Miki – Just Dance & ASMR Streamer Who Cracked the Code to Success

Tell us your history with video games 

The first video games that ever really stuck with me were the Pokemon games. I was so obsessed with them that I refused to play any other game because Pokemon was just the best game to me in elementary and middle school. My brother and I eventually got my cousin’s Game Cube with Super Smash Brothers Melee being the only game we had and played it all the time after school. We got a Wii when it first came out as a Christmas gift too and that sparked my interest in motion control games. We only ever played Wii Sports, but every weekend we would have a marathon with my mom, brother, best friend, and I playing Wii Bowling and Wii Golf.

I eventually grew out of video games in general as I got older but ended up circling back to video games with MMOs when I got my first laptop in high school. I always played the free ones like Aion and Tera and my favorite part was probably the customization and getting cuter armor/outfits. As I got a job and went off to college, I started experimenting with other MMOs like Final Fantasy 14 and even WoW but ultimately decided MMOs were just not for me because I either didn't have the time or energy to be able to put into them.

I was introduced to Steam in college and played a ton of free multiplayer games on there like Trove and my friends would offload their duplicate game keys they would get from Humble Bundle onto me as well. Eventually I had a ton of games but the ones that stood out the most to me were the multiplayer games like Blizzard’s Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, and Dead by Daylight. I think finding those kinds of multiplayer games is really what made me more interested in games because I liked the aspect of being able to pick up the game any time and knowing how to play, whereas with MMOs I struggled figuring out what to do after taking a break from it.

I found the Just Dance community on Twitch a while back when my username used to be ClumsyMikki. I ended up following both Clumsy and Mikki because I wanted to know who they were since I was thinking about what name I would have if I ever got partnered. Obviously I wanted either Clumsy or Mikki at first but both were partnered streamers so that wasn’t going to happen. I saw Clumsy streaming Just Dance 2019 and I didn't realize that there was an actual community for what I thought was a kids game. I decided to stream this game after watching many other Just Dance streamers like littlesiha, Clumsy, Seabii, and Bwittany and thought I would give it a go. Funny enough, I ended up changing my name to Meowmiks because of Clumsy’s fiance’s name being Mikki and it creating a lot of confusion in chat, but it was a name change I didn't regret! Now that I got partnered, I find Miki really suits me well, it’s a short name so it looks really professional, and I was already wanting to change the spelling of Mikki to Miki to be inline with the Japanese spelling since I am part Japanese.

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

I was always interested in becoming a streamer but didn't really have the financial means to do so since I only had my laptop from school. I would watch loads of Overwatch streams on YouTube from the pro players and ultimately found Twitch through Loserfruit’s channel. The idea of Twitch really confused me at the time because I didn’t know how to follow channels or catch them live. I had a couple friends after college that I would hang with regularly and we would mostly play a lot of Dead by Daylight together. Getting really into that game made me look at Twitch again just to watch people play the game. Some of the streamers that influenced me to start streaming it too were PickleDream and Jendenise. I was able to get my first gaming computer in the summer and then when my friends were looking into streaming that next winter, I decided to also jump ship and try it out as well. I mostly streamed DBD at that time and it is still my most hours streamed game on Twitch Tracker.

When I started getting really burned out from DBD and wasn’t seeing any stream growth from it, I looked into other games and have dabbled in almost everything. I made my own emotes throughout my streaming career so I would stream art and stuff. It wasn’t until I found Just Dance and then later ASMR that I really felt like I found my place and my people. Just Dance is one of the most uplifting and positive communities I have seen on Twitch and ASMR is just a bigger version of that. These communities want to see you succeed and they want you to be putting out your best and looking after yourself too.

Tell us about your channel and community

The community I have fostered on Twitch has been extraordinary. I have made so many close friends and the community welcomes everyone and anyone. I wanted to create a safe space to talk openly about mental health and accepting of anyone regardless of race, gender, who you love. I believe mental health and being able to talk about it is so important which is why I emphasize that heavily in my ASMR streams where people come to chill, relax, take their mind off things, or even just open up. Streaming ASMR has really helped me with my anxiety and mental wellbeing too. I get a lot more out of streaming ASMR for my mental health than I do watching it, so I’m glad to have a platform to be able to do that.

The other kinds of games I stream on Twitch mostly consist of music and rhythm type games. Mostly Just Dance at the moment, but I’m hoping to get VR and Beat Saber back up and going. My favorite games to stream really shifted from the multiplayer games I was streaming to these music and rhythm games that can be a lot more relaxing. I was having a lot of issues with toxicity in the communities of games like Dead by Daylight and even Smite, that I just decided that I didn't want to expose my community to that, especially since I heavily emphasize mental health and taking care of your own. I do still play those games off stream though and mostly play with people and friends in my Discord, or in my friends’ Discords as well.

Currently, I only stream ASMR and Just Dance but I want to add more music games to that list eventually!

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

Through my time on Twitch I have tried to be as sincere and unapologetically myself. I find trying to be someone you’re not on the internet, while it may make you successful, it can be extremely tiring or make you burnt out and I didn’t want that. I wanted to show that I can be unique and funny just by being myself. If I’m streaming content that doesn't make me happy then I feel like it really shows and I don't want to be that streamer that hates what they do. It's a little bit of a struggle sometimes, especially since I am someone who doesn’t really show a ton of emotion. When really amazing and happy things happen and I don’t have an over-the-top reaction, or start crying, I sometimes feel like I can come off as ungrateful which is never the case. I want to be able to normalize that not everyone has to have over the top emotions, and especially on the internet where acting and faking is really prevalent with reaction videos, it has almost become a norm that if someone does something nice for you, completely unexpected (ex. big donations, gift sub bombs, etc), there should be crying/shouting/big bursts of emotion, but not everyone is like that.

I think the biggest factor in being able to grow my channel was just consistency. When I started streaming, I had no schedule and was streaming whenever. But there were often times where I’d feel like I’d need a month away from streaming or getting overwhelmed with it when I would try to set a schedule that was too much for me. I had gotten affiliate in about 2 weeks after I started streaming in March of 2018 but I didn't get partnered until May of 2021. I also believe changing and evolving your content overtime is really important too. When I started streaming Just Dance, I was practically starting from 0. I had just come off of a several month break from streaming and none of my DBD viewers were watching Just Dance so I pretty much had a clean slate. This was back in November 2019. I streamed a ton of Just Dance at that time without a real schedule and did grow but was finding myself really burnt out a lot of the time and wanting to stream other things but I was afraid of messing up my metrics. When one of my best friends started streaming ASMR, it was like a whole new community had been opened up to me. I found myself really wanting to give it a go and that was probably the best decision I could have made for my channel. In 2021 I started streaming on a more strict schedule, making sure to try and not cancel streams or start late and I think that has really paid off. People’s minds are simple in that if it’s 4pm and (insert streamer) is supposed to be live, they will go and watch them. But it’s when your schedule is inconsistent where you end up not being able to retain as many viewers because they don’t know when you are going to be live next or if you’re going to be late/cancel streams.

My goal eventually is to become full time and be able to completely financially support myself and I think I am heading in the right direction with that!

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

One of the best pieces of feedback I have gotten from my stream was that I have what it takes to be partner, and I could be partner right now, I just needed to be consistent with it. I was canceling streams left and right because I had a lot of anxiety about it and my metrics. Getting on a schedule that I could manage is what actually fixed that anxiety and where I saw the most improvement.

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

I haven't had any super big opportunities arise yet, but something that does stand out was being awarded the BroadcastHER grant for streaming. It made me feel legitimized as a streamer and taken seriously. I feel like a lot of people don’t really understand what goes into streaming and how expensive and time consuming it is, even outside of being live.

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

Since I have a kinda weird schedule, my sleep schedule is completely backwards. I wanted to do double streams days instead of streaming 6 separate days a week to give myself more free time and more of a break. In order to do that, I had to figure out what to stream at what time. ASMR is best at night since many people use it to go to sleep and Just Dance is great in the mornings to catch a big portion of the EU audience. I wake up around 9pm to get ready for streaming ASMR, go live from 12am-5am, and then take a 2 hour break to change mic settings and get ready for Just Dance at 7am-10am usually and go to bed around 12pm. I found it a lot easier to only have to “get ready” physically with hair/makeup/outfit 3 times a week instead of everyday. I have a day off in between to be able to chill and fix any stream things like bot commands, panels, etc. and then I have the weekend off to be able to go out and about and do things with my significant other.

Tell us what tools you use for your stream

I use OBS.live to stream with the StreamElements bot. I use most of the features StreamElements offers as well like the donation page, merch store, points system, etc. I have a community Discord as well.

Most of my stream overlays/panels/alerts I actually got off Etsy. They are a great resource for getting affordable stream assets. I made most of my emotes myself and am getting a couple more commissioned. My stream logo (the geometric cat) was also commissioned and turned into sub badges as well. As far as extensions go, I use the Amazon Blacksmithoverlay one. It lets you have categories for your equipment so having an ASMR category for all my triggers is really helpful since they get asked about a lot. And the Streamlabs countdown timer for streams. Having it be able to automatically convert stream times to your timezone makes it a lot more effective for finding someone’s stream schedule than just having text with a set timezone. More people are going to be willing to come back to your stream if they know exactly when you are going to be live for them than taking the time to convert time zones back and forth to figure it out.

Which 3 streamers inspire you the most?

1. Littlesiha - She is like the mother to the Just Dance community and team Center Stage. I’m honored to be on her stream team and I definitely look up to her a ton as a smaller content creator.
2. Velvetasmr - She’s an asmrtist who has really made me strive to be more creative with my asmr content.
3. Kirakirakrystal and saiphe - They are my best friends and their communities are so welcoming and uplifting that I am blessed to be a part of it and strive to create that same kind of welcoming environment in my own.

What are your top 3 streaming tools? 

1. ‍LIGHTING. I will scream it from the top of my lungs until the day I die. You can make a c920 look like a DSLR with proper lighting. And before you drop that $600+ on a DSLR, be sure you also have/going to get some better lighting as well whether it be ring light or panel lights, it’s very important to getting the most out of your cameras.
2. A standalone mic (not a headset mic). It will improve sound quality sooo much.
3. Cute/fun water bottles. You should be drinking water throughout your streams anyways to stay hydrated, but it makes it easier to want to drink water out of a nice water bottle in my opinion!

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

Being consistent. Sticking to your stream schedule as much as you can but also making friends. Don’t just “network” and pop into a stream one time to plug yourself and leave. Make genuine friends and hang out in their discords and streams.

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

Transparency and consistency. Too many times there are instances where one streamer gets away with something that another streamer gets banned for. Also being transparent on what metrics and stuff they want to see when you apply for partner. I know too many amazing streamers who are killing it and going above and beyond the metrics just to keep getting denied.

What are your plans for the future? 

I love streaming and I hope to keep on this journey for as long as I can! I really hope to be able to be financially independent while making content since it is something that I greatly enjoy and see myself doing for a long time.