicariously through me, the way I was living vicariously through them. And I get to play a game I enjoy. Plus, I feel like with those games of that kind of style, the amount of people that just will pop in and be like,
vanessa: Okay.
Samson: There you go.
Gianni: ⁓ you're playing Dark Souls 2? ⁓ Dark Souls 2 my favorite game ever. And then you boom, you've like nailed a fan for life. They'll stick around for that whole playthrough. People love the hell out of the games that they adore and they will stick around. And the key is just finding that Venn diagram of people that will mostly stick around for everything that you play, because the reality is there's gonna be people that are like, I only want to watch you play this one game and then that's it. But if you can find those select people that are like, I'm here for you and I love the type of games that you play.
SirDrJM: ⁓ yeah.
vanessa: Yeah.
Samson: Mm-hmm.
Gianni: That's that's the sweet spot for sure.
Samson: Cool. Okay, I like that. I like that. That's that's like wisdom right there. That only ⁓ that only is that is knowledge. ⁓ Vanessa, what about you? What games do you usually play?
Gianni: Ha ha.
vanessa: That is wisdom, some knowledge. It's knowledge. ⁓ hard to follow up with those. man, since I'm new to streaming, I haven't really streamed too, too many games. Like I have done a lot of like random little indie games, like repo. I played repo quite a bit with my friends. Lethal company is a fun one. I find that really funny. Like I like playing funny, like horror kind of style games. ⁓ But I do want to get into more story-based games. Like I grew up.
Cam: Mm-hmm.
Samson: Yeah. Mm.
vanessa: Again, watching people play Uncharted, watching people play God of War on a few other horror games and stuff like that. So I think Uncharted would be a cool series to get back into, because I loved, I even played that on my friend because I didn't have a PlayStation at the time. So I used my friend's PlayStation to play that game. ⁓ Even like Halo and stuff like that would be pretty cool. But yeah, just like those fun little...
Samson: Okay.
vanessa: indie games and horror games I think I really want to get into and stuff like that and then branch out from there and try to find like my route if you will. So yeah.
Samson: On. That's cool. I was thinking about the Uncharted games recently. Or ⁓ Jordan, it was when you were talking about ⁓ 007 and you're like, yeah, it's like Uncharted. And I'm like, yeah, I liked I do like Uncharted.
vanessa: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I love those games. Those are good games.
Samson: Right on. ⁓ Johnny kind of touched on it, but the challenges of streaming, like trying to find ⁓ well I was gonna say like not motivation, but try trying to find your style, I guess, of of what keeps you going. Do you guys have any challenges that you've encountered with streaming so far?
Gianni: I think burnout is like a really easy one to just throw out as like a a a for true. I mean, I know I went through like a a period of time where I was like, Am I doing enough? Let me ramp it up. And then I ramped it up like extra crazy. And I was like, This is too much. It it's honestly taken me almost a year. I would say just probably in the last month, month and a half, like I finally figured out the balance for me. ⁓ plus ⁓ you know, hosting the content mill.
SirDrJM: Who wants to go first? Hmm.
Samson: Sure, yeah.
vanessa: Mm.
Gianni: You know, I I I was breaking it down with my girlfriend. I'm like, I'm on camera, you know, 15 to 20 hours a week. And I think what people don't really realize is like, you know, to be on all the time, it's it's not easy. It's not as just easy as like, I'll just sit there and play my favorite game. It's simple. Like people will love me. Like there is a certain level of like, hey, you're playing a game people like. So yes, you will attract folks to come to your stream, but like being on camera for that long, it's
SirDrJM: Mm-hmm.
vanessa: yeah.
Samson: Yeah.
vanessa: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Gianni: Being under a light, people don't realize even just like being with that light in your face all the time, it'll burn you out. It'll, it'll make you tired for sure. So I think you really have to strike a balance in like what is what is ⁓ like you wanna be working hard, I guess, if that makes sense, but it's gotta be fun. So I don't wanna be the person where it's like, ⁓ I stream my one hour a week and I'm like, I know I can do more than that. I know I can do I I can I can I can do a few days or I can do, but I also know I can't do
Samson: Yeah.
Cam: Mm-hmm.
Gianni: five days a week, you know, for more than three hours at a time, because that's just it's gonna kill me. Like as much as as much as we want to do it all the time, you just, you just absolutely can't. So I think finding the balance is is really a a huge struggle and it's a long, long, long job. But once you nail it, it's like the best feeling in the world where you can go into that first week of knowing like, this is how my week is going to be laid out. I know I'm gonna be comfortable. I'm not gonna be, you know, ⁓ exhausted. And then you pee it's
Cam: Mm-hmm.
vanessa: Thank
Gianni: Pivot and tweak accordingly. But yeah, bur burnout is the easy answer with a long explanation from Gianni.
Samson: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Cam: Mm-hmm.
vanessa: Yeah. I like that. I like that. No, cause that's like one of those things that like I'm struggling with right now because I've only been doing this for a month and like with shift work, it's like, if I don't feel like I'm a hundred percent coming off shift, then I'm probably not going to stream. Cause I want to be like a hundred percent good and like happy. Cause if I'm not like my mood and demeanor is like completely different. So it's the, like that you talk about that because it's, it is a big thing.
Cam: You
Samson: Mm-hmm.
Gianni: And and your audience will know that. Cam, I'm sure you can attest to this. Like they know when you're tired. They know when you're like, you know what I mean? Like the authenticity is so crucial. And if if they can tell you're exhausted or you're just like heart's not in it, I I've I've said, you know, to ⁓ some of my friends before where it's like, I would rather cancel my stream than be pissed off going into a stream, you know, because I I I feel like the energy they're gonna feed people are gonna feed off that immediately. They'll see right through you.
vanessa: Yeah.
Cam: Mm-hmm.
vanessa: Mm-hmm.
Samson: ⁓ huh.
vanessa: Yeah, fair.
SirDrJM: I mean, you you want to talk about struggles. one thing that I found very hard in the beginning, and it gets easier the more you do it, obviously, just like anything does. But starting a stream, just literally starting it, is especially in the beginning, a struggle. And that can be related to the technology, that can be related to the hardware, ⁓ for example.
vanessa: Mm. Yeah.
Cam: Yeah.
SirDrJM: Game Pass on my PC for some reason hates my DualSense 5 and I don't like playing games with the keyboard and mouse. ⁓ so that's that's that's a great way to start a stream, is like before I hit the go live button, I'm like, I'm gonna get my game fired up, I'm gonna connect the controller. ⁓ the controller won't work. And now I'm fighting with that for half an hour. And now I'm starting late. And now I'm pissed off because I can only stream for an hour and a half and I wanted to go for two hours. ⁓ so yeah, I think just expanding on what you're saying a little bit, yeah. It's
Samson: Yeah.
vanessa: ⁓ yeah. Mm. Mm-hmm.
Gianni: Yep. Yeah.
Samson: Mm-hmm.
SirDrJM: It can be a challenge just getting in the right mindset when you click that go live button. And especially when you're starting out, ⁓ and you might not have much of an audience, right? ⁓ you know, for for me, I mean, especially like before I really got into ⁓ Cam's chat and ⁓ you know, taking part in drop in, drop out and ⁓ the content mill and everything, you know, I'd go live and have no viewers. And it can be demoralizing in a lot of ways, right? ⁓ but again.
Cam: Mm-hmm.
SirDrJM: I think ⁓ for me I just I just kinda thought about it as, you know, hey, I get to play games. That's all I'm doing right now. If people wanna join, they wanna watch, they wanna participate, even if they're not in chat, they're just watching, hopefully they're enjoying themselves, right? ⁓ as long as I'm enjoying what I'm playing, I'm gonna pretend that, you know, there's a room full of people. ⁓ so anyways, those are those are kind of two separate things, but ⁓ just yeah.
Cam: Mm-hmm.
vanessa: Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Gianni: Ca can I can I add something to that, Jordan? Cause I was thinking about this the other day. When you first start streaming, Vanessa, this is gonna sound like the weirdest advice. And I but I promise you stick with me here.
SirDrJM: Absolutely.
vanessa: Okay.
Gianni: You're gonna be able to pick out bots immediately. But but stick here, hear me out. When you first start streaming, talk to your bots. Just chat with them. Because I feel like even though you have no audience, having just that one person in your stream to just be like, what's your favorite games? ⁓ do you like anime? ⁓ what do you ⁓ who does the art for your blah blah blah? And
SirDrJM: ⁓ ch so true.
Samson: Ha ha ha.
SirDrJM: Mm-hmm.
Gianni: Like it sounds dumb because they're gonna ask you the same questions every time, but just like entertain it for those first like five to ten bots because it's stupid. You n you know exactly what they are, but at least it like gets you like kind of thinking and and s and and speaking and just kind of like having those conversations. Because I I will say, like, as dumb as that sounds, it helped me when legitimate people would start popping in and I could just start like, Hey, do you like this game? What's your what's your favorite one in the series? Like.
vanessa: Yeah
Samson: ⁓
vanessa: Mm-hmm.
Gianni: ⁓ where are you located out of? ⁓ really? ⁓ I've been there before. You know what I mean? Like having those dumb conversations with those bots is like a weirdly good practice for when actual people start showing up. Cause what to what to to Jordan's point, those first like hundred streams, they're tough to get through when you've got zero people or one person there who's not even speaking.
vanessa: Yeah. Yeah.
SirDrJM: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Cam: You
SirDrJM: Yeah. I ⁓ I I also gotta gotta jump on that in a small way and just say, I'm gonna give you a very easy out here. Early on in streaming, you will get people popping into your chat that I think are real people, but they're also possibly scammers, saying, Hey, I love this game. Whatever. Small talk, small talk. And then they'll go, ⁓ do you want me to design a graphic package for your Twitch stream?
vanessa: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SirDrJM: And then they'll say, if you do, add me on Discord or whatever like that. I'm pretty sure they're scammers, but the point is the best way to put them down is say, ⁓ I actually have a good friend who is a graphic designer who does that full time or you know, who does that for a job. ⁓ so I get all of my stuff from them, right? And getting to know Cam, that was where that idea came from. It was someone asking me in my chat when I had two people watching my stream, and me going, haha.
Gianni: Yeah. ⁓ join on Discord. Yeah.
Samson: Yeah.
Cam: You
vanessa: Mm. Yeah.
Samson: Ha ha ha.
Cam: Hehehehehe
SirDrJM: I have an answer to this and it's not, this is weird. Why are you asking? Because it is weird for someone to pop into chat and do that. But just say you have someone. You have a you have a guy, you know? So, anyways. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Cam: Mm-hmm.
vanessa: Gotta go.
Cam: That's all I gotta say.
Samson: Camera, do you have any ⁓ challenges that you've gone through in your streaming career?
Cam: I Feel like well now I'm starting to learn how to take everything I do on to twitch not everything but then turn it into vod for YouTube ⁓ And so I think I think a good like piece of advice that I've tried to maintain and is that you don't have to do everything at once just Clicking the start stream button is enough. You don't have to worry about you know doing crazy edits and stuff, that stuff will eventually come. ⁓ But ⁓ I think like the biggest con for me, like what Gianni was saying is you are a literal human open door policy. And so you have to be ready to go at any moment. And while you might be coming in with the best mood, you're excited to play whatever the game is. Some people might come in and they might share some heavy news that they got about their personal lives or ⁓ or they're dealing with a really shitty work day or whatever it happens to be. And you gotta be like prepared to like pretty much yes. And, just kind of like be there for that person. And I think that's one of the beautiful things is that if you can create an environment where people like you're actually getting to know people. And I know it could be what's the term parasocial like, you know, I feel like that's another term that's like,
Samson: Yeah.
Cam: It's almost deterred people from getting that opportunity to connect on a deeper level than just the name that you're seeing and the message that they send across. so I just think that we need to like always continue to try and make that open environment. But that also means that you have to take care of yourself afterwards because being on camera, I only do it for two and a half hours every day, but I do it for two and a half hours every day right in the morning. So it's usually the first thing that people are like interacting with. And it can be, yeah, it can be like just a lot to deal with. And so just making sure that like, know, when to take breaks, you know, when to, step away if you need to, or just when you're done streaming, once you click end stream, just like close off the screens, like turn everything off for a little bit and just like decompress. ⁓ and so it's not a con necessarily. It's just something that I think we all need to be aware of as we continue to stream more is like, you can only do so much, know, we're rubber bands and if you stretch us too far, we're going to break. So just, we have to take care of ourselves, ⁓ just as much as we take care of our community and our chats.
Samson: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, the con is we are we are just human and we're not streaming streaming machines appar fortunately. Yeah, not a bot. We are not the bots. ⁓ I want to pull in some great wisdom from the chat as well. ⁓ thank you, ⁓ Cam and Johnny for sharing your guys' wisdom so far. ⁓ I want to pull in Verum Dex into chat saying, Be yourself is my biggest thing. We obviously all mask slash code switch to some degree, but overall
Cam: Yeah.
vanessa: We're not robots. Yeah. No, not a bot. We are not AI.
SirDrJM: Not a bot. Yeah.
Gianni: Yeah.
Cam: You
Samson: Be yourself, it's easier and more authentic than being someone else. ⁓ yeah, I think that's a huge thing that we kind of take for granted is like ⁓ our personalities, we bring our personalities into our work, whether it's streaming or like our actual workplace or whatever. ⁓ so so we have to be conscious that like, hey, this is me, this is the types of games I like to play, this is how I speak to my audience, ⁓ hopefully respectfully. ⁓
vanessa: You
Samson: But but be yourself, right? If you're always putting on that mask, ⁓ like Barum Dex is saying, then you're then you are not gonna have a good time because you're not you. ⁓ I wanna pull in another piece of wisdom here, ⁓ from from Blaster Goblin. A little more ⁓ a little more like a hard skill, I guess. For a long time I created a dock of things to talk about when no one's there, so I won't have silences. I think that's a pretty fun idea as well, other than the weather.
Gianni: Yeah.
Samson: And ⁓ the sports team. What else what else is there to talk about? ⁓ but I love that. Thanks for thanks for sharing in the chat, you guys. ⁓ I wanna ask the next question here. ⁓ what's your guys' end goal with streaming, anyways? Like like there is yeah. Where where you wanna be at our six month check in though? ⁓ I guess like building a community, making new friends, like those are great goals and
Cam: Hehehe.
vanessa: What do you wanna do?
SirDrJM: Where do you want be in five years? Where do you want to be in ten years?
Samson: things that we've kind of touched on already so far. Is there a tangible goal? Like do you want to make it a full-time thing? Or is or is like just having this network of cool people to collaborate with, meeting people, is that enough? I'm just just out of curiosity, what's what do you guys think?
SirDrJM: Who you throwing to first? Mmm.
Cam: I'd love to hear Vanessa's since you're the newest kid ⁓ on the playground. Yeah, I want to hear your stories.
Samson: ⁓
Gianni: Hold on, I wanna hear that.
vanessa: I'm the newest kid, I'm the new kid on the block. New kid on the block. I don't, I don't know. I don't think I would want this to be like a ⁓ full time gig because I really do enjoy my job. And I think that's a very valuable thing to have in life is to have a job that you truly love. And I do truly love my job.
SirDrJM: New kit on the block.
Samson: Yeah.
SirDrJM: That's nice to hear, I was gonna say.
Gianni: Yeah, absolutely.
Cam: Yeah, that's great to hear.
vanessa: Yeah, I do. I do love my job a lot. ⁓ So I think just growing a community and just having fun with it is just my goal. Like, I just want to have fun at the end of the day and just like have this community where we can all laugh and be idiots at the end of the day and just have a good time. Like, that's all I want, honestly.
Samson: Love that, love that. ⁓ Gianni, Cam, do you guys have any other long term goals? Longer?
Cam: Gianni's got lofty goals, Gianni's got big goals. So I want him to go last, because I want to end on that high note. Because mine's not going to be as cool. No, that's not true. We're all clowns here. We're all clowns here. ⁓ My goal is ⁓ to just consistently be the place that we've all kind of alluded to with my streams, the place where people get to start their day. ⁓
SirDrJM: Let's hear ⁓ gee.
Samson: ⁓ sure. All right, Cam, then you go.
Gianni: That's that's called for Gianni doesn't shut up, so
Samson: No no.
vanessa: Okay.
Gianni: Ha ha.
SirDrJM: Yeah.
Cam: and that opens them up to new community members and new friends and stuff. ⁓ I would love for, I mean, now that I'm a full-time freelance illustrator and designer, Twitch is not something I ever thought would be a part of how I pay for groceries or things like that. so ⁓ I would love for Twitch to be just another revenue stream. know, gross, disgusting, but it's true. mean, like,
vanessa: Mm-hmm.
Samson: Ha ha.
Cam: You know, it's, not necessarily that we watch the people just to play the video games as we watch people on Twitch because we, we like how they talk to humans. Me as a gay man, like I don't have to put on any masks or code switch at all. And that's a rare fucking thing to have in like a professional world. And so the fact that I can come to it authentically and I know that people can come to the chat and be just as authentic as I'm appearing on the camera. Like. That's what I want to continue. I don't know what that looks like as far as a numbers goal. If it's, you know, like 500 followers, I think I'm at like 200. So let's say we'll say 500 followers. Why not? That'll be my easy, uh, my quantitative data point that I can use for my goal. But, um, yeah, I just want to keep making it what it has been for six months. I just want to continue to build that same kind of runway.
Samson: Awesome, awesome. ⁓ Johnny, somebody told me that you have the biggest goals. Let's let's get you there. What's what's your what's your dream ⁓ goal?
Cam: The biggest goals ever.
vanessa: Yeah.
Gianni: Ha ha. Yeah, I don't know. Like I mean, like I said, the the Twitch thing was always kind of like, like I said, it was it was a workout session and it just became something that ended up being ⁓ one of my main deals. I think, you know, I I went full time in content a year ago, ⁓ in as of July first. So coming up here on exactly a year, I quit my full-time job. ⁓ yeah, ⁓ I don't know what that is, I'm just agreeing. But yeah, no, for sure, July 1st.
Samson: Mm-hmm.
SirDrJM: Mm-hmm. Canada Day.
Samson: Yeah.
Cam: I'm
vanessa: Mmm.
SirDrJM: Ha ha ha.
Gianni: ⁓ so I from the jump, the the idea was always to build something in the podcast space. And I think that definitely is still the the goal is to build a platform. ⁓ one of my biggest things going forward, Eric joked about it in the chat earlier, but my thing has always been to build a space where me and all my friends can kind of prop each other up and we can all get rich together. But we want to do it the way that we wanna do it, and we wanna do it making the cool stuff that we like to make. I don't wanna I I you know, I don't want to deal with KPI reports and and freaking ⁓ you know, monthly mid-month check-ins and end of year reviews anymore. So it was one of those things where, ⁓ you know, this just kind of plopped in my lap on the Twitch side. And now I kind of from a business standpoint, I look at it as a two pronged approach. It's like anytime you see my face on camera, it's I'm trying to move that that ⁓
vanessa: you
Gianni: Move the needle on all fronts. I'm trying to bring people into the Gianni ecosphere, the corner of the internet Discord, as Mr. the Human shouts out in the the chat. ⁓ join the Discord. ⁓ but I'm trying to bring people into our space so we can all build together. And I know that sounds kind of corny and cheesy, but it it really is true. It's just is building the community, it it sounds nebulous, but like that is like the crux of it all. Building the community and you know, propping each other up so we can all create and we can all build together. I think that's that's really what it's about. I don't have like a specific number. I feel like Cam, like, yeah, if I could go, yeah, give me five 500 Twitch followers by the end of the year, cool. That would that would be the one. But it's it's really just now taking this two-pronged approach between the podcast and the Twitch stream of just you need to see this face everywhere. And I know what what if you see it, you're gonna come to wherever my people are at and we're all gonna build something cool together. I think that's the goal.
Cam: Hmm
Samson: He's got the KPI reports, yeah. Love that. I love that. Yeah. It's it's ⁓ in the end it's about community. I think ⁓ for for me, like just ⁓ going through school and learning about psychology and relationships. It is all about the relationship in the end. I think that's kind of what everyone was kind of going towards is let's all do what we need to do to get our faces into different places, ⁓ build these relationships and uplift each other. And I think that's like
vanessa: That's nice.
Samson: That's that's our unifying goal, it sounds like.
Gianni: Absolutely.
Samson: ⁓ yeah, ⁓ join the corner of the internet Discord, dropped it in the chat, and we'll link it below as well. Everyone's ⁓ Twitch streams, everyone's links will be in the description below. So make sure you follow everyone's beautiful faces here, listener. Moving on. I'm just making sure we it the the vibes the vibes were too good. I I need to I need to wake wake our audience up. I need to wake them up. ⁓ Cameron and Gianni.
Cam: you
SirDrJM: Well, why was that so aggressive? You're really coming at the audience there.
Gianni: Listener ⁓ Why I I oughta.
SirDrJM: Need to bring it down. ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah.
Samson: Like I said, we already touched on so much wisdom going through ⁓ this episode so far. Is there any other learnings that you want to pass on to Vanessa or even to like ⁓ myself or Jordan who aren't necessarily full full time streamers?
vanessa: Give me all the knowledge.
Cam: The first thing that I would suggest and I think Gianni does a really good job of this is ⁓ communicating with whoever your audience is outside of your streams. ⁓ Whether that's posting on Instagram, Blue Sky, if you have a TikTok, like whatever it happens to be. ⁓ Gianni does a great job of posting like his weekly schedule. And this is something that I think a lot of the people who are currently in chat, Perry Chumon, Dodie, Uwu as well. ⁓ Yes, exactly.
SirDrJM: Mm-hmm.
Samson: ⁓ yeah.
SirDrJM: Eric.
Cam: They let everyone know when the streams are going to be. They might not say necessarily what the games are going to be, but they tell you the time, the place. And I think that's so consistent. And that's why when I started streaming in January, I was like, if I, if I know that I'm going to stream every morning at this time, and that's when I'm going to click, start streaming, then I can have that consistency set up for myself and that consistency set up for the people who choose to come and see me every day. And so I'd say the first tip I have is communicating how you stream and when you stream.
SirDrJM: Mm-hmm.
Cam: I think that's super important. Yeah, ⁓ yeah.
vanessa: Writing down notes. Taking notes, I'm prepared.
Samson: I love that. Yeah, I think the ⁓ that's that's one thing that that ⁓ I actually I think I I I learned off of you guys too. Like just posting in even in our Discord or or ad advertising it on Instagram or whatever, reminding people that hey, we are gonna be live eight PM on Tuesday nights. Come if you can. Our topic is this. No pressure. I don't say that, but I want them to come in. ⁓ but yeah, I think I think just communicating and giving people the expectation goes goes a long way for sure for for getting folks into your stream. Yeah. ⁓ Gianni, do you have any any tips of wisdom, nuggets of wisdom?
Gianni: ⁓ I think the only thing that I would add is like I'm a big fan of like manifesting the the the audience and the ⁓ goal that you have in mind. You know, I was talking with ⁓ Eric again earlier just today, ⁓ because he was teasing me because I have a habit of like referring. I always say I'm like, hey chat, chat. I'm always referring to my chat like as this this group. And when I first started streaming, I would do that with like no person in my stream to talk to.
SirDrJM: Mm-hmm.
Gianni: But it was it was because it would help me get over the jitters of like having nobody to talk to. ⁓ Chris the Nerdlees, who is another one of my mentors in the streaming space, also mentioned like making your internal thoughts external. You're you're talking to an audience. You you you have to speak to an audience as if they're there. And
Samson: Mm.
Gianni: ⁓ envision yourself as like you are a content creator, you are a Twitch streamer. You're not trying to Twitch stream, you're not trying to get into Twitch streaming. If you've got nobody in your audience, if you've got nobody in your chat, you are still a Twitch streamer and you are Twitch streaming and you're doing better than 99% of the people, like Jordan said, not pressing that button. Right. So like it's kind of one of those things where like you have not not act like you're a big deal, but like you're doing the damn thing by just pressing that button.
SirDrJM: ⁓
Gianni: And I think the sooner you treat it like it is a big deal, the faster you'll grow and the more people will see that authenticity that you are you, you, you are a Twitch streamer that is is trying to be something bigger than you know, somebody who's just who who who might be too scared to press that button. And all praise to the people that are still trying to do the thing because I know how much anxiety comes with pressing that button. You know what I mean? It it felt like a big deal to me the first time that I did it, but
vanessa: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Gianni: You know, you are a Twitch streamer, no matter how small or how big you are. If you've got zero people or you've got a thousand people, you know, talking in your chat, you are a Twitch streamer. So act like it. Own it, exactly.
Samson: I love that. ⁓ man. I love that. That's great. ⁓ well I thanks for all the wisdom so far. Like I think everyone gave everyone so many like great unique thoughts, very insightful insights. ⁓ it's getting late and I'm I was biking all day, so I'm getting a little tired. But I as we kind of close out the episode, I kinda wanna open it up to the floor. ⁓ just if anybody has any questions for each other.
vanessa: Yeah
Samson: ⁓ if there's anything that I didn't bring up, ⁓ starting with I have a bonus question and I and this will be a little biased to our two guests here or three guests here, but how important is branding? Cameron, you are you are at this idea like like do you think if you were to start Twitch streaming, do we need a logo? Do we need ⁓ like transitions and scenes and
Gianni: Mmm. That's a cam question. Don't ask me that.
SirDrJM: Cam hates branding.
vanessa: Yeah.
Cam: Hmm
Samson: And signs and stuff. Dude, how do you guys feel about that?
Gianni: ⁓
Cam: I would say don't, that stuff is all very good to have. And I was, mean, I'm very lucky that that's just a skillset that I have in my back pocket that the moment I started streaming, I was able to put my own branding in. That was the first thing I figured out is, okay, if I do this, I want to make sure it looks good because if I'm telling people that I want to be a full-time artist, I need it to look like that. And so when I did go full-time as an artist, Everything that I had is, you know, it looks, it looks how I want to present that type of business and that type of like side of myself. But I mean, it's as simple as just for when you're first starting out, just like you can do it on Canva. I'm a huge fan of like, go use Canva. Don't use Canva AI. I'm, ⁓ find a font that speaks to you. Pick a pretty color that you like and slap it onto OBS. I don't think it needs to be Sue, the two important, but
Samson: Yeah, yeah.
SirDrJM: Mm.
Cam: I do think that it's something that you should start to work on as far as when you're starting to get more consistent viewers in and starting to really build like, okay, well, these are the people that I know they're gonna be in chat every time I go live. Starting to figure out how do you communicate with each other? What are the adjectives that you would use to describe how you present to the audience and how the audience reciprocates that ⁓ back to you? ⁓ And so, yeah, think branding not important at all to start just pushing like Janice pushing the start button start streaming is the most important thing and you can figure all that stuff out later. But just as another plug, don't use generative AI. ⁓ There is nothing that will get someone to click away faster from your stream than generative AI. And if I see anyone in our community using it, I will scream at you from a keyboard. So, yeah, that's what I would say.
Samson: Yeah. Love that, love that. Deanni, do you have any thoughts around that?
Gianni: I echo that. I mean I think Like I I would have started streaming three years before I started streaming if I had just kind of st started doing it and stopped thinking like, ⁓ well, what camera do I have? And ⁓ is my computer gonna be able to and ⁓ my lighting and is my this is, you know, my microphone. And I I think that that can slow you down more than it speeds you up. But to Cam's point, like
Samson: Yeah.
Gianni: I'm not gonna be one of those people that goes, ⁓ none of it matters. Like, ⁓ there's people that are no, I I do think there is a certain level of professionalism that you should strive for, especially on your audio side. I think that has got to be the most important personally. ⁓ in terms of like if it's camera or mic, like go for your microphone first. ⁓ it when it when it comes like the branding stuff to Cam's point, yeah, I think attacking things as they become pertinent is is important. You know, I know me now, a year.
vanessa: Mm-hmm.
Gianni: year a year down the line, I had to figure out where I want to invest my funds, what made the most sense for me. And now I'm getting to a point where I'm like, okay, Twitch streaming is my is one of my two things. Let's start talking about like personal branding and talking to artists and things like that. But I it wasn't even a conversation that I broached until the last 30 days. You know what I mean? And that could be different depending what's important to you. Like I said, for me it was like I wanted to get my audio crisp and I wanted to get my video tight. Like those are like the two things.
Samson: ⁓ well.
Gianni: ⁓ then it became the gameplay, you know, quality. So it's those 1% games, like gains, like treat every project like a 1%. What's the 1% gain that I'm gonna be attacking today or this week or this month? If you try to overwhelm yourself with doing a million things, like improving a billion things about your stream or your branding or whatever, you're gonna get so overwhelmed and it's it's just gonna be too much. ⁓ I don't. I I mean, I can't speak for everybody, but I just feel like most people will get burned out by that project. So attack things like as they become important or as you're able to take them on. And pri you know, put it on a list. Like prioritize. This is the first thing that I want to make sure that I get done. This is the second thing that I want to make sure I get done. And just attack them in order. One percent gains. That's all you gotta focus on and you'll you'll see improvement every single day.
SirDrJM: I ⁓ it's it's funny that you say that, Gianni, 'cause I I I jotted down like a couple of things that I mean, honestly, like it's it's funny 'cause ⁓ you know, I I currently do work in the corporate world and I see so much of your corporate experience come through with the way you talk about streaming. And it's it's it's interesting 'cause you're approaching it very as a business, right? You can tell that this is this is what you want to do and you don't want to see it flounder and everything. ⁓ I wrote down something very similar. I just said do one thing for your stream or channel or whatever it is every day, right? Even if it's not going live, set up a new notification, you know, integrate a new bot into your Twitch. ⁓ maybe it is, you know, design your new logo in Canva, right? Again, not with DAI tools, but ⁓ you know, it's just doing one thing every day that kind of helps get you towards wherever you want to be, right?
Gianni: Yeah, absolutely.
SirDrJM: ⁓ and maybe that does eventually just become going live, right? Every day you want to go live or every other day or whatever. But ⁓ I I did have that written down. ⁓ I I wanna I wanna throw a couple easy tips out there that ⁓ I did see come up one ⁓ one of them come up in chat. But ⁓ Samson, if it's okay with you, can I can I take the wheel for a second? Okay. One thing one thing I would really recommend is take notes or or
Samson: Of course. Please. Autopilot.
SirDrJM: Make observations about the people that you enjoy watching stream. We've got two guys here that I watch stream regularly, and I'm constantly seeing the things they do, the way they work, ⁓ and what they have going on, you know, even just looking at their visual setups right now. ⁓ and I'm constantly thinking, how can I do that? How can I make my stream look or feel similar to that? One way that really jumps out at me that's super easy to do is starting every stream with music. ⁓
Gianni: Mm.
SirDrJM: Cam, I love that you do this because you come onto the camera every day and it puts you in a good mood. It sets the tone. It's the music that plays before the curtains open at a play, right? It is the tone setter that tells everyone in some way what today's gonna be like. ⁓ generally speaking, you're having a bad day, you're not gonna put on some sappy love song and still go live. You're probably not going live on that day. So to me, that just says
Cam: Mm-hmm.
Samson: Ha ha ha.
SirDrJM: I'm always playing my favorite tunes at the start of every stream. ⁓ people who've been in my stream know that I never used to do that. I would just throw up the, you know, starting soon screen and it was just silence. And then I would deal with all those frustrations of the controller and you know the technology and everything, and I'd sit there and be getting grumpy about it. But now I put on some music and it just puts me in a better mood for starting my stream. So that's like that's one that's just so easy to do and really helps. ⁓ Another thing, and I think I want to say maybe it was Eric, maybe it was Viramdex in the chat. Somebody mentioned raiding at the end of your stream. ⁓ raiding is a really good way to get yourself noticed and honestly get some easy follows. At the end of your stream, if you have one person watching or you have 50 people watching, raid into someone else and they will get that little notification just like we did when Story Motors popped in here earlier.
Gianni: Mm.
SirDrJM: They will hopefully shout you out, even if that's just audibly, not actually in the chat or anything like that. And there's a good chance a few people will click on your name and hit that follow button, right? ⁓ so that's a super easy way to ⁓ encourage people.
Gianni: I I I want to echo that because like for a small streamer, and I'm still a small streamer, like putting three people in my stream will make it putting five people in my stream, putting two people like that makes a huge difference. And like real life use case here, right? Like Cam, ⁓ graciously, we we kind of have like a weird, like like I I don't stream early mornings, but I'm like right after like my kids drop offs and like all the kid, you know, people are going to work and stuff. So
SirDrJM: Totally.
Gianni: It kind of works out like where our time zones, you know, I I would say a good majority of my current community has come from Cam's community because of that rating feature. And now I have people that are regularly on my streams because you know, me and Cam vibe very well. We kind of have very similar sentiments about our communities and how we're building, you know, a base. ⁓ so I I like you will you will gain folks, like-minded folks, people that have the exact same you know, sentiments as you do and opinions and things like that just by building that community through raids. And now it's nice because seeing those familiar r ⁓ names in my chat, now I see folks like Sam. I see folks like Dotie. I can see these folks that to me I initially didn't know, but now I know them through another streamer's community. I know them through the they these are dippers, right? So when I'm finished streaming, I'm like, I know I've got a selection of dippers that I can kind of pay it forward to by way of Cam's community. And it's just this really big like
SirDrJM: Yeah.
Samson: Yeah.
vanessa: Yeah.
Gianni: beautiful circle of everyone kind of paying it forward. You know, shout out to, you know, Jake Twitchin is another one. ⁓ you know, these are folks that you, you kind of depend on when you're very small. And then your community kind of starts to form this nice little Venn diagram with each other's. And now we're all just one big, massive network of of friends. And it's a really beautiful thing for sure.
SirDrJM: Yeah, yeah. Go ahead, Vanessa.
vanessa: I was just gonna say this may be a really dumb question, but what is this rating feature? I've never heard of it. Never heard of it.
Cam: Let's walk you through, if we want to, after we wrap the stream, we can show it.
SirDrJM: Yeah, we will.
Samson: was gonna say yeah yeah we we will definitely rate after this we'll we'll see who's online but ⁓ but yeah I can I can explain so rating is like a command you put into twitch chat or I think they have a special button for it on your on your thing and then ⁓ what it does is you choose another streamer who is live or and is still live ⁓ and then after like a countdown after you say your buys ⁓ you like click a button and it will bring your entire audience that was just watching you
SirDrJM: There's a button, yeah.
Samson: It will bring them to that stream and then it's usually like a notification, a pop. ⁓ it's it's usually pretty exciting too, 'cause it's like, wow, I suddenly got an influx of like three to five to ten or a hundred people sometimes, depending on on who rates you.
vanessa: Hmm. ⁓
SirDrJM: And and if if you're new to streaming, like Twitch will already have a notification set up for you. So if someone raids into your channel, you will hear a funny noise and you'll probably be like, What the heck was that? And you'll look in your chat and it will say, you know, so and so, whatever story modders, Mr. the Human plays rated with 10 viewers. And then hopefully, you know, they've been encouraged to drop in the chat and be like, Hello, and that kind of thing. ⁓ Yeah.
vanessa: Mm.
Samson: Yeah. Like that being said, for listeners live, we will be raiding into somebody after this podcast. So don't leave too too soon. But yeah. So and that's how ki we kind of pay it forward ⁓ in our recordings of the evening as well.
SirDrJM: Yes.
Samson: Do you guys have any other questions for each other? Any other thoughts?
vanessa: ⁓ Have you guys ever done a live stream of your life outside of Twitch gaming?
Gianni: Have not. My my daughters encourage me to do so like every morning. They're like, can we vlog the grocery store? I'm like, I don't. So I think by way of like osmosis, eventually you'll see ⁓ me just grocery shopping at you know Vaughn's and Ventura Boulevard, you know. but yeah, ⁓ but yeah, no, never I've never like dabbled in any of the IRL stuff, but I'm not totally a
Cam: I haven't yet.
SirDrJM: ⁓
Samson: ⁓ okay.
vanessa: Yeah.
SirDrJM: The IRL stream?
Cam: Mm-hmm.
vanessa: Yeah.
Samson: Yeah, yeah.
SirDrJM: Don't dox yourself.
Cam: Yeah.
vanessa: Mm.
Gianni: I feel like that's almost like a different there it's a completely different conversation in terms of like best practices and things like that, but it is something that interests me for sure.
vanessa: Mm-hmm.
Cam: Mm-hmm. I was just watching Vanilla Mace. I love I love
vanessa: Yeah, yeah. Oh, she's so funny, dude. She's so funny. I love her. Yeah, she's so good. Yeah.
Samson: ⁓ yeah. Ha ha ha.
Cam: I'm obsessed with her and she was just going to like a Pokemon card meetup in LA and watching hers. I yeah, we can all learn so much just by watching the people that were like, would aspire to be like, or would want to eventually do things in that same vein. And so I've never done an IRL stream, but like Gianni said, it's like, it's a matter of time. I did a 12 hour marathon stream. Soon enough, I'm going to get a camera and figure out how to do something around Denver. But yeah, I haven't done it yet.
vanessa: Mm-hmm.
Samson: Fun. I have a funny IRL stream story. ⁓ it was my buddy's bachelor party, and we went to this this like outdoor jungle gym thing ⁓ called Wild Play that's in our area. Vanessa, you would know, yeah. And then we get there and there's this girl with like a giant, like like she's a petite Asian girl. She has a giant like tablet attached to her arm, and then she has like like a gimbal selfie stick extended out.
vanessa: ⁓ no.
Gianni: ⁓ boy.
vanessa: Mmm, yeah yeah, I what,
SirDrJM: Mm.
Samson: And she's li she was live streaming herself doing this Jungle Gym obstacle course in the forest. and then ⁓ we were on stream too, like this huge group of bachelor party guys. ⁓ and then yeah, her name's Big Coco Buns and she her whole thing is just yeah, it's it's also a funny name. She she travels around like the States, Asia, just live streaming her life and and all that as her job, I guess. ⁓ but that was that was very funny. And and that was like my first
Gianni: Money.
SirDrJM: Huh. That's a name.
Samson: live streaming ex or ⁓ IRL streaming experience. Yeah. I was like, wow, it's a huge setup.
Gianni: That's hilarious.
SirDrJM: I have followed big cocoa buns.
Gianni: Shout out to Big Coco Buns. Yeah, shout out. Come on the show.
vanessa: Big cocoa buns.
SirDrJM: I'm excited to see who this person is.
Samson: Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's pretty Yeah, it's ⁓ it's it's definitely yeah, like Gianni said, a different skill, a different best practices and all that. ⁓ but at the same time it's still incredibly popular, right? Like you have folks like Vanilla Mace, like Ken was talking about. ⁓ like I show speed, of course, doing it all the time. and ⁓ and it's just I don't know, just going around mingling with people and you can make that your job. Like
Gianni: Ha ha ha.
vanessa: Yeah, super popular. Yeah.
Gianni: Yeah.
vanessa: yeah. yeah, it's definitely...
Samson: That's that's also interesting.
Gianni: I think my my thing with IRL streaming is like I always wonder what's the line between being like a pest versus being, you know, you know what I mean? And I think I I'm not like concerned about that for myself, like consciously, but I do know people have different thresholds for what they're okay with. And for me, it's just like I I would almost like rather not broach that.
Samson: Mm-hmm.
Cam: Mmm. Mm-hmm.
vanessa: Mm-hmm.
Gianni: like cross that line because people are gonna have different boundaries and I don't want to like take it upon myself that they have the same boundaries that I would. So I think that's the fear for me of doing the IRL thing is at what point do I become a nuisance versus you know ⁓ yeah filming in public 100%. You exactly exactly I do have one question. Cam, my affiliate my my one year affiliate anniversary is coming up
Cam: Mm-hmm.
Samson: Mm-hmm.
vanessa: Yeah.
Samson: Yeah. E even just filming in public, like you you don't know what who wants to get caught in the back, right?
vanessa: Yeah. Yeah. Like some people are just uncomfortable with that, right? So, yeah.
Cam: Yep. Mm hmm. Yeah. Hmm?
Gianni: You just did a 12 hour stream. What are your like high level tips for getting through a 12 hour marathon? Because I'm I'm entertaining the idea, but I want to make sure that I'm like ready for it. You know what I mean?
Samson: Yeah.
Cam: Yeah, you should absolutely do it, especially for something as big as your Twitch affiliate anniversary. Like that's, that's a pretty monumental thing. And the community will show up for you, Gianni. You don't have to worry about that. I would say start planning. I had so many different iterations of what the schedule would be. So, you know, two hours for this game, 15, not even a 15 minute break. I mean, I just shoot, I took like what five minute breaks. Um, but you just like specifically segments like
SirDrJM: Ha ha
Cam: what games that you're gonna play or what games you'd like to play and spinning wheel. ⁓ But yeah, just make sure you give yourself a break. ⁓ I'm surprised my voice didn't go out throughout the 12 hours, but I tell you what, I got done streaming and I went and just like went and sat on the couch and ⁓ I could like, could feel my brain. I could feel my brain getting like smoother and deeper at the same time.
SirDrJM: Stared into the void. Dissociated.
Gianni: Took took a lozenge. Hall's cough drop.
vanessa: Hahaha!
Samson: Ha ha ha.
vanessa: Mmm.
SirDrJM: Ha ha ha.
Cam: It was very strange. ⁓ So yeah, I would say like it's a 12 hour marathon stream, not a sprint stream, which you know. ⁓ And so just like specifically setting up moments where you can take a break. ⁓ That was the most important thing. I was lucky because I could let Davey play around a Fortnite and I got to take like 20 minutes where again, I just sat in the other room, just literally sat on a chair and just kind of stood there for a little bit. ⁓
Samson: Yeah.
Gianni: I was gonna say, can I can I borrow Davy to play like ⁓ an hour of Elden Ring is somewhere in the middle? You know what I mean?
Samson: Yeah.
Cam: Hell yeah. ⁓ my, ⁓ he would love it. He would love it.
Samson: Ha ha. I was gonna say schedule in the ⁓ the disassociation break the in in it next time. Yeah. Yeah.
Gianni: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Cam: Yeah, seriously. yeah, ⁓ And Gianni, there's a thing called Treat Stream where people can purchase food for you or like beverages. It's Grubhub pretty much. ⁓ And I thought I was like, this is the weirdest thing. I don't want to ask people to like buy me food or like buy me like a cold brew middle of the way, you know, through the stream.
vanessa: Just staring at the screen.
SirDrJM: From one to two, we're all going to shut up and just stare into the camera.
Gianni: Ha ha ha.
Samson: Just yeah.
vanessa: Hahaha
Gianni: Food. Okay.
Cam: but TreatStream, came clutch. Perry got me level 10 spicy Thai noodles because it was like a challenge. Batgirl got me cold brews. Mjolnir came in with Baja Blast. Britterbee sent us chicken nuggets. it's like, yeah, yeah, we can talk offline. We'll table this conversation. But there's cool ways that like people will support you because they want to keep going. They want you to keep going. And so it's like, yeah, just.
Gianni: What?
vanessa: Treats, treats, true.
Gianni: That's awesome, dude.
Samson: Wow, that's that's awesome.
Gianni: Yes. A hundred percent.
Cam: Try to find ways where people can kind of help take care of you if it seems like you're not able to take care of yourself in those moments. Yeah.
Gianni: Cut the baton. Awesome. I'm excited. Thank you, Cam.
Samson: That's awesome. ⁓ as we come to the end of our time together, as this group of I don't know, the Avengers of people who have streamed for one year or less. We'll call it that. We'll call it that. The rolls off the tongue. ⁓ I just want to thank you all for for for your time and your wisdom and just just sharing for not only for folks like like Jordan, Vanessa, and I, ⁓ who aren't day to day streamers, but like for anybody listening to the episode.
SirDrJM: Wow. That's a title.
Cam: Great.
Gianni: Yes, man. Yeah. Thank you.
Samson: ⁓ I hope that you found some wisdom through this. ⁓ and of course, like take it with you into your streams and hopefully ⁓ you build a new community out of it as well. So Cam, Diani, Vanessa as well, thank you for your time tonight. ⁓ this has been awesome and super fun. ⁓ I'm gonna start with Cam. Where can people find you if they want to keep up with you?
Gianni: Thank you.
Cam: ⁓ yeah, I'm the French Dip Design on everything, specifically twitch.tv slash the French Dip Design where I stream every weekday morning at 730 a.m. Pacific time. ⁓ You can also find me on YouTube now where I'm starting to post some of my VODs. So learning DaVinci, I'm trying to get into that Gianni groove because nobody makes an edit like Gianni DeCrasta. If you aren't following him on Instagram, holy cannoli, the the new Dark Souls edits have been incredible and I don't even know anything about those games.
Samson: ⁓ that's true. That's true.
Gianni: shucks.
SirDrJM: Yeah.
vanessa: You
Cam: But yeah, you can find me everywhere at the French Dip Design.
Samson: Yeah. It's true, it's true. ⁓ Johnny, where can folks find you?
Gianni: Yes, you can find me Gianni DeCrasta on Twitch, YouTube, ⁓ Instagram, really all socials, TikTok, all that. Unfortunately, still TikTok, not for much longer though, I promise. ⁓ you can find me ⁓ streaming four to five days out of the week over on Twitch. ⁓ and then also I just started recently putting up ⁓ edited down VODs over on my YouTube. So instead of watching a three hour video on demand, you can just get all the greatest hits every single stream in 15 to 25 minutes. Really fun time. So check me out. Gianni DeCrosta. Like I said, I'm the only one on the internet. So you do a Google and I'm the first result, I promise you.
Samson: That's incredible. I love that. ⁓ Vanessa, where can folks find you?
vanessa: Mostly on I'm mostly on tik-tok So V underscore velo and then twitch. I'm still trying to figure out my schedule, but I'm gonna try to do every other day That's just Vanessa with 11 H's because 10 was taken so 10 was 10 was too little Yeah, don't go to the 10 one it's 11 H's
SirDrJM: Ha ha.
Cam: You
Samson: go to the ten one. You'll be at the wrong Vanessa. We'll link it. I'll ⁓ everyone's links will be in the description below as well. Yeah, of course.
Gianni: ⁓ can I shot one more thing before I forget? Are you ⁓ is this VOD going up tomorrow?
Samson: Eventually, yeah. T tomorrow yeah.
Gianni: Okay. So as of today, when this video is posting, the homies, Sir Dr. JM Jordan, and Samson XP Samson will be on the Content Mill podcast, which is the podcast that I host with Eric Mr. The Human, Nate Herelic Headgear, and Phil 70% complete. Cam, the friendship design, has also been on the podcast as well. So make sure you check out ⁓ the gulu homies over on the content mill. I have to give that a quick shout-out. Okay, Samson, I'm sorry, go ahead.
SirDrJM: No.
Samson: No, no, no. Please, please shut that out. Yeah, it's a it was a really cool episode. Thanks for having us on. ⁓ and f letting us flex our creative brains. Cause that was pretty challenging, but I also had a lot of fun. Yeah. Love that. ⁓ Jordan, where can a good folks find you?
Gianni: Fun time.
SirDrJM: Mm-hmm. ⁓ before I say that, I just want to say, Vanessa, write that down. Write down your Twitch handle and say it every single time you pimp your channel. 11 H's. You've got something there. And and it just it that's perfect. Just you know, twitch.tv slash Vanessa with 11 H's. And just get that wording perfect, because yeah, that's that's a really easy way to stick it in people's brain, right? They'll remember that.
vanessa: Mm. 11 inches. Yeah.
Gianni: Love it.
vanessa: Yeah, you won't forget it. was 11. Yeah. Yeah, 10 was taken. Yeah.
Gianni: Yeah, absolutely.
SirDrJM: Eleven eleven not ten because ten was taken. That's what they'll remember. So
Gianni: Ha ha ha.
Cam: I'm already thinking of merch ideas. I got merch ideas for you Vanessa, don't you worry. The moment you said it I was like, ⁓ shit, this would make such a good t-shirt or a tote bag design.
SirDrJM: Yeah, yeah, it's perfect. Yeah, you got a graphic designer here, he'll he'll make you a shirt. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.
Gianni: Ha ha ha.
Samson: There you go. There you go. You know who to call, Vanessa. You know who to call.
vanessa: Yeah, there you go. Yeah. I'll hit you up. I'll message you. I'll message you.
Gianni: Hello?
Samson: Let's do it. I can't wait. I'll buy one. Love that. ⁓ of course. ⁓ yeah, go ahead, Jordan. I didn't even let you shut yourself out. You just said anything.
Cam: You
SirDrJM: Yeah, yeah. ⁓ I didn't say where I where you can find me. I I wanted to call that out. ⁓ you can find me everywhere on the internet at Sir Dr. J ⁓ Instagram is the big place to find me and twitch.tv slash sir dr jm. That's Sir D R J ⁓ And Samson, before I pass it back to you, I just want to say I need you to send it over to me at the very end for my words of wisdom. I have wisdom today.
Samson: ⁓ okay. Does he now? Well, we're just gonna have to wait because I need to remind you that my name is Samson, aka Samson XP on all the socials at SMSN.underscore no smsn.blue sky. ⁓ Samson XP, yeah, and everything else. ⁓ but you won't find me on Twitch on that account. You'll find me on Twitch on Grow Up Level Up, ⁓ the weekly podcast where we talk about the funny games that helped us grow up as well as the games that we continue to. To play today, ⁓ except for this week where we're talking about what it's like to be playing games through Twitch. ⁓ I need to work on the tech let for that one at the end of the episode. It's okay. I'll figure it out by next episode. ⁓ but think of this one as a leveling up episode, okay? We're all learning on how to how to better ourselves in what we call streaming day today. So twitch.tv slash grow up level up, youtube.com slash ⁓ grow up level up to stick with us. And listen to what we have to chat about every week. And speaking of every week, aka next week, we have a couple folks out of town. ⁓ Jordan is gonna be taking a little summer break. I might be out of town as well. So it might be a little little not so traditional podcast next week. I I'm working on something that runs with Smokemon Pampions with Bosie Bear. Yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, I don't know.
SirDrJM: Mm-hmm. Mm.
Cam: Hmm. Yeah, what could that be? Is that a Digimon thing?
Gianni: I'm gonna have to think on that one.
vanessa: That's a brain twister. I don't know.
Gianni: Yeah.
SirDrJM: Probably.
Samson: I don't know. Well, you'll you'll have to subscribe to find out and hit the notification bell if you can. Yeah. Yeah. So so make sure you are here again for that next week. and yeah, ha hope to see you there. Live viewers, we are going to be raiding, but first we will close out our episode with some wise words from Jordan, aka Sir, Dr. J ⁓
Cam: Okay, all right.
vanessa: cryptic, very cryptic.
SirDrJM: Thank you, thank you. Now I know everyone's waiting for some hilarious joke or something, but this is this is actual wisdom that I want to impart on on everyone here. ⁓ obviously this episode has been full of ⁓ good tips and tricks and ⁓ you know, just discussion around streaming. But the big thing that I kind of had a bit of an epiphany around when I, you know, I mean, I don't stream that often, but when I finally actually started to have one or two people in my chat regularly, ⁓ The big thing was if you think about yourself in real life, how often do you have five friends in your living room with you? How often do you have 10 friends in your living room with you? How often do you have one or two? Right. And if you just think about streaming in that similar kind of way, ⁓ I think it makes the whole size thing a lot less daunting. Because yes, you have iShow Speed, you have Kai Sonaut, ⁓ people like this who have thousands and thousands of streams Of people watching their stream every day. You're never gonna have a thousand people in your living room. But when you go to a friend gathering and there's 10 of you in one house or one apartment or one living room, it's packed, right? You can't have a conversation with 10 people at the same time. You usually are having a conversation with two or three people at the same time. And you might jump from group to group. So I just ⁓ I kind of had this epiphany one day that was just like, ⁓ Even though you only have one, two, three people in your chat, just think about it like you're just hanging out with some friends in your living room, right? ⁓ so anyways, that's that's all I wanted to say. I just like that ⁓ kind of framing around it.
vanessa: That's nice. Words of wisdom.
Gianni: that. Love that.
Samson: And scene.