MadeofJade – Self-Taught Variety Streamer Shares Her Surprisingly Quick Journey to Partner

Tell us your history with video games 

My first experience with video games is always something I look back to fondly. My dad had a computer, a big bulky box, and he introduced me to Half Life 2 and Quake III. Not exactly the most conventional games you’d play as a 7 year old, but I think playing fire princess on the lava ridden maps of Quake III and playing with box mechanics in the beginning sequence of Half-Life 2 for hours on end really got me hooked. Nothing could beat shooting bullets into the wall to draw shapes and pictures with my dad.

After that, I got into Nintendo games with my first Nintendo DS, which I had endless fun with my older sister. Legend of Zelda games were and still are my favorite series of games to play. My sister and I, now both adults and stricken with those adult-y responsibilities, usually end up too busy to play games with each other as often. I’ve spent most of my time playing games with friends I’ve met online and through streaming.

I’ve had many gaming aliases in the past, but the one I’m most known for is MadeofJade, which I created at the beginning of my content creation journey. I had thought up plenty of names, all involving a lot of rhymes and wordplay because I love it, but none of it felt like me. So I asked my dad, and it took him one second to spew that out. And it stuck! I loved it, plus it had a sentimental value to it.

Gaming is just so much fun. I always enjoyed it as a kid, so it stayed with me throughout, with every new Nintendo console that came out. Keeping up with heavy loads of academics kept me indoors most of the time, so playing video games helped me connect with friends and have fun.

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

I started streaming “seriously” in January of 2021. I had created the account in 2020, but mostly just to entertain my friends and myself when COVID hit over the summer. I started to really get into it, and since I grew up watching YouTubers and always wanted to make a channel myself, but didn’t have the editing skills to make YouTube videos, streaming let me do what I wanted. I didn’t have to worry about editing, but hitting the “go live” button.

Setting up my first stream involved a Logitech camera I bought with my first job paycheck, a laptop gaming computer I got a couple years back, and a lot of social anxiety. The camera was balanced precariously on the top of my laptop. My first streams are 10x more quiet and shy than they are now, so it’s nice to see I’ve grown a lot since then and gotten more confident! I’ve learned a lot about OBS since the beginning, and how to incorporate my ideas into a stream-able format. You really don’t need much to start, because it’s always better to learn along the way. I’ve only just recently gotten a PC, so it was very much possible (however difficult!) to stream on a single monitor and at a shitty bitrate. Experience is your best friend, no one’s perfect at the start.

Tell us about your channel and community

People who first join my community always mention how amazed they are at how active and welcoming it is, and it always puts me in a good mood. I put a lot of effort into maintaining an awesome community with all sorts of people. My discord server is where we're most active after streams, and people have made a lot of friends there! It always makes me really happy when I can set a safe place where people can connect with one another. People are generally pretty surprised how active I am in my discord server, which I think is a bit funny since I’m the owner!
I’m a variety streamer at heart, but I’m in a little bit of a Minecraft kick right now! So I’ve been streaming a lot of Minecraft. I do a lot of chat interactive Minecraft events, reminiscent of the old days of Minecraft YouTube events. My favorite games to play on stream would definitely be horror and Minecraft.

I don’t play games I wouldn’t play off stream! When I first started streaming, I played Subnautica pretty consistently, but I raged too easily at it and it ruined my whole vibe, so obviously I stopped playing or streaming it! It’s no fun to play games you don’t enjoy!

I play with my viewers ALL the time, as much as I can! As I mentioned in a previous paragraph, I pull off weekly coded Minecraft events for my twitch chat with my mod team, which can be quite challenging to set up every 7 days, but letting hundreds of people have fun together is always so rewarding to me! It’s fun to watch people have fun! :)

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

I think my brand persona slowly developed itself. I’m pretty calm and collected in person, but I act more chaotic and let loose a bit on stream, trying to keep things funny and light-hearted. It’s sort of just acting the same way I would playing games with really close friends, except it’s for twitch chat! It was a bit hard to do at first, since I was shy, but I grew more comfortable with expressing myself to twitch chat. The more I streamed and got comfortable with who I was as a streamer, the more I could lean into different crazy bits and skits without hesitating or worrying about looking stupid. It’s really fun for me to get into that headspace. On my alt streams, I’m definitely more “me”, where I don’t have to worry too much about entertaining, and sit-back and chat more personably with twitch viewers. So I’d say I’m “true to myself”, but I definitely don’t act that way 100% of the time off stream!

I originally grew my channel from just streaming, to about 2k followers without any sort of outside sources, which I’m pretty proud of, but a lot of my outside growth came when I started making TikToks. Tiktok is an algorithm monster, it’s mostly about tossing out a tiktok here and there just to see what sticks! People seem to get pretty bummed out about Tiktok views and stuff, but honestly the way Tiktok works puts my mind at ease. There is no control over the algorithm sometimes, so I sort of just put stuff out there and hope for the best! Most of my growth has happened from just putting Twitch clips out there. I made perhaps only 1 promotional tiktok that did very well, since I always feel uncomfortable telling people why they should follow me. I keep telling myself to do it more often, since it does work! So my advice for anyone is to show people and tell them why to follow! Don’t be shy like I was.

My biggest achievement so far is getting Twitch Partner in half the time I expected I would. I anticipated getting around 10k followers and MAYBE Twitch Partner at the end of the year, but it’s only been 6 months and I’m at 12k with that purple checkmark.

The biggest obstacles I overcame was mostly just having to work a sidejob, be a full-time student, and streaming 3-4 times a week. Many days I barely got sleep, but I stayed motivated to my goals. My friends and moderators have always been very supportive of me, so I do everything I can to give back. I got affiliated as soon as I hit 50 followers pretty much, since I had the viewership. I’ve been told I had a high average viewer to follower count for my size from just streaming on Twitch without outside social media promo, which made me pretty proud. Partner took some time to reach, mostly involving a lot of stream idea prep and setting up intense Minecraft events.

I’m not sure if I’d call myself full-time with streaming, but I supposed streaming more than 3 times a week is more than most! I mostly just prefer having a structured schedule, so I do it as a hobby! I’m just a perfectionist, so I put a lot of energy into my hobbies.

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

I receive these sorts of messages a lot, from people new to my content feeling exceptionally welcomed and shocked that I respond to their twitch messages, or that I’m active in my discord server. I recently got another DM on twitter, which exemplified that! “although i was only there for a short time, i’ve never felt more welcomed by a streamer and chat”. I hope I can keep that sort of connection with my viewers for as long as I can!

What’s the most interesting thing that’s happened to you because of your streaming?

I’ve been able to talk to a lot of people I never thought I would’ve had a chance to interact with, which is pretty cool! I’ve made some cool friends along the way, which is always the most rewarding thing for me! I remember raiding Charborg one time, who I’ve always looked up to in regards to how intricately edited his videos are, honestly a cinematic masterpiece, and he said my username was cool :) which was pretty cool. Besides getting noticed by streamers you look up to, including many of the MCYT, getting people to draw or edit me has been the most interesting, since I’ve never really thought myself as that interesting enough for someone to spend hours at a time drawing or editing for! People are so talented, so it’s always fun to see what they draw!

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

I stream 4 days a week, but I’m also a full-time college student and have a part-time job. Luckily, I haven’t had to work much over the summer, so it allowed me to at least have some time to relax (besides taking 3 fast-paced summer classes haha)! I plan what I’m streaming the week-of, mostly because it helps me prepare fun ideas and events! Most of my streams require a bit of prep time, from coding for “Chat Controls Speedruns”, Kahoot streams, and my most notable 100+ Person Minecraft events, which usually take some nights planning, coding, and building with my mod team. On stream days, I’ll post a tiktok, set up the stream, and go live. If I have to prepare anything, I’ll usually do it quickly beforehand.

Afterwards, I’ll checkup on the discord, communicate with my mods a bit, checkup with any artists and editors I’m working with at the time, and collect clips and fun video ideas for YouTube or Tiktok. I’d say I spend 4 hours outside of streaming itself, with the additional time I stream of 2-3 hours. My days off usually involve a lot of school work, so not really a day off I guess! On days where I don’t have to do anything though, I’ll usually spend time with friends or going out, or simply just relaxing to my favorite shows. I interact with people enough outside, and during this time especially, it’s not the worst thing to not interact face-to-face with people too directly due to COVID.

When I’m home and streaming, my parents will jokingly tease me for how loud I can be sometimes, but I’m usually pretty loud playing games with friends off stream, so they didn’t react too much to it. They’re mostly curious how it all works, and interested in my growth as a streamer. My close friends know about twitch and play games, so it wasn’t too out of the ordinary for them. They’re pretty proud of me, and while I don’t necessarily see myself as a “big” streamer in the slightest, it’s a big deal to them, so they help me put my growth into perspective.

I am interested in pursuing my lifestyle in my science career, but I would thoroughly enjoy streaming as a hobby. It allows me to tap into the creative side of myself that lab work doesn’t necessarily let me, by being super goofy and work on fun bits. I see myself streaming for some time, definitely some years if streaming continues to grow exponentially.

Tell us what tools you use for your stream

I use OBS software and Streamelements for mostly everything. I do use Streamlabs for their chat overlay, since I prefer how it looks. I used a lot of random images online for my graphics, but I’ve now started to invest money into commissioning artists for my twitch panels and emotes from Fiverr. I plan on continuing to improve the look and layout of the stream.

Analytics are a mixed bag. Twitch and any content creation in general can be very up and down. I could feel really off my game and unfunny, but have an incredible stream with high viewership, or I can be super hype and have the funniest stream ever, and have lower average than usual. It really depends on how notifications go out, whose streaming, what day it is, what time of the year. You can’t control everything, so it’s just most important to have a good time. Your enjoyment streaming as a streamer is the most important thing. As much as we cater to chat, my advice is to make sure you check in on yourself to make sure you are happy! Don’t do anything you don't want to.

Which 3 streamers inspire you the most?

I’d say I’m inspired by the entirety of the MCYT for one. The community as a whole creates so many cool things, from artists making whole cinematic animated visuals, to content creators making so much unique new content. I would say within the minecraft community, I’m pretty inspired by Tommyinnit, Dream, and Ranboo. Undeniably so, they’ve dedicated time to their grind, and worked the algorithm in their favor.

By as far as inspiration for content creation goes, I’m mostly inspired by people outside of the Minecraft community. I’ve always been inspired with the talented editing and thought out ideas of the videos of Charborg, Bedbanana, Quackity, and Slimecicle. I definitely want to create videos more like them in the future.

What are your top 3 streaming tools? 

I used to read chat off of my phone, since I was a laptop streamer for about 90% of the time, until recently. It was pretty handy, but obviously just getting a second monitor in general changed so much for me. Being only able to read 5 messages at a time on a small screen is tough. I use OBS, which is a bit more technical of a software, but once you get the hang of it, there isn’t anything you can't do. If you are a new streamer like I was and don’t have a fancy laptop, I do recommend it, since StreamLabs tend to make streams crash and lag if the PC isn’t powerful enough. AND MAKE SURE TO HAVE WATER! It’s so important to stay hydrated! Plus it reminds your viewers to stay hydrated too :)

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

Find your niche! I would’ve advised myself to start reaching out to other platforms a lot sooner than I did. I thought I was growing decently well from just Twitch alone, but being active on all of social media was very helpful for growth. So if I were to do things differently, I’d definitely start advertising my content sooner. I still struggle to “advertise” myself, since I always feel awkward and uncomfortable showing or telling people why they should follow, but don’t be shy!

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

Their notification system! I think sometimes it just doesn’t go out, so that’s why it’s super important to use other platforms to tell that you are live, such as twitter and discord! I wish they had a better support system when it comes to limiting “botting” and harassment.

What are your plans for the future? 

I definitely plan to continue streaming. What games or things I’ll be streaming are entirely undetermined, but I’m sure no matter what I do, I’ll have fun doing it. I would like to accomplish hitting 1 million followers on Twitch, even though it seems like a far-fetched dream now, why not? There’s no reason to sell myself short, and there’s no telling what’ll happen! If you keep pushing yourself out there, there’s only one way to go, and it’s up!