Kettsley – Minecraft Streamer Shares His Ups and Downs with Livestreaming and Content Creation

Tell us your history with video games 

I wouldn’t be lying if I said Minecraft was the only game I ever played. Something about building iron domes and calling it an airport was just so appealing to me. Though I have no early recollection in my childhood of being introduced to the game, I do remember that it’s the first game I’ve fallen in love with (to the point where my not-so-tech-savvy grandmother knows about me rambling about it to her). The lite version of Minecraft is what hooked me to the game, but I still have that core memory of being jumpscared by what I thought was Herobrine at the time. Very traumatizing to see as a 5 year old, unfortunately.

I used to play with my younger cousin all the time when I still lived with their family— and when I did move away I still managed to convince her to play online minigame servers on Pocket Edition that ended up in her panicking in a Messenger call and hanging up by accident, and me winning, of course. I don’t play with her anymore, only because he's grown from the game and ultimately matured. Not me though, I stream the game. I don’t think I can do that.

I have used a lot of aliases over the past few 9 years, but Kettsley is the only one I’ve really grown to like. Before Kettsley, and before I started streaming, I used to go by the name “beckette” and I figured it had a really good ring to it, but a lot of people had struggle spelling out, and personally I do not like names that are difficult to spell. I took “Kett”, god knows where “sley” came from, and now we have our favorite streamer “Kettsley” in the mix. Now, people have difficulty pronouncing it. Some call me “Kettle-sey”. Ouch.

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

The first time I ever pressed “record” for a YouTube video was introducing my Campus Life characters to a non-existent audience. I was 8, and had no knowledge of how YouTube actually worked.. I uploaded all these to a YouTube channel, then began my Minecraft content journey by building inspired by Stampy’s videos. I thought to myself “hey, advertising in a comment section of a YouTuber I look up to might be a good idea!” I was 8, and had an 8 year old voice. Then I claimed I was 22. I got hundreds of hate comments from users saying that I should “get off YouTube” and though it didn’t really hurt me personally, it was a lot to deal with at 8 years old. No kid deserves that.

I went on and off with making content over the next few years or so. I saw someone or something, and immediately jumped at the idea of joining their niche. In 2018, I became a VSCO niche YouTuber near the likes of Emma Chamberlain, dropped it, and returned to vlogging in 2019, then quit. I couldn’t really handle editing off of an iPad (who can?) so I decided I’d quit for good. But seeing this journey over the past few years over a neutral standpoint tells how much I returned to making content on the internet, and how it just seems so appealing even now.

Then quarantine happened, I dropped most of my hobbies then got back into playing Minecraft on my laptop, reconnecting with friends of mine I met 4 years ago. School wouldn’t happen for well over 3 months, but then my life took a turn (for the better, if I’m being honest) when my PC shut off in the middle of a Roblox game and would not turn on. If I’m being honest, I wouldn’t be here where I am if that didn’t happen. Over the next month where I didn’t have my PC, I took to watching other YouTubers play the game that I missed dearly. I rediscovered the old Minecraft YouTubers I used to watch, and fell deeper into the rabbit hole.

Here I am, streaming Minecraft to an audience I deeply appreciate for being there.

Tell us about your channel and community

My content is centered around Minecraft, mainly, but I’m currently attempting to branch out my content to more variety. I used to stream a competitive game, bedwars, up until April, where I switched my niche entirely to center around my creativity: building. It’s not something that a lot of people do (who streams Minecraft building…) but enough players stream it to the point where I can still be unique while having my own audience. Even if I did or did not stream Minecraft, I reckon building in Minecraft could be therapeutic. I really recommend it, even if you’re “bad” at building.

My following alerts go by a little too quickly for me to individually say hello (suffering from success), but I always make sure to read them through. Sometimes I panic that I get follow-botted, so I try and ask them to say hi. My community is always welcoming when it comes to people who are new, and I’m super glad that’s the case.

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

I was never a firm believer in creating a wholly different persona than who I truly was IRL, but I do know that some aspects of myself that would be funnier if more exaggerated. From what I recall, however, I do not recall faking any type of trait I have online just to make myself funnier. Some people actually might think that I’m this rude, egotistical person who acts the same towards people I know, but in reality I really am not, but I suppose it still falls under the persona tag.

For some reason, I find it funny how people react to this character of mine who acts egotistical and all, especially when I claim that I’m “the only streamer ever” (which is true, by the way), because I know they’re just going to back me up. I reckon my chat just reinforces that egotistical persona of mine. I’m not too different in real life— I reckon people would not want to be friends with me if I constantly played the ego card in a conversation with them.

Almost every new generation streamer turns to this one social media platform that’s proven success for dozens of streamers— TikTok. Being the unoriginal person I am, I thought I’d give it a try. Multiple tries, actually, back in November I had no true knowledge of the ridiculous algorithm of the app, so I ended up making two accounts before a video or two of mine proved successful on the third. I backrided on that success until I completely lost all my motivation to edit when a video of mine blew up, and deleted the account that had little over 60k followers. I disappeared off of content creation for two and a half months (my social media presence remained). I was the YouTuber who wasn’t on YouTube, a streamer who doesn’t stream because of his bad internet, and overall, to myself, just a general failure who “fell off” their success as quickly as they got to it.

Before the one I have currently, I have made 2 TikTok accounts during the past 3 months. The first one, quite unfortunately so, became compromised; username changed, videos deleted. Then the second one, until I posted a quite controversial video that got a lot of angry men commenting on it justifying their misogyny. I figured I wouldn’t try and deal with it, so I just deleted the account and disappeared until I told an American friend of mine to make an account for me. I just had to keep editing, making content and all, and try not to be hung up on this one video not blowing up, this one not getting that many views, because in the end, to the platform, you’re just another user. That’s all there is to it.

I reckon my biggest accomplishment is being an inspiration to the LGBT+ community. Not a lot of nonbinary streamers “make it” (not at all implying that I have) but knowing that to a lot of young teens that my existence makes them feel a little more valid than they felt yesterday makes me really happy and content with how I continue to make my content. I believe that I can make it further as an LGBT+ POC content creator, and hopefully I get to inspire more to make content the way I do today.

It took me nearly a month to reach affiliate. I had ⅔ requirements but I could never stream that often because of how bad my computer was back when I started streaming. Meanwhile, it took me a month to reach the “Path to Partner” achievement, however I was denied twice before getting accepted on the 17th of May. Just seems like yesterday, doesn’t it. I’m unfortunately not a full-time streamer, though I would entertain the idea of it, it just seems unappealing to me that my only hobby would be streaming. Outside of it, I don’t do much, however, only school.

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

I’m gonna say straight up that my day-to-day life has no explicit line to me streaming. I know there’s a line drawn somewhere, but I think it’s just heavily blurred. I start my day turning on my PC and working on other content, then in the afternoon I hang out with my online friends or I continue working. I wouldn’t say I have a routine I follow before streaming, I just click Go Live and start it off.

Tell us what tools you use for your stream

I use OBS Studio. There will never be a day in my life where I touch Streamlabs OBS to stream, for many reasons. All my stream overlays like my chat and alertbox were made on the Streamlabs website, though, and for my text overlays I use StreamLabels. Nightbot is my favorite, the bot is subscribed to my channel permanently now, which is great. The art I use for my scenes were all drawn by me, on the best software ever, MS Paint. The fonts were also hand-drawn with my mouse, and I reckon they look pretty good. All the art I’ve been using lately for my socials were not commissioned, simply fanart from the talented artists in my community. When I change my Go Live notification every time, I make sure to look at which one performs well, such as costumes and outfits that I don’t usually wear on stream. It all depends on the creator-audience relationship, and I think that’s self-explanatory.

What are your favorite streaming resources?

I went in pretty blind when it comes to streaming. I never was the biggest fan of using professionally-made alertboxes or overlays, rather I try to make it look personal and creative on my end. I rely a lot on @katliente for advice, in fact I believe their help on writing Twitch Partner essays is what got me into the program anyway. If I really do need help, I just consult Google, no particular or specific channel.

Which streamers inspire you the most?

• vivid80s - Vivid is actually a friend of mine, she’s one of the first people I’ve learned to rely on when it comes to not only content but other issues as well. She’s really cool, and I value the advice she gives me when it comes to my content.
• hannahxxrose - Hannah is my definition of #girlboss. She’s put against so much misogyny and sexism in the gaming community, yet continues to push against it and make content. It’s not even the skill that she has that inspires me, it’s the fact that she faces those types of comments about her or the way she plays games but still keeps going. That’s really inspiring.

What are your top 3 streaming tools? 

• My stream deck is really convenient. I’m glad someone cared enough about me and my content to buy me one.
• OBS Studio, always. Extremely convenient and usable in any circumstance.
• I have a blanket that’s hung on my chair and I wear it every time I get too cold on-stream or not. Makes my rock hard of an office chair a little better too.

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

I think I would tell my old self to stop pushing so hard to make content that I clearly didn’t enjoy doing for the sake of catering to an audience. Streaming everyday back in February killed my drive to make content, and the fact that everything was going wrong every day really set me off and was the last straw for a very long time. If I had to start all over again, from November 2020, I would tell myself not to delete that TikTok account that became successful only because of a little bumpy ride, because who knows where I could’ve gone if I just found a little more motivation to keep it going.

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

I reckon I would change the way the algorithm works against smaller streamers. I wouldn’t consider myself a small streamer (not to toot my own horn) but there are just so many people that the algorithm genuinely does not like. I had to take off my “Asian” and “Nonbinary” tag because having it there made me easier of a target for hateful comments and discrimination, also because of the fact that my notifications weren’t sending out when I had them on. I’m sure it’s just a ridiculous coincidence that happened, but I would rather not have to face death threats for being who I am.

What are your plans for the future? 

I don’t have any plans at all. I am not the biggest fan of talking about my goals publicly, so I choose not to share, but I reckon I’ll just go with the flow and see where this takes me in the next 5 years. I’d really want to get out of the Philippines, to be honest, and break the small-town-cycle (as I like to call it) and move to some nice place in upstate New York. If I had to say one thing that I’d want to accomplish, though, it would be to have people tell me that I motivated them to make content. Some people think there is no room for women in the Twitch community, which I disrespectfully disagree with, so the knowledge that my existence as a creator gave rise to more, that would be really cool.