BracketsLIVE – Upbeat Variety Streamer Making a Positive Impact in the Twitch Community

Tell us your history with video games 

I have been gaming since before I could talk. Or at least that is what my parents say. The first game I barely remember playing was Pajama Sam on PC when I was probably 5 years old. After that, I moved on to playing GameCube games with my family. I always loved Madden, and I have bought every Madden game since the first one I got back in 2004. I played every game with my dad, who I would always try my hardest to beat. I think that started my passion for gaming. I love to win, and I love to prove people wrong. Video games gave me the opportunity to be able to win whenever I wanted to, and I loved proving my dad wrong by beating him at every game. Especially Madden!

My video game progression went from PC (Old school puzzle games…), to GameCube, to Gameboy, Nintendo DS, Wii, Xbox 360, Xbox One, then gaming PC. I remember playing Pokemon, every sports game, even Animal Crossing as a kid. Then as time went on, I began to play games with my friends from school on Xbox 360. It was so easy to connect online and in seconds be chatting with a friend playing a game. Those are the people I still talk to even 10 years after I got my first Xbox.

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

I actually started off creating YouTube videos about 10 years ago. I always loved posting gaming clips on YouTube and hoping one would go viral. My friends actually got me a capture card for my birthday one year for me to post my clips, instead of recording the tv from my phone. I always loved watching YouTube prank videos, funny gaming videos, and food challenge videos. I always wanted to one day have a viral video like those. I moved on from posting gaming clips after a few years to posting my own food challenge videos. That is when I began to truly become addicted to the grind.

I began my first gaming stream playing Fortnite at about 1000 YouTube subscribers I think. A few of the comments every video I would post would be “You should stream” so I decided to give it a shot. I remember googling “how to set up a stream” and went for it. This was about 3 years ago. I set up my laptop, downloaded OBS, plugged in my controller, and streamed a very laggy, 10 FPS stream for about 2 viewers. And I was one of them. I continued to stream on my laptop every day after recording AND uploading a YouTube video between and after class, propping my laptop up on water bottle caps or else it would overheat every hour and the stream would shut down. I still use that laptop today, actually. Not to stream though. Can’t believe it still works.

Tell us about your channel and community

My community is the best on Twitch. We call ourselves the #1 Fun Club. I am family friendly, positive vibes only, and do not allow toxicity in the chat. If I am going to be streaming and reading messages from my community all day or for a few hours every day, I don’t want to be reading toxic messages! I only want to read positive messages. I believe gaming needs more positive role models. I see a lot of the big streamers just acting toxic, negative, and just displaying a bad attitude. They don’t realize they are role models to many who look up to them. I want to become the biggest streamer so that I can bring a positive influence to as many viewers as possible.  

I mainly stream games that I can get funny clips for to upload to other social platforms. I have been streaming Fortnite since I began streaming, and I still love the game today. I also love Call of Duty and any sports game. If I were not streaming, I would probably play a lot more Madden. Maybe I will play some Madden on stream soon...GO BENGALS!

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

I’ve been successful just being myself. I think that is the only way to be successful. I am live streaming a lot and recording videos every day. It is much easier to just be yourself! My brand has grown through a lot of hard work and sacrifices. Most people don’t know the sacrifices I have made to be where I am today. It will all be worth it eventually!

I was able to grow my channel through TikTok and YouTube, mostly. It is not easy to get views, let alone get those viewers to transfer across platforms (from YouTube or TikTok) and go over to your Twitch. So I have dedicated a lot of time learning what the viewers look for and best techniques to draw viewers over to Twitch to the live streams.

My biggest accomplishment so far in my streaming career is getting Twitch Partner on May 14th. Before that, I streamed for about a year and a half on YouTube. Switched over to Twitch to go full time, then streamed as an affiliate for about a year and a half on Twitch.

What’s the best piece of feedback you’ve ever received from a viewer?

The best piece of feedback I have received from a viewer is any time someone tells me they love my content. Sometimes they say I make their day, but truthfully they make my day and are making my dreams come true by watching and supporting me.

How do you balance streaming and your day-to-day life?

My day-to-day life revolves around streaming and creating videos for YouTube and TikTok. I wake up in the morning, edit a video for the day, take a lunch break, record a video for tomorrow, then stream, eat dinner around 10PM, then come back and VOD review and edit until I fall asleep for 5-6 hours or so. When people say it is a grind, it truly is a grind! Been living this way for about 3 years now, and I love working hard. I usually work about 16-18 hours 6 days a week if you count the lunch breaks where I watch Twitch and network. I take a day off of streaming to make a solid video, and actually do laundry and clean my apartment...it gets pretty messy during the weekly grind.

My friends and family didn’t have any special reaction when they found out I stream. I honestly didn’t tell anyone for a while I made videos or streamed. I always want to be successful. So I was afraid to tell anyone when I was first starting out. I didn’t want them to see me with low viewers or views on videos or low subscribers or followers and think I was wasting my time. Especially my parents. They eventually found out and said if I can make a living doing it, then they support me. So that’s what I’m trying to do. That also is what drives me to want to succeed, though. 

Tell us what tools you use for your stream

I use Streamlabs OBS, Streamlabs Chatbot for chat commands, and Discord as a place for announcements and community bonding. I use Adobe for videos and thumbnails. I got my overlays from NerdOrDie and some stuff on Fiverr. Some Twitch extensions I use are the Streamlabs Leaderboard so people can see top sub gifters and bits cheerers. That is always fun to compete for. I look at analytics every single day. To see trends and stats. I went to school for Engineering and took a lot of statistics classes. I love to track trends to try to predict the future outcomes.

What are your favorite streaming resources?

TikTok and YouTube are great resources. Just search “Stream Tips”

Which 3 streamers inspire you the most?

1. Ninja - When he first started to really blow up during the beginning/peak of Fortnite, I wanted what he had. Truly changed the streaming game forever.
2. Nick Eh 30 - His positive energy and vibes makes for the perfect role model that more kids should look up to. There’s too much toxicity online for younger kids to look at and replicate.
3. Any Small Streamer - I love watching any small streamer with a great attitude and seeing how much fun they are having. Maybe helping them out too. It always reminds me of why I started this journey and they inspire me to keep going and keep having fun.

What are your top 3 streaming tools? 

• OBS or Streamlabs OBS
• Good microphone
• Elgato Stream Deck

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

If I had to start all over I would tell myself to post more stream clips. Twitch streams are temporary and you might have 10 total viewers for 8 hours. YouTube videos and TikTok videos can be seen by millions in a day.

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

I would give creators a place to post announcements. Almost like Twitter. Maybe give a Twitch Timeline to post clips and messages to your followers.

What are your plans for the future? 

My future plans are to expand. When I first started really grinding 3 years ago, I honestly thought I would be a millionaire after 1 year. LOL. I know I have what it takes to succeed, but I learned it might take a bit more time than I originally thought...5 years from now I hope I am still creating content and succeeding at a high level with my day 1 OG viewers still supporting. I truly love everyone who supports me right now. I want to continue to inspire people, help people succeed, and make people LAUGH. Ideally, in 5 years I’ll be looking back reading this and smiling from the insane gaming room in my new big house with my dog Big Chungus! :)