Dodorododo – German Variety Streamer Who Met Her Husband Through Twitch

Tell us your history with video games

Hi! My name is dodorododo – not like the bird, but like my actual name: Doris! Dodo has always been a Nickname of mine and for the sake of the Internet, I wanted to make it a bit more fun! The very first games I played were on the Nintendo 64. My mum, dad and sister used to play games like Mario Party, for example. I also always loved watching my dad play Banjo Kazooie! I was too little to play myself but the concept of playing IN a story and not just watching it always fascinated me.

I’d play games like Secret of Mana with my dad and sister, and Tales of Symphonia by myself when I was a little older. My sister and I still play games from time to time and my Dad is also still gaming!

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

I joined Twitch two and a half years before I started streaming myself. I was quite the busy bee! I was in training to become a Kindergarten teacher, worked retail to make some money on the side and did volunteer work in a Kindergarten. I loved Twitch and the communities I was in. I even met my Husband! I stumbled upon his stream one day, we started playing games together, became friends.. And well! Eventually more than friends. He moved from America to Germany to be with me.

Fast forward and I decided to drop out of school with the Kindergarten assistance title as I figured out it just wasn’t for me, for multiple reasons. I didn’t know what to do with all this time on my hands and really just wanted to have some friends to talk to about video games.

So I started up my first stream. We didn’t have any money to our names, living with my dad and streaming with an old PC, my headset mic, and regular webcam. I continued working retail for income and have been doing this ever since!

Tell us about your channel and community

I've always streamed a variety of games. From Nintendo classics to small indie games. A few of my favorites to stream are Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. What really made my channel take off was Phasmophobia! I started playing it mid-October last year and had the chance to make a lot of amazing friends and met incredible content creators.

I always make sure I find time to play and interact with my community as they are the reason why I am here. They’re wonderful, inclusive people from all over the world and I am blessed to have them spend time with me and share their life on a daily basis.

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

I never considered my channel a brand really. I guess since I am not a full-time streamer and never plan on being a full-time streamer I view things differently than most. I always was, and am, genuinely myself. Of course you try to be the best version of yourself, but I never changed who I truly am or what I stand for.

Growing my channel was also never a priority as it was never the plan to become a Twitch Partner or make money with it. I just wanted to have fun and play games and get to meet people from all over the world. When I got closer to reaching Partner and started to be able to apply, however, I did set up a schedule and started promoting my social media a bit more, inviting people more actively to join them and follow me. Money or success in the traditional sense wasn’t my intention with that either, though. I just wanted to be able to give my community access to all Partner Perks, such as Emotes, Cheermotes and Quality control options.

To reach affiliate it took me a week, as I already had a lot of friends coming to watch me and streamer friends who raided me and support me. Partner on the other hand took me 2.5 years. I was able to apply after 2, but it took me 5 applications and 5 months to get accepted.

I don’t want to be a full-time streamer as this would, in my eyes, change the dynamic of the stream. I want to keep friendships and keep it as a fun hobby rather than a job. Also, security is an important thing to me. Streaming does not secure you an income and I just personally couldn’t handle the instability.

How do you balance streaming and life ?

I make sure to listen to my body and what I need. If I feel like I need a break, I make sure I do - even if it means breaking my schedule. It’s not healthy for me or my channel to stream when I am not in the mood for it. My schedule also usually changes weekly as I have to stream around my work schedule. So it really depends on the day! Usually I will eat, clean my apartment, check my emails, check my Discord, catch up with my mods if needed, check my internet and Twitch servers, post on my socials and then go live! I also like to watch my friends before I stream if I have time.

Post stream I usually raid someone, so I spend some time there, then check my clips and my socials.

On a work day I usually come home, have a snack and stream right after. Everything else falls in the post stream stuff. On my days off I usually still catch up with social media, work or spend time with my husband! I also watch my friend if I find time .. or oh well - do some boring, old adult stuff like cleaning, bills or paper work in general.

My friends outside of Twitch don’t really know I stream or don’t really understand. My dad also doesn’t understand but he supports it! My sister watches my stream occasionally and my brother also doesn’t really have a clue what’s going on.

I don’t see myself stopping to stream any time soon as I enjoy it way too much to see myself not streaming! It’s just as fun as it is exhausting.

Tell us what tools you use for your stream

Right now I am streaming with Streamlabs OBS. I very much prefered OBS Studio but had more issues with it than solutions so I had to swap. I am satisfied with it. My Alerts and Donations also go through Streamlabs as well as my Merch Store.

As for bots, I mainly have Nightbot but I do also use Streamelements for the point system and some other fun stuff like the gambling!

Discord is the platform I use the most outside of Twitch. I love connecting and chatting with my community there when I am not live and I enjoy it a lot. Catching up on their life and giving them updates on mine is convenient, easy and fun!

All the art on my channel is commissioned from different artists: Merch, Emotes and Badges by Grei, Starting Soon/brb Screen by Dudoiselle, Animated Emotes/Alerts originally from Grei but animated by Subwuf_ and my Panels are actually made by Bakamaica. However, those were actually a present, as she doesn’t do commissions usually. I used to have some premade Panels and graphics! There are some great ones out there.

As for extensions, I would HIGHLY recommend Better Twitch TV (BTTV) as it gives you a lot of extra settings and emotes to use. I have all my emotes uploaded there for free to use and a lot more. It is a fantastic extension that comes for free (or premium of extra emotes) this is not only for Streamers!

What are your top 3 streaming tools? 

1. Not a tool at all but my mods take a huge workload of me every day. They do so much to keep the streamflow smooth on and off stream and I am truly thankful for them.
2. Elgato Stream deck. You don’t think you need it until you have it. I have so much fun playing around with it and it’s so convenient.
3. My Capture Card! Being able to stream games off my consoles has been a great experience - especially because I am such a huge Nintendo Fan.

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

Take a step back. Instead of only seeing what you don’t have, look at what you do have an appreciate it.

Build genuine friendships with your community and other streamers.

Enjoy yourself and what you do rather than focusing too much on the numbers. 

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

I wish Twitch was more transparent with their decisions in terms of Partnerships, bans etc. I feel that we are often confused and left in the dark and I wish they’d give us some insight.

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