Episode 15 - Q&A with Jess and Shady - Boss LVL

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
So how have you been. I've been good. I have
been like just once again kind of backpedaling on social
media just a little bit. And it's been nice. And
I've been like really really good. Yeah, what about you,
It's been the exact same. Oh my gosh, it's been
such a humultuous week. Really got married, I ended my relationship,
let's go. It's well, I mean it's it's life goes

(00:28):
on kind of thing. Sometimes things don't work out, and
that's you know, It's just it's been a very crazy,
uh six months for me, for for all over my life,
because like you said, I'm taking a big step back
from social media. I've been putting a lot of boundaries
in place, uh, and I have been making huge life
changes and um, my birthday was a couple of weeks ago.

(00:48):
It's been the weirdest, most melancholy birthday, thank you. Um.
But also like very empowering in other ways, because it's
like I've been taking back my space, uh in multiple
different ways. And um, I don't know, I've got a
whole bunch of like content ideas I'm brewing around community

(01:08):
building and putting boundaries in place and dealing with toxic
community members and stuff because it's been a big up
and down roller coaster for me, and I feel like
I'm like, I haven't really been streaming for the last
month or two, and the more time I'm spending away
from the internet, I unfollowed literally everyone, Like I've followed
down to zero people on all of my social media
and then started I would follow people back as they

(01:30):
came into my consciousness or like if I saw them
on my feet, only if it felt like I really
really wanted to see everything they were posting every day,
you know what I mean. It's and that has created
a lot of um, for lack of a better word, drama,
which is why it was so hard to do in
the first place. And I there's there's a whole there's
a whole conversation I could dive into on that that's

(01:52):
been a big thing that and it goes all the
way back to the first podcast we did here on
Boss Level with Kitty Kitty Plays, when I was asking
her like um at the end of the episode. It
was something along the lines of how do you deal
with a community that wants to keep you small or
won't let you grow? Because of the way that the
interactions are with them. And I'm sure you probably know

(02:14):
from being a streamer, like people become entitled to you
as an individual, and once you start to get too big,
they're like, wow, you've changed, and they have this whole
shift in energy and a lot of your your original
community members will leave because you're now you have too
many people in front of you, I guess, and they
they're not getting that dedicated attention from me anymore, and
they're they're like scorned by it. You know, Yeah, they

(02:36):
get salty about it because it's like, I mean, it's
almost better, and which is hard to do, but it's
almost better if you can establish this boundaries so early on,
because like, if you are in a position which we've
all been in, where you have community members that did
kind of one point sort of come into closer to
your inner circle, and then maybe later on it's time
for you know, your inner struggle to tighten a little

(02:56):
bit perhaps, and they don't necessarily make the cut, and
you know, instead of them just not having this thing,
which is you know, they feel kind of a relationship
with you. It feels like they had it and you
took it away, and so they take it personally, which
I'm not saying, like you know, that they should, but
it's it's just it's it's really hard especially if you

(03:18):
especially when some of these people were like there from
the beginning, you know, and they kind of feel probably
like they helped build your community, and so it's like
it's so tough because it's like I'm not saying, like
you know, it is kind of a sense of entitlement,
but I can understand why they feel that way, which
I'm not saying that like I agree with the way
they Yeah, but yeah, I mean we're diving right in. Um,

(03:40):
but welcome to Boss Level. Um, this is this is
an interesting episode of Boss Level this week. UM So,
Boss Level is a podcast where we feature conversations with
guests who have leveled up, bringing an experience boost to
the table. Um, and this week it is me and
Jess and um, Jess bro Hard. We're gonna be chilling
here and just kind of interviewing each other. So, UM,

(04:04):
prepare for a lot of boundary talk for me and uh, transformation, transformative,
stepping into your your your true calling. I guess, um,
I'm hey shady lady, and I'm just bro Hard and
I love this so so much, Like for because so
it's funny because um, in my offline life, my like

(04:26):
I r L life outside of you know, streaming, because
I also, you know, as we've discussed, I've been kind
of on a streaming break since, like in February is
the last time I streamed, and I feel okay with that,
and you know, for for those who don't know, basically,
I was a any sports host and a streamer for
almost ten years and then in January of this year,
I made essentially a huge life change and realized that

(04:47):
at the time. But I basically like stopped streaming and
took a job at this charity called Gamer's Outreach. So
that's kind of where my primary focus and energy has been. Um.
But you know, I have a lot of those kind
of experiences that I had for streaming, and for a
while I had, like I felt like a lot of
my socialization was happening on the internet because I would have,
you know, my stream community and this sort of also

(05:08):
community of friends that I had made out of that community.
And lately, since quitting streaming, I like my job, I
mean not the quitting streaming, but since since I've been
on a hiatus, essentially like my job is still online
because it's I work remote, but I've been finding so
much more time to go out and socialize I r L.
And it's been like so nice, except that I've had
a handful of instances where I've had to enforce boundaries

(05:30):
I r L and it's so like I hate doing it,
but I've been able to do it lately, and I'm
very proud of myself for that. But this is very
apt timing. How do you mean boundaries, I r L.
So for me, if someone is like pushing my boundaries
online or like, well I'm streaming, I can easily just
time that person out, you know, not look at what
they're saying. But if I'm having a face to face

(05:51):
conversation with someone and it goes somewhere or they're asking
me something that I feel is inappropriate, you know, I
have to either say something or walk away or it's
like it feels a lot bigger of like it's more
of it. It's an actual confrontation moment. Yes, exactly, it's
way more of a confrontation now that it's not hard
to do online sometimes but I feel like it's hard
or I r L and um, but I was able

(06:12):
to do it a couple of times, and I felt
very proud of myself for that. Good yeah you should. Yeah,
but this is just apt timing then, so yeah, yeah,
it's a very interesting, um time I think we're all
going through. I feel like a lot of us kind
of turned to the internet for the last couple of
years just because of the world. And now it's like,

(06:33):
I mean, I know the pandemic isn't over, but everybody's
sure acting like it is. And uh, and on top
of that, I think that we're all really sick of
computer screens and we just like, I know, I am,
like I I've recently got some hiking gear and I'm
gonna I've joined some hiking groups and I'm trying to
get the heck out of my house and like get
away from my computer, um and prioritize my physical body. Um.

(06:58):
And I think I was like journaling the other day
and I wrote something along the lines of like, uh,
my physical existence can't be sacrificed from my digital existence anymore,
so virtual existence or something like that, And um, this
kind of ties into the line of thinking where I
was talking with them a couple of my friends about
maybe turning into a v tuber and and is this

(07:19):
the right idea or not? Like, is it in a
in a world that's becoming increasingly artificial and virtual, isn't
it more powerful to remain organic and like a like
a real flawed creature, you know what I mean? Like yeah,
but this way you almost like Okay, I loved Hannah
Montana growing up, and I thought that was like the
she she literally has a song about you get the

(07:41):
best of both worlds, and I kind of feel like
that's how v tubing can be in that you can
keep your personal life completely anonymous and completely separate from
your vtubing life. You can build this whole existence as
a VTuber and have like tons of popularity. And it
is a tight knit community. By the way, So for
gear as outreach for my job, for actually gearing up
to do a v tuber specific event in like a

(08:03):
week it's going to be happening in like, um, not
this weekend, but next weekend. And so I've been working
with a lot of the tubers, which is a community
I hadn't had like a ton of exposure to before,
and it's like a really really tight of community. But anyway,
like a lot of them, I think that's kind of
why they do it, is that they don't have to
worry about a lot of maybe problems that you you
can have to deal with if you are putting your

(08:23):
face and your identity out there, you know, like I
have always put my full name out there, which, like
you know, thank goodness, thank the universe, I haven't had
any issues of like personal safety and security despite that.
But I know that like a lot of people don't
use their full real name out there, you know, for
that exact reason. And it's the exact same thing with
vitubing and like with you just never the internet can
be such a scary place these days, and like you

(08:43):
can truly never feel safe in some ways. So I
totally understand why, like why you know, I think you
should do that. Honestly, I think that would be great
for you. But I think it feels like so um free,
Like it feels like it would free me from a
lot of like, uh, expectation. I think about the stuff
that I was posting on the internet ten years ago
and how like not just cringe, but like, oh my god,

(09:05):
is my childhood going to haunt me? Kind of thing?
And then I think about the stuff that I'm sharing
online right now. And when I'm ten years from now,
am I going to look back and be like, why
did I share all of this stuff? Like like even
just things like talking about my my relationships or like
my my family. My dad had a heart attacks a
couple of years ago, and I talked about that online

(09:26):
and then it was later used by a community member
against me when they found out that I was smoking cigarettes.
And so it's whenever I give these vulnerable things, I've
quit smoking sense And by the way, you know, I'm
proud of myself with that, but but it also I'm
sure was like super weird of like a community remember
to like figure that information out and use it as
such a personal thing. Yeah, And and and that's the

(09:46):
thing is like we're we're like heavily encouraged as content
creators to be as vulnerable as possible and and let
people feel like there are best friends because that's what
everybody's seeking from these paras sol relationships. Right. And then
when I give these vulnerable moments away or these bits away, um,

(10:07):
I have found that they are frequently weaponized against me
by individuals, not the entire community, right, And this is
like the negative players the bad players or whatever phrase
we want to use, and you can't predict who those
are going to be um and a lot of times,
a lot of times for me, it feels like they're
the ones that get the closest. I don't know, Like

(10:29):
it's and that's that's kind of like the big The
big thing that I've been going through over the last
half a year or so is I don't know if
I want to be on the internet. When I first
started streaming, my profile was like, let's be friends or
something like that. I'm looking, I'm trying to make friends,
and and the longer I'm doing this, the more I'm like,
I don't want to make friends like this, Like it's

(10:49):
it's maybe it's the power dynamic of being a content
creator and people don't look at you as an equal.
They look at you as like, ah, the streamer, and
they treat you differently and and and that's fine, and
it's there's a whole other conversation had like people with
big platforms, do you have to behave differently and do

(11:10):
have to interact differently? But I feel like for me,
as a transition from someone who was just a nobody
on the internet to someone with like somewhat of a
platform that transition through that of like going from just
a normal human that sharing their video games with five viewers. Um.
Taking that step over, it's like you have to readjust
how you communicate with everybody, what you're sharing, why you're

(11:31):
sharing it, how you're you're monetizing yourself, if you're going
to put it. It's a whole and there's no guide book.
There's nobody that And this kind of goes into a
question on our docket over here, why did I decide
to make my content around helping others? I'm kind of
interviewing myself. I'm sorry, but I think because there's no
guide book for this, and there's so many things like

(11:54):
like how to navigate Uh, these types of pairs, specifically
paras social relationships and burnout out are two major things
that I have not had the resources to manage on
my own as a content creator. Um. Maybe therapy would
have helps me, right, Um, But as far as that's
the other thing is, therapy isn't super accessible to everybody,

(12:15):
and so it's not it's not so much that I'm
like I want to have therapy content, but it's more like,
how do you recognize burnout, How do you manage burnout
as a content creator? How can it manifest as a streamer?
Like what does it look like? Um, because you don't
even realize what it looks like? And then you know,
prepare social relationships? What even is that? What does it
look like? How do you identify it, how do you

(12:36):
prevent it? And how do you protect yourself from from
the fallout of these types of things? And that comes
in with Jeff Brohard full name like the you're just
yourself and people feel like they're you know, you share
wedding pictures and I'm seeing you skating and doing hockey
and it feels like I'm your friend, right Like that's
and then but then it's like you don't I don't know.

(12:57):
Now I'm getting into my scared brain of like anybody
could be seeing this, anybody could be having these feelings
about you and you have no idea who they are.
And then we're into like celebrity life of you know,
Britney Spears having a stalker out of her house being
like yeah, you know, well like I have. Yeah, this
brought up so much because like I think, like so
I'd like to first start with the fact honestly, I've

(13:20):
been thinking about and I think the fact that I
am out there with like full name and everything, I
think it's sort of the reverse. Do you know what
the Barbera Streisand effect is? But me so, I'm pretty
sure how it goes is that once upon a time
Barbra Streisand's address was somehow made public, like a paparazzo
or somebody found out where she lived and was like,

(13:42):
I don't remember if this how long ago. The swell
as it was Twitter or whatever was like you know,
and so people found out where she lived, and they
would like I think, either like show up at her house.
And she tried really hard to like get people to
like not know where she lived, like she was you know,
I don't know what all she did, but she just
and the harder she tried to, like, you know, call
the tabloids were publishing her address and make sure they're
not like the heart she tried, the more people wanted

(14:02):
to know where she lived. So the fact that I'm
just like out there, like yep, this is my name,
people are like I don't really have a fuck, you know,
They're like, there's no mystery, there's no intrigue. They're not like, oh,
I got to find out who this person. They just
don't care. That's like when Beyonce had those really unflattering
pictures from the Super Bowl and then her team went
overdrive trying to delete them from the Internet, and then
everybody just doubled down on naming them. So it's like,

(14:26):
as soon as you tell people and that's the thing
is as soon as you let people know it's an insecurity, oh,
they're gonna like yeah. It's kind of like it's like
the reverse of like how you can't just decide to
make a viral tweet or whatever like that is something
that just happens, like has to happen. It's like, I
don't know, I had a really apt comparison there and

(14:46):
then I lost it. It wasn't very good. We can
find move on. Well, Okay, so you've taken a big
step back from streaming and you're you're you're transitioning now
into or you're already well transitioned. What kind of differences
do you feel just as far as your life goes
from from being a streamer to being someone with like

(15:08):
a um, Like I don't want to call it a
regular job because streaming is becoming a regular job. But right,
but well, I think that would still be probably an
apt phrase to use, like a regular job, because I
mean it's you know, streaming is still like it's still
you know, different from a there's said hours, there's no
And now that I'm more devout and I have an orthodox,

(15:28):
you know job, like you know, I'm practicing, I went
back to the tet bowler. I don't know, I've lost
this metaphor. I actually there's a lot of things that
I really really like. And I think that the big
thing for me is that I for the last like
ten years, kept this idea in my head of like, well,
I wouldn't be happy at a full time job, at

(15:49):
like a regular job. I have to do this thing.
I have to be like freelance and I have to
be like creating content and everything. And I just like
thought that was the only way I could be fulfilled.
And I see now that I think part of that
was stemming from, like I wasn't at the right jobs before,
and I didn't necessarily have great like bosses before. Like
I think that was the big key for me, honestly,

(16:11):
is that I just had I happened to have like
a couple of not terrible ones and a couple of
really bad ones, and that just left me like scarred
as far as like wanting to be like I'm never
having a boss again. And now like everything is great
and like it's you know when you have like yeah,
so and so, I don't know, I just I get.
And then the other part of it is like the
job that I'm doing, it just brings me a lot

(16:32):
of fulfillment and I feel really really good about like so,
like the other day, Um, the other week, rather, I
had to go into UM the children's hospital here in Columbus,
nation White Children's Hospital, and they have sixteen of these
go karts, which for anyone listening who doesn't know what
a go kart is, it is a mobile gaming kiosk
that my work, my organ UM raises money to build
and ship all over the world too children's hospitals, so

(16:55):
that kiddo's staying in the hospital can have some video
games to play while they're in there. UM and so
nationwide has six team these go carts, and like half
of them at least were like missing controllers or needed
like something repaired or whatever. And so I had to
go in and kind of like take inventory of all
these go carts and you know, mark down like which
ones are missing controllers and then have our operations team
like send them new ones. And it was so it

(17:16):
was the first time I had really gotten like hands
on with these things when like the six months I
had worked there, like helping to raise money to build them,
and I hadn't really actually played on one. So it
was like really cool to like, so I don't know,
you know, So that's like the difference between like the jobs,
the job that I have now versus the jobs that
I had when I was, like, I hate having a
full time job and I have to so and like
and I just think there's a lot of streamers also

(17:37):
who might be like me, maybe like clinging to the
notion of like I have to be a streamer or whatever,
because like I totally get it. That's that's absolutely how
I thought. I felt like I had to be a streamer,
Like that was it. There are no other options. That's
the only way I'll be happy. And like, I honestly,
in my mental health for like the last you know,
since January, but especially the last few months has been

(17:57):
the best it's ever been. And you know, and I'm
not streaming, and I'm not like relevant in like E
sports or gaming or anything, and I'm just like existing.
That's I think the pain is the relevancy. Oh no
one cares about me, where people have forgotten I exist.
I'm not, you know. I think that's a big thing
that causes a lot of I don't know. I had

(18:19):
this kind of like turning point with the coaching session
a couple of maybe maybe a couple of months ago
at this point, but the coach I was speaking with
asked me a question of like why are you not
in marketing? Like why do you not like work in marketing?
Because of the type of content that I do. I
teach people how to create brands, and that's like my
my specialty. I don't have any education that I only
have experience at this point, high school dropout, let's go.

(18:41):
But uh, And so that's probably a big reason why
I've never pursued any kind of like professional or whatever job,
is that I don't have any kind of credentials except
for but at this point, my I think my online
resume speaks for itself kind of thing. And um, and
I think that's where I mean, that's how I've been
able to pick up freelance jobs anyway. But um that

(19:03):
that plants this seed in my head of why am
I trying so hard? And and then it makes me
even angrier because I think about that sentence. Everyone's always
said those who can't do teach, and like I teach
people how to stream all the time. And then it's like, oh,
I'm just not I'm not, but I did that. I
know I can do it. I just don't know if
I want to, you know what I mean, Like, well,

(19:24):
that's exactly the point I got to, and like again,
I don't know why I like, and I like, I've
really had to do a lot of like thinking and
soul searching and think like why did I Like literally
every time I kept trying to answer the question like
why do I stream? I could not answer that question,
like what do I feel I bring to the table,
and like not even in a bad way, I didn't
feel like I just almost felt like there's enough streamers
out there, like you know, and not not like not

(19:45):
necessarily in a negative way, but it's like what do
I bring to the table. I honestly can't answer that
question in terms of like there isn't a single thing
that like I feel like somebody else can't do better
and like that comes more naturally to them and that
they enjoy doing. For me, I just felt like I
was like I was like forcing myself to do because
I thought it was just like circular logic of like, well,
this is what I want, so I have to do it.
I won't be happy doing anything else. But why do

(20:08):
I want to do it? I just want to do it.
I won't be happy to you know, like I just
got stuck in that thought pattern, like and then you know, coincidentally,
these last like six months, like I said, you know,
I like I got into like recreational sports, and like
I just you know, have been like against kind of socializing.
I r L more than I ever used to, and
it's been so nice. Like it's just it's so different.

(20:29):
And here's why it's so different because when like especially
if it's a streamer viewer kind of a dynamic. This
the first of all, as we've kind of discussed, it's
almost like a filtered version of yourself or a different version.
It's the version of yourself that you want the viewers
to see. And the second of all, it's not like
you're having a conversation with a friend, like you and
I are just like having a conversation now, like yeah,

(20:50):
we're doing a podcast, we're also like having a conversation chatting.
We're kind of on like equal footing, you know, we're
we can see each other and you know, slightly different
than I are, Like we can see each other, we
can see facial expressions, we can hear tone of voice
versus like the viewer can get all of that from you.
You getting none of that from them, So you have
to rely on all these context clues. And for me,
here's one thing that was really difficult as a streamer

(21:12):
was like remembering all the different like view not that
I have like so many viewers or whatever, like when
you have like a like a high viewer turnover rate.
There's constantly new people coming into chat, and they'll come in.
They'll have one screen name and they'll be like, oh,
but you know, but my name is Bob, and like
I'm like, I'm not how my sister remember that? And
then they'll go on and tell you about their day
or whatever, and you have to remember all these little

(21:33):
facts about them, and then they never show up again.
And it's like, you know when I like, I don't
know which again sounds kind of so cool and like heartless,
but it's like at the end of the day, it's
almost like these are my customers and it's goodness to
like remember things about them, but not my friends. It's
like working at a coffee shop and you have regulars
and it's like, oh, yeah, what's up, Joe, welcome in, Yeah,
get him as latte. Is regular is normal, you know,

(21:55):
the usual. Like and when I worked at a coffee shop,
we had that, we had the regulars, the key man,
I knew some people by name, and there were some
people where it's like, oh, you were here a couple
of weeks ago, and we talked about that movie, didn't
we like? And when I'm in when I'm streaming, I
feel the same thing applies, except I'm missing facial recognition
and all of that kind of stuff like the so

(22:17):
and then you'll have people who are like, uh, they've
spent a year in your chat, and then all of
a sudden they come in and there like this is
my new user name, and it's like I'm never gonna
just gonna say that I'm never going to be able
to associate these memories with this new name because your
name color changed, everything changed, and like now the sort
of can but it's also sort of can't. And yeah,
it's people. People will join your chat and they'll have

(22:38):
this like long name and you say their name outline,
they're like, yeah, just call me Chris, and it's like
I'm never going to remember that, like you anywhere in
your user name if it was like if it was
like Chris Smith one to three four, but Chris, okay,
I can handle that, right, Um. But that's and I
think that's where it comes into. And this is a
big part of of like the twitch tutorial culture or

(23:00):
two is obsession with your chat almost like everything is
about your chat, Everything is about the people in the
in the community is the most important. And I believe
that's true, but I also think that in some ways
we were starting to do things backwards, like meaning we
come into streaming now with our like everybody comes in

(23:22):
with their emotes built there, like their their nickname for
their community already picked out, and before the community even forms,
and they have their discord because that's how they're being
taught to do it, and it's the process. It's like
the streamlined uh simply line version of a streamer instead
of just someone who started out just like sharing something

(23:42):
online and then they look over and they're like, why
are there five people here? And then all of a sudden,
inside jokes start popping up from the chat like that,
and then and then it's like, oh, I need to
make an y'all, y'all say this joke too much, We
got to make an emote for it kind of thing
like that, This like reaction to the community kind of thing.
But even still just the I want to use the

(24:02):
word obsession. It's interesting, Um that that's what's coming into
my mouth. But the obsession with chat, the obsession with
the community, even the big streamers, let chat by big streamers,
I mean people with um five digit view counts consistently, um,
they still are almost controlled by chat. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(24:25):
One thing that came to mind, I think what you're
talking about that is like how these days it's so
like manufactured like how to be a streamer and it
literally like you can probably find like a wicky how
you literally I'm sure you can find like a shower
article on how to be a streamer, and it's it's
meaned upon in games like I remember playing like it doesn't.

(24:46):
Doesn't Beauty Pie have a game called tuber Simulator or something,
But I don't know. I could be getting carts of
this wrong. I'm pretty sure it's Beauty Pie's game, and
I'm pretty sure it's called, like I think it's called
tuber Simulator, and you play this little a character who like,
you go online, you post a video, you get you
got five fans, you know, You go to sleep, you
wake up, you water your plant, you post another video,

(25:08):
you got ten more, you know, And it's just like
it's literally like creating a YouTuber or like a streamer.
It's just so I don't know, and like where it's
like in the in in the good old days of
the internet. Yeah, I used to happen like organic organically,
and now it feels a lot more manufactured. And that's capitalism.
Yeah well yeah yeah, but I mean it's and it's

(25:29):
only it's just led to this culture of like everybody
has to be a streamer, no matter like whether they
actually have anything to bring to the table or not.
Kind of like my own, you know, kind of personal
journey that I went through. I think that a lot
of this. I have a video on my YouTube channel
it's called how to how to beginner guides to streaming
or how to how to get started on Twitch or
something like that, and it's my most popular video. It

(25:51):
has almost six thousand views now. There's a huge demand
for it when I made it because it was a
couple of months before the pandemic hit. And if you
go in like a of these like twitch tracker dot
com websites where they show the analytics of the twitch
website the spike of viewers and streamers when in April
almost like tripled the amount of people that were on

(26:14):
Twitch watching and creating um and that was everybody with
everybody was like, you know what, Uh, I don't want
to go out in the world right now, might as
well try to be a streamer? Like and I think
exactly here we are two years later and a lot
of people are having to face the hard truth that
it's not the right call for them. Yeah. Well, and

(26:34):
it's kind of like if everybody is a streamer, then
who's watching all these streams? Who watches the watchmen or whatever?
Like some people can just be viewers. That's okay, Like
it's not it's not like we have like a cast
system in society. And this is what you were born into.
You gotta be you know, you can never rise up
the ranks yet. But like, it's it's truly is not
for everyone. I'm like, I think that can be a

(26:55):
difficult thing to kind of wrangle with, But I think
that I hope a lot of people are realizing that
there's like a lot of maybe other jobs that like,
like maybe what they truly want is to work in gaming,
which is like a totally like millions of people work
in gaming. Like that's totally something you can do very
easily without having to be like the star, without having
to create content or you know, I don't know, yeah yeah. Um.

(27:18):
And the other thing I think is people I think
that streaming is so glamorous and easiest, and on the
surface it looks like it is probably, um, but the
reality of it is, um, I quit my nine to
five to work and h and be be little bits
and pieces of you ripped off of you by all

(27:39):
of these different individuals, like over time, until you feel
just completely like empty. For me, yes, um, it's it's
little bits and pieces are taken over time. Um. You know,
I'm telling everyone my dad, you know, is recovering from
his heart attacks and then that is later weaponized. Right,
That's a good example of a bit and piece that
I gave away willingly seem like I talk about my

(28:01):
like weight losh journey um and or my my attempt
to get on the ball with that and uh. And
that is also something that that well meaning people will
come into my d m s and then give me
like doctor advice, like you know, do this diet, do
that diet, and and and I see it all the
time with like um, like I think that recently, Justin

(28:21):
Bieber posted a video about how he has like his
face is paralyzed. I think temporarily as a virus, virus
or something like that. I've heard that it can be permanent.
I hope like the virus is not cleared up in
time or something like. I never want to see anybody
in pain. It's hard to see somebody like it's terrible.
But when you go through the comments on his post

(28:43):
about that, it's just nothing but people diagnosing it and
um and all kinds of things like that, and and
that's you know, in some ways, that's like I do
share like struggles that I'm going through because I I
in the hopes that someone can relate and maybe shed
light for me, um and help me understand. I think,
help me understand, and it will help them feel less alone.

(29:05):
I think that's like the point of it. But they're there.
There's also an underbelly to this. So so I share
that I want a weight lost journey and I'm struggling
with this, that and the other, and I had this
issue growing up and it might be related to PCOS.
And there are people in my audience that are like, WHOA,
I have the same things. I feel at home here,
I feel seen, I feel heard. And that's the positive.

(29:25):
That's that's the hope. That's the the drive and the
motivation for why I share the way that I do.
But the underbelly of it is now people are playing
doctor with me or they're criticizing, Like if I say
that that, um, you know, I need to work on
my weight lost journey, and then I'm on stream drinking
a soda and I have everyone in chat ridiculing me
for it, and it's like, I didn't give you permission

(29:46):
to do that, you know what I mean? Like me
being open about this struggle isn't permission for you to
um bully me. Do you know what I mean, and
they think it's funny, then yeah, it's it's and and
in some way it's like ha ha he he. There's
been several times in my streaming career where I've had
to tell my community to stop bullying me. Um like

(30:07):
this was they they think that roasting you is funny
because they think that, like you're good friends, and that
friends roast each other. That's just what friends do. And like,
in my experience, it feels like the people that think
that that, I mean, it truly is. Some people do
interact that way. I r l as well, but like
what I found is, I feel like the people that think,

(30:28):
like the roasting umer is funny, they're kind of insecure,
and a lot of them do most of their interactions
most of their socialization online, and like they are, they're insecure,
so they kind of put up that front of like, oh,
you know, it's like playful ribbing or whatever, and not
everybody likes to interact like that, and I certainly don't.
And I don't know, it's just it's funny. You don't
think that always got to me the first time, it's

(30:49):
funny the second time, ha ha he, third time, okay
again and then like the thirtieth time, it's like, Okay,
I get it, can you stop? Like and and and
a lot of times it's like jokes that would be
picked up and then the one person is like pushing
the joke, and then the couple of other like mods
are like, ha ha, let's play with that for a second.
And then the like slower portions of the community pick

(31:12):
it up like a week later, and they're the ones
that are there not as maybe socially aware, and they
are trying to be in on the end joke and
they're just so and and it just kind of like
evolves to a point where it's like I don't even
want to be on my stream anymore because every time
I log in, y'all are just making this joke at
me and it's not it's it's beyond not funny. It's
annoying at this point, and it's kind of thing and

(31:33):
and the playful ribbing might have come from that originator
and it was an established relationship with them, like maybe
they were even a streamer friend of mine or they
were my my i RL friend in chat that was
kind of roasting me, and then everybody else picks up
on it, and that I see that happen with big
streamers too. I see again, meaning the five digit I'll
see them getting bullied by their community to the point

(31:55):
where they just shut their streams off without a word.
No no, Like all right, I'm gonna go. Everyone just
literally shut their streams off because it's like, I would
never want to get to that level of streaming and
look in the chat and see it's just a bunch
of people that are there to make fun of me.
I would never do you suckers even like me? Why
are you he that awful? But I think we're getting

(32:16):
into some really really good meat. But let's go ahead
and take a really quick break before we get back
into this kind of viewer bullying the streamer topic. We'll
be right back, all right, Welcome back to boss level. Um,
I'm just bro hard and I'm joined by a hey
shady lady. We have a guest list episode today. We're

(32:39):
just doing a little Q and A. And right before
the break, we were talking about a really fun topic
that I've heard a lot of other streamers to complaining about,
which is whether chat kind of starts to bully them
and um, like the way it happens. As we were
discussing is you know, it just it starts as like
a little in joke that grows and then it just
turns into like flattel bullying of the streamer, and I

(33:00):
just like, I can kind of see how it happens
because it's such a gradual thing. But at the end
of the day, again, it's like, why are you even
here if you just came to roast me? It turns
into the hate watching thing, and that kind of tiptoe
into the more toxic sides of community building and streamer
culture too. Is people love to hate and hate to

(33:24):
love kind of thing. And I'm I'm witnessing this happen
right now. This makes me think of a YouTuber that
I've been very invested in since I first found her
called Bailey Sarian. She's one of those people who do
their makeup and talk about true crime stories. And uh,
I did not know that was a thing, but I like,
I'm very interesting genre. Okay, showed murder mystery and makeup

(33:49):
Mondays and and there's a whole subgenre of people on
on YouTube that that will do their makeup while they're
telling you a true crime story or murder mystery. Uh.
Aliens like it's one of my favorite It's it's probably
my favorite nation. It's crazy. Yeah. It's like you're just
sitting with your your bff in their room, they're doing

(34:11):
their makeup, we all getting ready to go out for
the night, and they're like, did you hear this crazy
story about blah blah blah blah blah. Like so it's
it's a it's you know, it's yeah, that is like
exactly for me basically. So she was I won't see,
I don't know for sure, but but she was certainly
the the big dog that busted out with this this
type of content. Um, she went from you know, followers

(34:35):
to like eight million within a year um of of
sticking with this format consistently and being a great personality
delivering um consistent content every week and um and all
of this and and having good takes and and just
genuinely being a cool person. And uh, it was this

(34:55):
rapid rise. And now I'm watching her get dismantled. And
a lot of it has to do with she hit
a burnout herself, um and was going and went through
a big life change with with a relationship ending too,
and you could just see she kind of hit a
wall with being creative because of all of the stuff
that she was going through, right, and her community is

(35:17):
kind of turning on her right now, and is uh
whenever I look at her her comments on her YouTube
videos or her Twitter account or anything, it's her entire
community that's just like, Okay, we don't care about your outfit.
We just want another murder mystery makeup Monday video, Like
we don't quit posting your outfit. There's there was even
accounts made with her her face with a red like

(35:38):
circle and a line through it that was like, what
is what is Bailey Sarian doing? And the whole account
was just this person who was just tweeting every day
like we want where is this other video? Why are
you posting this content? We don't care about this. We
only title to deserve content like that's horrible and it's
free on YouTube dot com. Okay, Like it's it's She's

(35:59):
She's mad. And that's where I think. God, I only
had like twenty viewers, you know, like, thank god, I
never made anything of myself. And I look at these
big streamers and I look at the way that people
dehumanize you once you get a certain follower, a count
and the things they say, Um, it literally makes It's

(36:19):
why I think I'm like, do I just keep self
sabotaging because I don't want to deal with that? Well,
look at I can't look at it this way. Nobody
in my real life has ever said anything like half
is mean to me as like the best comments that
well not like okay, I'm exaggerating, but like I never
get mean ship from people to my face. It's always online.
It's always on the internet. Like that made me really reassess,

(36:41):
like should I be taking this? Do I need to
have these interactions? Wouldn't I be happier with healthier interactions.
There's no repercussion for saying something mean and a Twitch
chat like there is if you're a decent person and
you care about like your your reputation with your user name.
But like, this is the same thing that happens in
like video game general chat rooms or whatever, like the

(37:02):
Overwatch chat. Like people just say the most heinous ship
you've ever seen in your life because there's no real
repercussions for it. They don't have to look a human
in the face and and and accept that that reaction
to their face and be seen in there. It's it's
the face to face And I do think some of
the cruelest things that have ever been said to me
um were by people that were my closest friends, as

(37:23):
like teenagers when we were going through our like shitty
teenager face and they said, those are some things that
have stuck in my second point, and my twitch chat
and my YouTube comments are the second the second level
of that. They're there and and that's the thing is
it's like my best friends that said mean things to me,
they had the most power over me because I let
them closest to me. My twitch chat has so much

(37:45):
power over me because I let them there in my
bedroom with me and they're listening to me talk about
you know, this month's depression spiral, like they're they're they're
in in it with me. And there's so many more
of them at a time, you know, like because like
typically like even if you're even if you were hanging
out with a lot of people in real life and
they're all saying mean things to you, like are you

(38:07):
eminem are you up on stage? Like does their crowd
I r l in front of you know, it's not
that many mean interactions face to face versus like if
you have like a hundred viewers, that could be a
hundred mean things once coming out of chat. Yeah, yeah,
I can't imagine being a stand up performer. I mean,
like the one heckler, I can see how it's it's

(38:28):
the same thing though, Like you're in a Twitch stream,
say you have a hundred viewers and everyone's just vibing
and being chill and laughing at your jokes and emojis
and all of this, and then that one person comes
in and is like, why is she talking about this?
She sounds so stupid, And it's that one heckler. And
you can either like not even be faced by it
and have them like you already have a good bouncer
team mod team that's just like removes them, or you're

(38:49):
someone who just like gets hyper focused on it. And
this is an example I gave in that that YouTube
video how to get started on Twitch thing, it's like,
you don't want to lose your cool, Like you don't
you don't want to be the comedian on stage that
someone's heckling and they just dropped their funny guy persona
and they're right in the face screaming, what does you
get out of my blah? Blah blah. It's cringe, it's embarrassing,
it's secondhand embarrassment. Everyone the audience is like, we're supposed

(39:11):
to go back to laughing after this, Like you don't
want to lose your cool, but but you also don't
know it hurts what's going on behind the scenes. And
how many times I've looked at chat and just ignored
something and and and then just adds up over time,
and it's one step closer to the edge I'm about
to break literally, Like it just adds up over time,

(39:32):
and eventually it's the straw that broke the camel's back,
Like yeah, yeah, totally. UM, I have a story example
of like speaking of like being up in front of
a crowd and you know, getting heckled. UM. My friend
Rachel ak Seltzer, who is an e sports host UM
with characters like agency, the same agency that I'm signed with,

(39:53):
UM was hosting a Pokemon Go event once and it
was in I don't remember who else was there with her.
She might have been the only she was like the
stage host and UM, I don't know if you remember
her this because this would have been like the first
year that Pokemon was out and it was like in Chicago,
they had this like Pokemon Go like like convention type

(40:14):
of like but yeah, it was like really cool, like
thousands of people showed up, but then like the I
think servers went down because there were so many people
playing the game at once in such a in like
a crowded location, and so people literally could not play.
And so Rachel's up there like stage host and like,
are you guys having a good time, and like the
crowd is yelling back like no, because we can't play

(40:35):
the fucking game. And I'm like, oh my god. This
like she is like, you know, she's doing a great
job despite like not getting the crowd reaction that she,
you know, is used to, but man, like that that
just would have been so and like again it's kind
of like the like the crowd has to know it's

(40:55):
not her fault, but like when it's like it's kind
of that mob mentality, like there's so any of them
and they're upset already. It was a hot day because
I think it was like July in Chicago, Like they
couldn't play their game, the one thing that they came
there to do. Of course they're going to be angry,
but they also can't separate that emotion from like the
stage host. Rachel is not the one doing it to them,
and yet she is the person that is right there

(41:16):
in front of them. Yes, it exactly is yeah, yeah,
that's uh that yeah. A lot of thoughts would just
I think it would be. I. I was in theater
in high school and I choked on stage always. Um,
I would get up, I would forget my lines. I
would because because I could see everyone's faces in the audience,

(41:38):
and I was like that person just like snickered. It's
because I'm embarrassing, right because I Did's like, I'm very
caught up in those types of thoughts. I really wish
I wasn't, but I just am um in the same way.
And that's why I've loved streaming so much, is that
I'm in my room. I don't have to see people's
spaces and see their reactions if I'm cringe or whatever.
Like and and that's a good and a bad like

(42:01):
because that's also the reasoning that causes people to be
able to say whatever they want to me in the
twitch chat, Because when you're performing on stage and theater,
the audience is very unlikely to yell things that you,
they like they applies and the like laughter and stuff
comes along and like the gasps of like, oh my god,
I can't believe that happened, But people aren't going to

(42:22):
It's different than a Pokemon Go event, Yeah, because you're
going to be that person in the crowd that everyone's
going to turn to look at because you're being a
weirdo and yelling at the person on stage, like and
they don't they don't want that that like group shame
to happen. And it's not as um intense on an
Internet chat, Like the worst that's happened is like, oh
I get banned from chat, so so the as Saul
say whatever I want to write, um And that's that's

(42:45):
where like it's it's a benefit for me as a
streamer to not have to look at people in the
face because it I don't have as much stage right,
But it's also a negative because it means there's no
accountability human accountability for for the behavior that comes um,
like even on my part like it, I will say
a lot more vulnerable things that I would if I
was in front of a stage of people whose face

(43:07):
as I could see, because they're faceless there you know,
I'm just as far as I know, I'm sitting in
my room talking to myself. It's like I'm, I'm it's
a video diary at this point. And that's where oversharing
has become a chronic issue for me and something that
I'm constantly working on. And that's where boundary setting has
become a huge topic and uh theme for me over

(43:29):
the last year of what is and is inappropriate. Like
I can talk about my breakup as an example. Five
six years ago, I was in a four year relationship,
had just started streaming. I had next to no followers
or viewers or anything, and and I got dumped and
my little heart was broken, and I was on the
internet ranting and raving about it. Right and now five

(43:51):
six years later, I just ended a five year relationship
and I I didn't, I said, put up a statement
online because we're both content creators. So I put up
a thing that just said that it happened. And I
haven't said besides like this interaction, and like I think
in my stream yesterday, first stream in like a month yesterday,
and and a lot of the reasons that I wasn't

(44:11):
streaming for the last few weeks is that I wanted
to process this privately. Um, so I didn't get on
my stream and word vomit like I normally do and
say things that I would either regret um or cause
more pain, or would give people more power over me
that I don't want them to have, Like I want
to understand this on a private level, a personal level before.

(44:35):
And of course I'll talk about it, because I can't
help but talk about everything, right, But of course I will,
But I just wanted to sort through it first, and
that that has been part of my learning how to
set boundaries. Is controlling impulse. I think controlling the impulse
to just as soon as I know something, I say
it or I talk about it, right, And that's content

(44:58):
creator culture because the first and to make the video
gets the most views, and that causes you to even
react like that towards your personal life, like I've got
to say this as soon as it happens, Like I
just got home from the grocery store. I have to
tell you about this thing that just happened ten minutes ago. Right,
what's rage bait? Like people raged me in controversy get
so many views, and as much as it sucks, I

(45:18):
feel like people really feed off of like negative things, like, yeah,
you'll get attention for positive things, but I feel like
on the Internet you get more attentions for negative things.
Like as much as it kind of sucks, I bet
your statement that you put out about your breakup probably
got a lot of interaction and a lot of engage
so than an average post that I put up. Absolutely people,

(45:41):
and you know, even if it's people that like claim
to care about you, and I'm sure on some level
they do, even they love a good like trauma, you know,
like because it's not happening to them. And again, it's
kind of goes back to that, like it's sort of
removed because it's not like, you know, yeah, they feel
like they know you, but they also like feel like
entitled to your business. And that's kind of more where
that sympathy might be coming from. And it's just like,

(46:04):
well we we like, it's not just stream your culture,
it's content creator culture. Uh is more and more focused
on making yourself the star of your own soap opera
or the star of your show reality show like keeping
Up with the Kardashians kind of thing, so, you know,
the and this is made worse by by some of
the more salacious characters on on like YouTube and stuff,

(46:28):
and all of the clickbait and the you know, the
really toxic stuff. Like I think there was even a
controversy a couple of years ago where a very pron
Since this is more a negative story, y'all can probably
research and find out yourself, but a more prominent YouTuber
had filmed um someone a body they found in a bathroom,
and and it was and immediately posted on YouTube, and

(46:51):
it was the thumbnail clickbait, you know, um, like we
found a body and it's like that was a human being,
like and you just clickbait it up that for attention
and clicks, and it worked. Everybody clicked on it. It
was one of their most watched videos. And and that's
and and then not just so, so the creator is

(47:11):
at fault there for doing it in the first place,
and the viewer should also be held at fault because
you clicked on it. Like this is this is the
thing that happens on like Twitter and stuff a lot
as people complain about like, uh, bad actors, I don't know,
for for lack of better term, like like people that
are are toxic, negative or really bad takes or bigoted

(47:31):
or whatever. That will say say dumb ship, and we'll
go viral for it because everybody, Oh, I can come
up with a good example. In streamer culture, you get
the random person that shows up and they complain about
how girls who show cleavage get views so fast and
girls have it so easy on Twitch. You'll get that
hot take on Twitter once or twice a year, and
everybody dog piles on them and it's just like, that's

(47:52):
not true. Quote retweet, and then all of a sudden,
that person goes from having three followers to like four
thousand followers because all of the big get assholes follow
that person because they're highlighted and they're like, oh, there's
that person, and they're willing to say the stuff that
we're thinking but we're too scared to say. I'll follow them,
and then all of a sudden they're they're popular for them.

(48:13):
They feel like it's for good reasons because they believe
what they're saying, right. They think with the little opinions,
never would have gotten out there, never would have gone
anywhere if you hadn't we didn't interact with it, if
we didn't engage with it. And it's the same thing
with like you know, I just found a dead body
YouTube video or whatever. We click on it and I
actually saw there's a video movie on Netflix. No, it's

(48:34):
a TV show on Netflix. Um. I cannot, for the
life of me remember the name of it, but um,
it was about a The concept of the video was
a guy gets kidnapped, and um, like an adult man
to father gets kidnapped, and all the sign that was
like I like at three, at five millions of years,
I die Yeah, I saw this. I loved it. It

(48:56):
was a great show, which I could recommend that it
might have been called clickbait. I think it was clickbait.
You had the one little blonde girl, the blond from
from you, wasn't she and you? I think the nurse
playing like the sister, of playing the sister. It was
my first it was it was my first time seeing
her in a show, but she was. She was the

(49:18):
whole show was. I really enjoyed it. I thought it
was all in one night. Um. But the concept was, um,
guy has done something, that is he's kidnapped, and and
at five million views on this video, I die so
and then um and then never mind spoilers. Um, but

(49:39):
I do recommend it. But I think about that and
within the first twenty four hours the view count hits
five million, um and you know, we're following the sister
the whole time, and she's like, why is this, Why
are people watching this? Blah blah blah, And because we're
little freaks. We're all little freaks, and like the so
we're encouraged as content creators because we're rewarded with viewership

(50:02):
to do more and more and more and bigger and
worse or better or whatever like, And so that's where
we get YouTubers that are like, I'm going to live
stream my wedding, Like, no, don't do that. Yeah, yeah,
And I gotta say, like a few years ago, I
would have thought of doing the same thing, and I
look back and I'm like, God, I would have cringed
at that for the rest of my life. But like,

(50:23):
I know people that did that. I guess I'm not
necessarily just yeah, I'm not trying to judge people for it,
because I like, yeah, and maybe it's different for different people,
different strokes for different folks, but I like, like, for example,
I went to an anime convention three years ago, four
years ago or so, and I live streamed at it.
Um I carried my You know, I was an I
roll streamer for a moment, tried that hat on, did

(50:44):
not like it. Um. So many things were caught on
camera that made me very uncomfortable that are still archives online.
And what I mean by that is like, when I'm
in cosplay at conventions, UM, especially at the time in
the costume that I was wearing, I dealt with a
lot of sexual harassment from people. UM, and all of
that was just on camera for people to see me

(51:04):
having to which, in some ways maybe that's like highlighting
awareness that this is just the reality of me at
a convention walking around like this. But UM, now, not
only do you have to like however, you maybe have
reacted if this happens to you just on the street.
You know, you might tell the guy off or whatever.
You might feel like you can't do that because then
all of a sudden, your chat is gonna be like,
oh my god, what a bit she's just But it's

(51:24):
like he's literally physically invaded my space. I feel trapped
in a corner, like it makes me feel embarrassed that
those things are and and then it's almost like I'll
never be able to escape that memory. I'm just like
constantly re traumatized by it over and over again because
it's just and and that's the thing is, Like it
could be like the opposite end, like if I live
streamed my wedding, you know, or something like that, like

(51:46):
or like people like livelog. It's interesting because like like
livelog their their birth process or because I am you,
they can't obviously show the actual birth, but but the
whole delivery room experiences. I'm a bit of a boyer
and I do watch stuff like that. But okay, okay,

(52:06):
that's the problem. Though, we're being nuts to have another
ad break even though I so badly want to hear this.
Let's let's do it. Let's let's go to break and
then we'll come back with all the juicy details. We'll
be right back, all right, and we're back with boss
level and I'm just for hard. Ht Lady was just

(52:27):
about to tell me a very I'm really excited for
this story. Can you tell us more? Yes, those who
livestream their births. I I see more on YouTube. I've
never seen someone do it on Twitch. But Twitch is
also still a boy dominated platform, so or like a
mask dominated platform. Maybe the more like FIM energy, we

(52:48):
get over there, we might start to see more of
that kind of but the whole thing, like I mean,
from beginning to end, except for the actual like money shot,
I guess you'll call it. Okay, see that's kind of
what I was picturing. But I they can't actually nudity
and all of that kind of stuff. But at the
same time, I think there are probably corners of YouTube
where it can because it could be educational. Um, because

(53:10):
I've seen just full Brazilian waxes, like the whole everything
out like on YouTube, lots of you because it's it's educational, right,
you can learn how to wax someone else that way. Yeah. Yeah,
Like I was very educated. I was like, okay, that's uh,
that's right. Um. But but seeing this is the area

(53:34):
of content creation where it's like what are the boundaries?
What is? And then it's but it is the question
of like the human body is not inherently sexual, and
that's into a whole other type of conversation. And at me,
my little, my little silly self sitting in my room
is looking at all of this stuff, and it's faced
with the decision of what I'm going to create and

(53:55):
how I get visibility. And then we're brainwashed by the platforms.
It's a harsh term, but I stand by it. Uh
to obsess and care about these numbers. Um, everything in
the backboard or back in dashboard of Twitch is just
all about you. You you've had five hundred, they've gamified
at all, So we're like really incentivized. How can I

(54:17):
get a thousand people talking to me at one time?
How can I get five followers? How can I And
that's that's all it's about now. And same with YouTube.
It does all of them do the same thing with
the analytics and pushing it not as bad, I would say,
like Instagram and Twitter are not as nearly as bad
like YouTube. Be logging into your dashboard and the first
thing you see is like your last video is performing
worse than your five previous videos, and it's like, oh great,

(54:40):
everybody hates my And my newest video was like me
sharing you know, a book that I just got that
I was really excited about. But the five previous videos
where all these clickbait twitch tutorial videos that you know,
And that's how I've gotten stuck in a niche is
because if you don't want to become irrelevant, God forbid. Yeah,
but like, you know, what I've what I've I feel

(55:02):
like observed in my own life is that there is
freedom in being irrelevant and like it's just so nice
that like there's no pressure, there's no you know, because
for me, it was always like like not having the
stability of like a regular job and a regular paycheck
meant like I felt like I always had to hustle
because I had to make money out of my contest

(55:22):
so that I had to keep creating content. And then
even when I you know, I didn't feel like it,
I had to and then Okay, well now this isn't working,
so I gotta try something else, so I gotta keep
pushing the boundaries. And like now it's just like nobody
expects anything from I mean, my boss is expects and
stuff from me, but like the public doesn't expect anything
from me. And when my boss expects something from me,

(55:43):
you know what, he's like pretty reasonable about it. You know,
he doesn't demand it. He sets a reasonable timeline in
which I can accomplish that, and he is clear with
what he wants. And then when I do that, he's
pretty happy. You know, he doesn't say okay, and then
what's next? You know, okay, and then when's your next stream?
You know? It's kind of nice. Yeah, it's And that's
what I miss about, Like a normal nine to five

(56:05):
is um very clear boundaries. I go into work, I
come home, I colston as I clock out. I don't
care about it anymore. It doesn't matter, Like it's I'll
deal with it when I get back into work at
nine o'clock tomorrow morning, like and or whatever time. I've
always worked third shift jobs. But um, when I stream

(56:26):
as a streamer content creator, it is sun up to sundown,
like the second I wake up to the second I
go to sleep. And even when I'm dreaming, I'll dream
about this stuff all the time too, Like it's it's
a constant um struggle. It's a constant game. You can't
you you have? It feels to me like yes, it's
a constant grind. I feel like I have to stay

(56:49):
aware of everything that's happening on the internet at all times,
like I have to know, you know, like like the
Wholesome Direct that the game thing that happened this weekend,
and there was another like Triple A games that were announced.
I don't know the names of them. I'm sorry, but Um,
there were two major gaming events that happened this weekend,
and if I were being a good streamer quote unquote,

(57:11):
I would have been live streaming my reaction to those things,
right or I would be releasing a YouTube video today
that was my you know, my favorite games from the
wholesome directs like that. That's being a good content creator. Yeah,
Like things like that that I found so draining. I
just don't want to. I just want to enjoy what
I enjoy. And then like I don't want to have

(57:31):
to keep up with these trends and these games and whatnot.
And then like you know, you were saying that you
were pushing yourself, you know for like like streaming such
long hours and everything, or at least you know you're
even when even when you're not streaming, you know, you're
always like working on your stream, like posting on Twitter
or editing a video. Have you noticed how frequently people
are now doing like uncapped sabbathons and like what do

(57:53):
you do about all that? And you unlocked rant for me,
rant for us. Cannot stand them. I think they're so
deeply unhealthy, um and very um A very bad example
to set for people. I've rarely and by rarely, I
mean I've only ever seen one streamer do like an
I ral or or a subathon stream where I was like, Okay,

(58:17):
they're actually setting like they're they're they're being a healthy
example for people because they were going out in the world,
they were exercising still, they were making meals for themselves,
they were cleaning up their room. And but by all
intents and purposes, it's like boring content, right, um. But
when I see people that are doing, um even even
a twenty four hour stream where they just sit at

(58:38):
their computer for twenty four hours, I'm like, why would
you ever uh teach people to do this? Why would
you ever um model this role be a role model
that shows that, Like it drives me crazy, and I
have I have a lot of friends that do these
types of marathons, and I am it is absolutely not
a personal uh reaction that I'm having to this. I respect,

(59:01):
I respect the grind of it. I've tried. When I
say I've tried. My first year of streaming, I fell
into I have to do this kind of thing, um
and it was a charity reward and it was the
longest dream I've ever done. With seventeen hours and it
was awful for me. Um. And I'm sure people different
people have different types of stamina. I just truly find
it deeply unhealthy to sit at your computer for those

(59:25):
types of hours and live stream it and put it
on display as uh we're role models as streamers, and
especially when I see like uncapped Subathon's unless and that's
where it comes into like a subjective, nuanced kind of thing. Um,
I still think it's kind of weird, um to even
if you're being healthy. Uh, it's it's of course like

(59:47):
curious and interesting as as like a scientifically minded analyst person.
The observation of a human for for three days live
streamed is very interesting to me as a curious person.
And the likes to just observe humans being weird, right, Um,
as far as just the health of a human goes,
I find it disturbing, frankly, like, and it also is

(01:00:10):
setting like a really weird precedent, like are we just
stepping into the point where like we are just going
to be brought like more and more people are just
going to broadcast seven unfiltered life on the internet, and
and maybe that's where we're going, and maybe that's just
the future, it's going to be, like I don't know.
It feels when I start to think about where technology

(01:00:31):
is going, I start to get into my sci fi
horror brain, black mirror energy starts to come out of me,
and I'm like, I get really creeped out by by
the possibilities and and then I also think of this
is like a pretty dark area to take this too.
But I think of streamers who are playing like pub
g or something or apex Legends and they get stream

(01:00:53):
sniped um because people are in the chat watching them
and they find them in in pub g and they
stream sniped them. And it's a whole thing. Now, what
spens when that starts happening with like I r L
streamers like that That's something I'm intensely interested in. And
part of that is this is a horrible morbid thing.
But like I hate it when like streamers get squatted,
which like, for anyone who might be listening and doesn't

(01:01:15):
know what it means to get squatted, that means like
somebody who figures out a streamers like home address and
basically calls in a swat team on them via like
calling the police and making some crazy claim like hey,
at this address, there's a person holding someone hostage at gunpoint,
and then of course like the police or like a
swat team will come and break down this person's door.

(01:01:36):
And then often you get to witness it on I say,
you get to witness it. It's a horrible thing, but
like all the viewers see it, and it is happened.
It is on the internet for all the time, and
it's just this crazy thing. Yes, yes, it's horrible, and
in fact, didn't I think somebody this might have been unrelated.
It might have been this might not have been related

(01:01:57):
to the internet, but there was an incident where like
somebody died because like I think somebody I don't remember
if it was a streamer, but basically somebody like called in,
you know, somebody squatted someone else and like either they
gave them a wrong address or the police got the
address wrong and they was one door over and like
they ended up I think shooting the person inside. And
it was this is like terrible. I'll try to see

(01:02:19):
if I can find a link if you're at all interested,
like look at to you, but it's it was. It
was a horribly tragic incident and it's like that, yeah,
that can literally happen. It's terrible, and it's because they're
they're a little freaks on the internet that just and
it's like a lot. What what makes a lot of
this worse to me is that our audience can consist
of literally anybody, um, from a little thirteen year old

(01:02:41):
troublesome boy to a like, you know, silly little eighty
year old cat lady, Like the whole spectrum of the
human species could be sitting in your audience. And so
I'm sure a lot of times when you get a
lot of the troll comments there from insecure people, probably
hopefully younger immature bowl um that you know, like when

(01:03:02):
when I get called like um slurs or something in
my twitch chat, i assume it's probably a little fourteen
year old boy that's like just that word and same
like like the people that you see in like the
video game chats are like probably teenagers that are just
unfiltered little idiots. Um. And it's not it doesn't have
to be that deep. It's still cuts deep. I'm sure

(01:03:23):
that we're like uh slurs especially are going to always
cut deep no matter who was saying them. Um. And
that's where like education and stuff comes into hopefully like
evolve our culture a little bit. Um, But yeah, I
don't know. I think that's like the hardest part for
me with with streaming is the anonymity of the chat
and and like another thing I think about a lot,

(01:03:45):
and this is again my horror brain coming back out,
but I think about how much I've been sharing since
who I was when I was in sixteen when I
first started. Um, I've gone through a lot of life
changes and I was twenty six years old, I think,
or seven, and I'm thirty four now, and I would

(01:04:05):
say I've fully stepped into like adulthood. I guess I would.
I would classify myself now. And even at twenty six,
I was still u immature in a lot of ways,
and I'm still immature in a lot of ways right, Um.
But there are things that I look back at twenty six, like,
like me like venting and ranting about my breakup on
on twitch dot tv like a like a silly little

(01:04:25):
idiot like um, and if I felt so like I
needed the I needed the validation in that moment. I
needed to feel like some okay and validated, and like
why would they have a break up with you? You're amazing,
Like I needed to hear that because I was so
insecure after the breakup. Right, Um, well, and it's this
easy pool of sympathy that all you gotta do is

(01:04:47):
dip your little toes right into the pool or you know,
jump fully in. They were the problem, I'm so great,
like like what would they only dump me? What still validation?
So yeah, it's like seeking like the good parts of yourself.
And I'm not saying you were to blame for like
you know, but yeah, but it's a dam Sure we've
all been to blame for like breakups and everything like that,

(01:05:08):
but we don't want to tell our twitch chat like
the bad things. We're not going to say, like all
the things that we really didn't said that maybe cause
this in reaction to us. On top of that, we
might not even recognize what those things were. I couldn't
even say them, like because we don't even we don't
even know or recognize it. Um. And yeah, I think
I look back with like in some ways regret and

(01:05:30):
maybe like I don't know. We we often ask guests
on this show, like what is what's a failure you
learned from? Right? Um? I often look back on on
situations like that with regret of I I wish that
I had not um done that. Uh and mostly out
of respect for the other party that was involved. UM,
even if they broke my little heart like, I still like,

(01:05:51):
you know, it felt um like when I look back
on it now, it feels like disrespectful and uh, I
don't know, violating UM in some ways of their privacy. UM.
So I and I couldn't have really known any better
at the time because I was brand new to streaming
and it was I had babies, little audience, you know,

(01:06:12):
it wasn't um. But I I shudder to think if
I had had a larger audience, if I had been
more established while I was in that emotional state. So
how these people are seventeen and twenty years old being
streamers with with you know, a thousand live viewers consistently
good luck, little kid, Oh my god, like the amount

(01:06:34):
of stuff that they're going to This is the day
and age of the Internet, of your whole life will
forever be attached to you. You can't grow. It feels
like it's really hard for us to outgrow bad behavior
because it is archives on the internet forever. And yeah,

(01:06:55):
I think we're here like another another kind of direction
that you know, I feel like we're viewering into which
I would love to kind of crack open. Is like
the whole like if you may, like if you make
a mistake and like maybe nobody notices it first, and
then a couple of years go by and you're bigger,
and then somebody kind of digs up something in your

(01:07:17):
past and it's like, oh, you maybe completely change, and
yet now you're having this mistake like thrown back in
your face, and you know there's you know, it's it's
kind of such a because we've seen it happened. I'm
not going to name time and time, but yeah, it's
happened to a lot of people. And how can you
really tell, like if this streamer has actually changed or

(01:07:38):
if they're just putting out a little pr you know,
scripted apology. And but then on the other hand, you know,
should you forgive? Like it's just such a complicated it's
super nuance too. Is it depends on the apology, It
depends on the altercation, what they did in the first place,
It depends on like I think that actions speak a
lot louder than words. So I do think that if

(01:08:00):
like like the haunting things from my childhood could come out.
And and I think that the way that I behave
now is completely contradictory to like the idiot teenager behavior
that I would have had. And and I would hope
that that people this is this is the hope, is
that people will give us grace as just all all
of us grace. Of course, it depends on what they did, right,

(01:08:22):
Like I mean, you know, oops, I accidentally like killed someone.
It's not the same as like you know, like it
depends and this is this just gets into it almost
like how do you like what does the does the
punishment suit the crime kind of thing? Like that's a
whole other like that's we're gonna into deep topics on
this conversation today. But um, it'll like Jenna Marvel's Yeah,

(01:08:47):
the situation. It just makes me deeply, deeply sad because
I watched some of her videos and I'm like, she
entertained so many people, and I totally understand. And I
guess for anyone I don't know kind of you know,
listening and doesn't know who, I don't know if there's
anyone out there who has heard of our podcast and
has not heard of but she just in case, like
if you're new to the Internet, in the last two
or so years, Jenna Marbles was like one of the

(01:09:10):
first YouTuber is huge, huge, like hilarious lady, really really funny,
and she created videos for like over a decade. I think, yeah.
And then it came out that I think either it
came out or some of her past videos that she
had done where I guess she had done things like
she had worn black face in a video or two,
and I think they were done something else, very microaggressive,

(01:09:32):
and uh yeah. It was just kind of like a
product of the time, right. Language evolves over time too,
and so I'm thinking of like um. Words that were
commonly used when I was growing up, so in the
late nineties two thousands, like uh, um, the R word
for handicapped people was used so often um. I didn't

(01:09:54):
even realize it until I tried to show UM. I
think uh ten things I hated out you. I think
I think it was that movie um or A Night's Tale.
It was. It was a Heath Ledger movie, regardless, but
it was one of the old heart throb nineties movies.
And I try to show it my discord and we
get to a point in the movie and they just
dropped that word casually and just like that. But I

(01:10:16):
was like, of course, yeah, I don't retain everything that's
ever been said in every movie. I just remember that that,
you know, ten things I Hate about you as a classic.
Everyone's always sharing memes of it, you know, and then
I rewatch it. I'm sharing with my community, and now
I feel like I have to apologize to my community
for subjecting them to that. Right, Um, but I didn't
know off the top of I shouldn't, so at that
point it's up to me probably to vet movies before

(01:10:38):
showing them, right maybe, um, but I think that that's
it's not your fault that, like, you know, it's this.
This is why we're having to work this out of
our collective cultural dialogue right now, is because this was
just role modeled to us in the most popular movies
of the time. It was totally normal for people to

(01:11:01):
say these types of things. Does that does not an excuse,
It's just this is what it was like. This is
what So you're growing up, I'm a ten year old
watching this movie and monkey see Monkey, do I adopt
the phrases or or whatever that I never picked that
word up because my mother works with special ed her
whole life, so I never picked personally, thankfully, but I

(01:11:23):
watching that seeing how and there's a lot of words
like that that are now becoming not okay to say
that aren't quite in the slur territory. But it's like, oh,
don't say that, Like, don't don't use that word like that,
like you know. Another word that that I'm trying to
work out is like just casually calling things crazy, and
I've done that in this episode, but I'm trying to
be more mindful of when I use that word and

(01:11:44):
how I'm using that word um and and those are
just more and more examples, and this is constantly happening,
and I think this is one of the areas of
being a content creator that's the most difficult for me.
Um of it puts me on edge that I'm scared
to speak of the time because I never know if
I'm going to accidentally say something um like offensive in

(01:12:04):
some way. And yeah, well it's which is kind of
a risk that you kind of take, but it's also
just at the same time, like no matter what you
do or say, it feels like someone's going to have
a problem with it. And like but like, yeah, so
it's kind of like, well, like I guess because you know,
going back to the Jenner Marbles thing, it's like she
kind of canceled herself. She decided that, you know, because

(01:12:27):
she felt guilt about her past videos. She decided to
not be a content creator ever again. And I think
in her situation, like I've seen a lot of other
creators have a much worse because it's their viewers who
like turn on them and you know, say like, oh,
you're you know, we don't forgive you whatever whatever, And
in her case, she chose to like punish herself. But
it's like, I don't know, like what what do you

(01:12:48):
personally think she should have done? She just apologized and
keep creating content. I mean, that's what I would love personally.
I think she was a great contact. I think losing
Jenna Marble's was such a loss a starburn about that.
I think that that she was a a diamond in
the rough and she made the world a better place
for what she was doing. I'm a she is a

(01:13:09):
huge role model of mine. I look up to her
so much. But I also truly understand why she just
dipped out of the Internet, like she did. And when
I like speaking about the Bailey Serian example from earlier,
when I'm looking at what she's dealing with right now,
and I'm also considering that she blew up over a year,
she gets several million views on a video. I'm sure
she's sitting on a pretty penny. If I were in

(01:13:31):
her position, I'd probably just dip out. I'd be like,
I'm not I'm not here to be. And this is
a sentence I keep saying when I'm talking, when I'm
when I'm like with my, uh my, my, my inner circle,
I like that phrase that you used earlier. Um, when
I'm kind of discussing how to deal with like boundaries
in place with my community and toxic community members, and

(01:13:51):
I keep saying the sentence of I'm not a punching bag.
I'm not here to be your punching bag. You had
a bad day and you came in my discord server,
and you just go and cause all of these problems everywhere.
You're arguing with everyone, and you're yelling at me and
calling me names, and then the next day you come
and apologize to me because you had a bad day
and it won't happen again. I don't care what your
excuses anymore. You're not gonna I had a bad day

(01:14:13):
to day. I didn't come in and call you names.
Do you know what I mean? Like I there's no
excuse for that. And this to me at this point,
that's where I'm coming with my boundaries is it's on.
And I've been called cold lately, which upsets my tender
heart because I feel the opposite of cold. Um. But
I have had to become more um. I have had

(01:14:34):
to become more cold. I have had to become less
emotionally attached to people and be able to just you
messed up this one time, and that's it for me.
One strike. You're out at this point, um, depending on
what it is, of course like but but you come
in and you are arguing with people and you're calling
people names. I don't even care anymore. I'm not gonna.
I'm not gonna go back and forth on this. And

(01:14:54):
this is the part of content creating. To your community manager,
you have to babysit your chat, to babysit your community
members as a small content creator until you get a
mod team to do it for you. But even once
you get a mod team, you have to train that
mod team on how to handle it. So you still
have to like critically process these situations and understand what

(01:15:14):
what you are and are not comfortable with, and that
there's no guide book. You don't know when you start
being a streamer that you're signing up to be a marketer,
a community manager, a video editor, a graphic designer, all
of these different hats you have to wear to do
this job and at the same time remain a vulnerable,
uh human that people can relate to, and then try

(01:15:37):
to sell people ship because you've got sponsorships and then
not feel like a total sellout or a shill like
it's a lot. It's yeah, And I think something that
is key also that I wanted to point out is
like you know, it's like it depends on how they

(01:15:57):
react when you enforce boundaries. So like if you set
a boundary and someone still pushes past it, and like
that is unforgivable in my opinion, that's like, Okay, you
clearly just don't give a funk about me, So I
don't give a funk about you. Like if I said
a boundary and someone like I had a friend recently who,
like I was asking me things that I thought were inappropriate,

(01:16:19):
and I said a boundary and he absolutely respected it,
and I thought, okay, great, exactly he didn't. This is
why he's my friend, you know. Absolutely. When I was
going through this on following process, UM, there were a
lot of people that took it very personally, even though
it's pretty open about what I was doing and UM
and people that created I don't want to say created,

(01:16:43):
because I'm sure it was. It was a co creative process, right.
I did an action that had them react in a
certain type of way, and that escalated in several scenarios
where it made me go, all I did, I put
a boundary in place, and your reaction is proving to
me that this was necessary. And I think that's what

(01:17:04):
all of these things that I've been going through for
the past six months are telling me. I put a
boundary in place, and your reaction is proving to me
that this boundary was needed. And and if I lose
you in the process of setting this boundary, then that
is probably what is needed, because this is why I
needed the boundary in the first place. And it sucks.
It sucks because it's really emotionally difficult because some of

(01:17:27):
these people I'm just like, Okay, goodbye, and other people
I'm like, damn, really you like and but but then
you realize that that there's a sentence that that I
saw at some point, you know, an inspirational Instagram thing.
But it's like, the only people that get upset when
you create boundaries are the ones that we're taking advantage

(01:17:47):
of your lack of boundaries in the first place, or
that we're the reason for you to create this. Those
are the and And that's so true for me because
there are well I have, like, you know, a dozen
examples of people that reacted poorly to my boundaries. I
have hundreds of examples of people that didn't even bat
an eye and a lot of people, dozens of people

(01:18:08):
that applauded me setting those boundaries and celebrated me stepping
into an empowered position. And then when I look at
those dozen examples of people that were combating and fighting
and being angry and entitled and all of this stuff,
It's like, but there's all of these people over here
I know I didn't like, but and this is why
I needed the boundary, Like it was like real individual

(01:18:30):
instances that added up straw that broke the camels back
over time to make me say get away from me.
You know what I mean? Like that was that that
was a great conversation. I really like talking about that. Um,
is there anything else? I feel like we should probably
wrap it up pretty soon. Anything else you wanted to

(01:18:52):
talk about before we before we call it quits. I
suppose not. Maybe what's uh, do you have any um
events or anything that you're hosting coming up soon or
anything kind of fun. I know you talked about the
v tuber event. Yeah, just the v tuber event. Just
again working at my you know, my little charity job,
and uh, it's it's going really well where We've got

(01:19:14):
over four tubers that are currently planning to participate to
stream for us that weekend. So that's really looking forward
to that. It's called the v Tuber Summer Slam. So
if anyone happens to be a YouTuber who's listening and
wants to last minute get involved, we can still get
you in. Just um, tweet at me or something that
we can do. What we can do plugs. My Twitter
is just at just bro Hard, So tweet at me

(01:19:35):
if you happen to want to be a YouTuber wants
to get involved and we'll get you involved. Well. For me,
I'm I'm coming. I don't know that I quite want
to call what I'm going through right now burnout. It's
it's more like a phoenix burning itself down and rebuilding.
Like it's it's not quite a burnout as a rebirth maybe.
And so I've been going through a very introvertive, uh

(01:19:59):
so insulated protecting myself kind of thing, went into a
little egg a cocoon um and I feel like I'm
kind of coming out of that a little bit. I'm
and I'm readjusting like my life, so I'm more prioritizing
my physical existence. So I'm gonna probably swap how I
stream a lot. I'm still gonna be doing streaming. Of course,
I do love it. All of this being said, I

(01:20:21):
do genuinely enjoy streaming um and I feel like I'm
in the right spot. But uh, the it's adjusting how
I do it, the boundaries and the time frame and
all of that kind of stuff. So for me, coming
up is probably a lot of I r L content
focused on hiking around these beautiful mountains I live in,
and uh focused around my health journey, which it does

(01:20:44):
involve like weight loss as well. Um hopefully fingers crossed
like prey for reach. Um. But it's it's adjusting diet
and all of that kind of stuff and getting more
physically active and that's gonna, I think, be a bulk
of my content and also like emotional processing. I'm so
I'm like wanting to go into like adventure girl mode.
It's like I'm going from being like stuck at my

(01:21:05):
computer to uh, by my own doing. I've I've you
caged myself at my computer to like exploring the mountains
and going out finding waterfalls and trying to make content
out of that. Um and and still play some video
games sometimes and do my tarot streams and uh and
still have that kind of marriage of these two things.
And I don't have any major events coming up other

(01:21:29):
than just my my usual students that you can find
me a hey shavy lady on all social media. Um.
And I'm kind of going through self discovery phase. So
if you're if you're wanting to divide with that, let's go.
I think that's great because like it's such an important
thing that so many it's like the stereotypes of like
the lazy and healthy gamer are like like there's a

(01:21:49):
reason that stereotypes exist. It's because, like it's something that
I think a lot of gamers still need a little
more introduction to. So it's like really wonderful that you
are sharing that kind of let's go outside and touch
grass kind of part of your life with your viewers
hopefully kind of inspire them. Yeah, because I will say that, um,
my lifestyle of being a streamer has caused me to

(01:22:11):
gain a hundred pounds. Um and I can't I feel
like I can't blame it directly, but but sitting at
my computer all the time, not ever having enough time
to cook food for myself, which just causes me to
grab fast food every day. You know, it's just very
unhealthy choices. But it stems from the workaholic tendencies that
are that are married in with being a content creator.

(01:22:34):
Um and I want to adjust that. And and yeah,
it probably is from like being a gamer more specifically,
But I also there's there's you know, two day events
where it's like twelve hours at my computer just doing
graphic design because that was my you know, man, that's
probably a boundary issue for myself too. I don't know
how to set myself proper work hours and and incorporate

(01:22:54):
a healthy routine. And that's kind of what I'm hoping
to go through over the next year or so is
is getting better at doing that and showcasing it, making
content out of it, and teaching hopefully teaching other people
leading by example. That's my big, my big hope. I
guess I think that's great. I think you're going to
do great with that, and I think your viewers hopefully

(01:23:15):
will really like it. And if they don't, they can
suck them a butt because they need it. But with that,
thank you everyone for your support so far, and don't
forget to follow the podcast on social media at the
Boss Level pod that's l v L and join our
discorporate behind the scenes look at the show, and subscribe
to us on YouTube. We've begun posting full episodes so

(01:23:37):
you can actually faces with video if you want to
watch some episodes as well, um and other little bonus
behind the scenes contest so we will see you next time.
Bye bye s

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Episode 15 - Q&A with Jess and Shady

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 15 - Q&A with Jess and Shady