The question is: how do I become a streamer? lmao

I know, I know, but the thing is, I’ve been teaching English for about ten years now and I’m frankly getting tired of the grind, waking up early as shit, teaching for six to nine hours each day and all that. I make good money, but I get the feeling that the real big money is in doing online stuff. Selling courses, making content, that kind of stuff.

My idea for a channel or twitch stream or whatever would be me playing games and then commenting on interesting aspects of the stuff characters are saying in the games. Some of the streams would be Q&As, some straight-up lessons on specific topics, maybe some streams dedicated to other stuff like films and TV shows. You get the idea.

The thing is, I don’t even know where to start. I’m familiar with OBS, I have a good camera and mic setup that I already use for my online lessons, but I don’t know where to start in terms of platforms, streamers to use as references and what I should expect from the process of cultivating an audience.

What do you folks think? Where should I begin?

  • PKMKII [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    7·
    22 hours ago

    I’d say a good reference streamer would be ZainoTV. He does Balatro streaming, so because of the pacing of the game and the often esoteric ways its system works, there’s a lot of explanation happening while he’s streaming. Also a generally chill guy, LGBT ally.

    Definitely be prepared to spend some time having very few viewers. Like anything else entertainment-related, there’s a lot of streamers hanging out in the single digit viewers, a modest amount in the double to triple digit range, and then there’s the small handful of mega streamers like Hasan.

    Try to have some sort of niche or gimmick to stand out. Decide if you want to have yourself on camera, not on camera, or an animated avatar.

    Cross pollinate your platforms. A lot of streamers will also produce some YouTube content as well, even if it’s just uploading their VODs. Reaction content is super low hanging fruit for this. The point is that the algorithms all behave differently so being on multiple platforms helps to reach audiences on one platform that the algorithm isn’t steering towards you on others. It seems like every streamer has a Discord, I’m not sure how important this is as I don’t use Discord that frequently.

    • joaomarrom [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      2·
      21 hours ago

      Thanks for the advice, I feel like I still need to become more familiar with streaming in general, I don’t follow anyone closely, I mostly watch clips from streamers, but I don’t really sit down and watch any of them live. Do you happen to follow any? I’ll check ZainoTV out later today

      • PKMKII [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        3·
        19 hours ago

        A lot of splatoon streamers. Chase247, ThatSrb2DUDE, and SourBraix are the ones of those I enjoy the most. A couple political ones, namely Hasan and Yugopnik. Some others I like that have good viewer engagement: Wirtual, Rookang1, Jakeblennings, karterfreak, AuroraPeachy.