Bluee – A Streamer Who Gave Up 90,000 Followers & Started a New Channel

Tell us your history with video games

My first step into gaming started when my dad introduced Xbox to me at a VERY young age. I was basically born with a controller in my hand. It was how me and my father bonded and the same went for my brother when came into this world. We all bonded with gaming and grew into loving it throughout our lives. As time went on I started to gain friends not only through online but through my friends in school that thoroughly enjoyed gaming.

The first game that I truly dived into was Battlefront 2 on the PS2. It was the first game to drive me to play it from day til night. I was hooked and that is where my addiction to FPS games started. From there on gaming became not only a hobby but it became an addiction. Bouncing from game to game from CS 1.6 to Overwatch to Fortnite.

I have always had a very competitive mindset to every game I have played. The competitive nature of games is what truly dragged me into playing so much! It first started off with my CS:GO high school league that me and my friends started. It was through an organization called HSEL and we performed pretty damn well for the year we played! After my years of CS experience I switched my knowledge to Overwatch playing with pro teams in the Alpha state of the game. Then IMMEDIATELY switched to Fortnite because I found an extreme love for the game.

I originally played Fortnite for the competitive scene and I truly loved my time within that scene. I was considered a west pro with around $6,000 in earnings for my time within comp. I switched my focuses from comp to content within the span of a few weeks and everything changed for me. I was well known at the point by most pros in the scene but wanted to expand my reach. From that point I switched to creating the content that the people wanted.

I created one of the biggest trends in the Fortnite scene. This trend was named Fashion shows and I was the first person to revolutionize it for the streamers. I was looked at as the person to take notes from and watch out for trends. YouTubers from Kiwiz, Techy, Tiko, Ghoulz, and SypherPK did content with me at the time and blew me up to the point I never thought I could reach. These new highs brought me 90,000 followers and incredible views/subs on Twitch.

From this point on it was downhill and no one saw it coming. The fashion shows had got to me and I was not only emotionally drained but depressed from the fan base I had made. I decided that it was best for me and my mental health to go to something that I believed I enjoyed. I switched my content from Fortnite to Minecraft/variety and this was the biggest blow to my career. In the matter of weeks I had destroyed the numbers I once held and in turn made a change for the worst.

The pain I felt from constantly hosting fashion shows for 8-10 hours a day was nothing compared to the pain I felt with 90k followers averaging 10-20 viewers that only showed hate and threats towards me. I made a decision that no streamer probably ever thinks of. I wiped every follower I had gained from my time in Fortnite and purged the people that prayed on my downfall. I went for 90,000 followers to 1,000 followers in the matter of a day and it was all due to me wiping everything. I got rid of everything from my past and deleted every single follower from that period of my career. This is the start of the Bluee redemption arc and how I gain a following that truly loves and supports everything I do. 

What’s your backstory and how did you get into streaming?

Let me start from the beginning of my journey and explain how streaming takes time. Gaming has always been a part of me throughout my life as it is for many gamers. I started as every child does and started recording my EARLY videos of Minecraft and CS:GO at the age of 10. I used an app that everyone used back in the day called Bandicam and gained a lot of inspiration from the YouTubers I watched at the time. I took my first start from creators such as Skydoesminecraft, ASFJerome, BajanCanadian, and CaptainSparklez. This was only the beginning of my content creation journey.

I never truly started to get into streaming until about 4 years ago when I was 17 and a junior year in high school. Back then I didn’t see content creation as an actual form of making a living and it wasn’t really perceived in that light as of that time. I decided to start my streaming journey again there due to the fact I truly just enjoyed playing games and talking with people. I thoroughly enjoy being able to meet new people and entertain people with the little humor I had back then. You probably wonder why I say little humor and that is because I wasn’t immediately someone that you would want to watch. If I go back in my past and look at the content I was creating it was absolutely atrocious and hard to watch.

One doesn’t just start streaming and immediately become the streamer they dreamed they could be. You have to grow into the person you want to be as a content creator. It took me 4 years to finally find the person I wanna be perceived as and to this day I am still working on becoming a better content creator. For a long time I didn’t see content creation as a valid job or future for myself. I didn’t start to realize I could do this as a job until I was in my 1st year of college during the time I was blowing up from the Fortnite fame. I was not enjoying my major that I was in and decided to put everything I had into my content creation dream. This is when things made the turn for the worst as you know.

I can’t tell my exact numbers of what I was making but I was making plenty enough to support me living alone and I had planned to move out. When I made the switch to better my mental health it all changed and hurt everything even more. I went from 90k followers being able to support myself to having 1k followers and not even being able to afford groceries for the month from what I was making. I have dealt with pain and struggle that I never thought I would ever have to deal with. I am now at a point where I don’t know where to go or what to do. This is why I tell people to follow dreams but always have a backup plan in case of moments like what I am going through.

Tell us about your channel and community

The community that I have created from Minecraft has truly been something that I am proud of and happy to continue to grow. I have made sure to form my community around accepting and welcoming everyone into the stream with open arms. This is something I have prided myself on when I switched from the Fortnite community to the Minecraft community.

Something I didn’t expect as well was the fact that the Minecraft community would accept me with such love and respect even though I was new. My content mainly consists of playing Minecraft but varies from games like Valorant, Just Chatting, and random games!

Currently, my favorite games to play would have to be Valorant and Minecraft. Every game that I play on stream are all games that I truly enjoy and play off stream. Most of the gaming I do off stream is with the amazing friend group I get to call family that goes by the name Homestead.

Homestead is a collective of content creators and mutuals that are all basically family. I have a HUGE rule and view on playing with viewers that I will always stick to. I learned the hard way that if you make your stream around playing with people you can never escape it and that is what people base your streams off of and only come for that fact. As much as I love and respect my community I do not play with viewers for that exact reason. I will keep to my guns on that and never change that fact unless it is a very specific scenario.

Tell us about your brand and how you’ve been able to obtain success

I have always kept my stream persona as my true self because I wanted to develop my personality as I grew as a streamer. I didn’t want to forget who I was because I played or portrayed a character on camera 24/7. I feel like every streamer exaggerates their personality in some way on stream but that is just natural to be more bubbly and lively when a camera is on you in front of people. You get used to the pressure of the camera being on you but for a long time it will feel weird to be in front of people in that way.

I am going to break down how I blew up and how I believe people can grow a brand/channel.

My blowup on Twitch was mainly attributed to the amount of YouTubers that made videos with me that had millions of views with my Twitch linked. This came down to luck and also because of how much I was streaming. At the time, I was streaming 8-10 hours everyday, taking no breaks even when I was sick. I took advantage of my creation of a trend that no one had done and grinded out content until people found my channel and saw it good enough to promote.

Of course, that's not the exact same from streamer to streamer, but that is how I came upon my short-lived growth. Following trends and creating trends is a sure shot way to grow within streaming. I would say the best way to continuously grow as a streamer would be to have a consistent streaming schedule and solidified idea of what you want your stream to become for people.

Throughout my time I've gone through plenty of challenges from people in my life not believing in my future to death threats from people that hated my content. One of the biggest challenges I faced was fighting with myself if I was going to get rid of all my Fortnite followers and haters or not. In the end, I decided it was best for my future and my mental health to go through with the decision of getting rid of everything I had built up to this point. It took me around 1 year to get Affiliate because I was extremely new to content creation and everything that deal with it. I got Partner almost a year ago and got it 3 years into streaming! I went full-time about 1 year ago when I was blowing up from Twitch and dropped out of college which I would NEVER recommend by the way. Currently I'm not a full-time streamer and looking for another job along side my content creation.

How do you balance streaming and life?

I stream every day and my day is at least 70% content with 30% other life stuff. I start my days at around 10am and I usually scroll through Tiktok looking for trends that are happening that day. Once I find a trend that I like I format a plan and idea for the video I wanna make with that trend sound. I obviously eat and get some exercise in before joining a call in Homestead to hang out with the homies and talk about what the plans are for that day or week.

I usually create my Tiktok and plan stuff for the week before I stream at around 5pm or 6pm CST and then stream for 2-3 hours. After I'm done streaming I call my girlfriend and that is usually the sum up of my days. The days that I do take off are usually me just chilling with my girlfriend, family, and friends while also gaming/relaxing! Half of my family believes streaming is a really cool/intriguing job, while the other half believe I'm doing nothing and am wasting my life away.

I will most likely stream throughout my whole life because I love everything about the job even though it has brought me so much pain. Pain comes with everything so I tend to look past that and use it as something to light the flame of my passion for content. I believe that I have the ability to make this a maintainable lifestyle but I truly have to find myself not just within streaming but within life.

Tell us what tools you use for your stream

I currently use Streamlabs OBS as it is the easiest thing to use for any streamer and doesn’t take much effort. I use Streamlabs for all my donations and I use Nightbot for my automodding.

I currently have a Discord that at one point had 20,000 members, but I purged everything from Fortnite and is now at 3,000 members. All my graphics on my Twitch were done by VBI and they did an INSANE job with everything. I don’t use any extensions for my stream unless it is for a certain event. I don’t believe analytics are something you can truly study on Twitch but when it comes to YouTube and Tiktok I pay close attention to a lot of things.

What are your top 3 streaming tools? 

1. Spotify for music selection
2. GoXLR
3. My trusty white blanket that I have on me at ALL times

What advice would you give to small channels trying to reach Partner? 

Be creative and do something that breaks the norm. Become the creator that you dreamed of being and work your butt off to get to that point. Success comes with a mixture of luck and grind, never forget that. ALSO use every platform to your advantage from Tiktok to Twitter. Use EVERYTHING.

If you could change one thing about Twitch, what would it be? 

The one thing Twitch lacks is something that YouTube and Tiktok have mastered. That would be the algorithm to show people new and upcoming creators. I believe the recommended stuff on Twitch doesn’t work as it should and people are forced to use other platforms to have ANY chance on Twitch.