Episode 16 - feat. Erin Wayne

Welcome back! On today's episode MiLadyConfetti and Jess Brohard are joined by Erin Wayne, Head of Player Community at Riot Games. Erin shares her experience and approach to community management at every level, from her own personal stream to one of the largest gaming populations in the World.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to a Boss level, a podcast where we feature
conversations with guests who have leveled us and bring an
XP boost to the table. Today our guest is Aaron Wayne. Hello,
I and I am joined by my fellow host today,
Just bro Hard. Hello. Hello. UM. So I'm super excited
today because blutle special tidbit. Aaron is actually my mentor.

(00:27):
So I'm so excited to get to like interview you,
like in a professional setting. I saw the email come
through and I was like, I know one of these
people already. Of course I'll do it. It was great.
It was like, oh this me, Yeah, that's wonderful. You're
gonna have so much like built in conversation. Then I'll
just I'll just be here occasionally. But did you want

(00:50):
to start by like introducing us as telling us a
little bit about yourself and what you do. Sure. My
name is Aaron Wayne. I am the Global head of
Player Community at Riot Game. I've been at Riot for
UM just about ten eleven months UM and before that,
I was the Global head of Community, UM creator and

(01:11):
Influencer Marketing at Twitch, where I was there for seven
and a half years. Prior to that, I started as
a YouTuber. There's my button, that's like my my YouTuber
cread from my previous life. UM. So I've been in
the creator industry and in around gaming um as a
professional for the last ten eleven years. UM. But I've
started off kind of I think like everybody gaming as

(01:33):
a kid, in tabletop gaming and all that good stuff. Yeah,
and for those who are just listening, I just wanted
to describe Aaron. The background is full of xboxes and
Xbox controllers, and I like goals because life achievement, thank
you get well it mostly just pops for me. Oh yeah,
what did you do before getting into the creator industry?

(01:56):
Everything and anything? Um. I went to school, so my
formal like I have to college degrees. I got a
degree in corporate communications and I have a degree in
nonprofit administration. UM. I was a wedding planner. I like
won awards and was in magazines and like did that
whole thing very young. I was like nineteen twenty years old,

(02:17):
um doing that and working for a really wonderful um
wedding planning consulting company. UM. And then when I graduated
from college, I continued to do that kind of like
on the side, but my full time job was I
did continuing educations for physicians and nurses, like accreditation and
marketing events for a nonprofit hospital. UM. And then I

(02:38):
had my daughter and I was a stay at home
mom and during that phase of my life, I did
like a quadrillion things. I was a cheerleading coach. I
was a substitute teacher, I was longtime sub I owned
an apparel company. I was a cake decorating the instructor. Like,
I just dabbled in life, uh, and did a bunch
of things. I know. I like every every time, I
feel like I have a conversation like, oh yeah, one

(02:58):
time I was in since somebody the other day was like,
how many jobs have you had, and like, listen, I've
done a lot in life. And then when my daughter
was like almost three, UM, I had a late miscarriage
and I like just disrupted my whole life. UM. And
I needed something to kind of get back in and

(03:21):
so my partner at the time had recommended that I
get into this game called Minecraft. And I thought, well,
that's dumb. That game looks terrible. Why would I play that? UM.
He was like, just trust me, you're gonna love it.
We custom coded a server that was a faction server,
so very similar to like Hoard versus Alliance in um
World of Warcraft. And I did what everybody tells you

(03:41):
not to do, and I went on Twitter and you know,
like just searched people who had Minecraft in their bio
and we're just like, will you play Minecraft with me?
And somebody replied and said, yes, I will play Minecraft
with you, but I want to stream it. And this
was in two thousand and twelve, and I said, well,
what does that mean? And he said, well, we're going
to play it and people are going to watch us play.

(04:02):
And I was like, that has got to be the
dumbest thing I have ever heard watch somebody else play
a video game. But whatever, if you'll play Minecraft with me?
And um, we did, and his fan base was like,
you're funny. You should have a YouTube channel. And you
have to remember, like when I went to college, I
wasn't eligible for Facebook because Facebook had to have you

(04:23):
have a college email to get onto Facebook. And my
college was a small liberal arts college that didn't have
its own email system. So like, I'm not I did
not grow up on YouTube or Facebook or any of
these things. Like I'm part of like the generation that
just missed social media as we were in high school
and college. Um, and so you know, my impression of
what YouTube was for was not for gaming. I didn't

(04:45):
know that this type of content existed. So my early
YouTube videos are just a mess. But the beauty of
that was like I went in with my own perception
of what that should be. And because I had a
small child at the time, I made content I thought
my daughter would watch and so um that kind of
spawned a lot of things that we'll probably talked about
it at some point, But that's how I got into gaming,

(05:07):
and then through a series of events, ended up at
Twitch and now I'm here, so I've done everything a
little bit of So what inspired your your like stage name,
your persona name A really in um? Well, my um
at the time, there was I used to play World
of Warcraft and so I was looking for a character
name for World Warcraft and there had been this movie

(05:29):
that had come out called Fool's Gold and the name
of the boat in Fool's Gold is Aurelia. And I
loved the name of that boat, that boat, and I
googled it and it was like a fairy queen from Ireland.
I was like also my jam and so the name
was taken clearly, and so in order to get the
closest thing I could, I had to add a y
in a middle and then and at the end. And

(05:51):
so that's where a really and came from. Was really
it was not available, and I didn't at the time.
I was just like looking. This was also pre YouTube.
This was this was two thousand and nine maybe two um,
and so again long before I had ever planned on anything.
And so when I used it to connect with my
guildmates at bliz Con, I just kept my World Warcraft name,

(06:16):
and so because that was my Twitter name, it was
just laziness. Really later it's called fending. Yeah, And then
I was like, but but but the wonderful thing is
nobody has that name because it's like completely made up.
So if somebody has the name Aralian, like you did
it because you took my account name, like the TikTok
on Aralian is not me, it's like somebody completely different. Um,

(06:37):
I didn't even notice that it's your name was on TikTok. Well,
somebody has it. It's my it's my picture, but it's
not me. It pretend to be you. Yeah, but they
never posted anything. It's just I don't know if somebody
liked the night that it seems like I'm gonna assume
good intent. It feels like somebody made it to hold it,

(07:00):
but it's not me. It's so nice. I just have
to say how funny it is that you were like
the head of community at Twitch and you still are
like believing the best in people. You have to listen
like an awesome person that And I can't imagine it
because I feel like I almost have the opposite experience
of like I've seen too much. I feel like, yes,
but I feel like if you let that get to you,

(07:23):
like you wouldn't I wouldn't be able to function in
my job if I let that those experiences like overpower
the good ones. You have to do it. I mean,
I'm sure you guys know right you're in the gaming
space and you're very public people. You have to do
a lot of mental work not to let that stuff.
And it's so hard because there's so much of it.

(07:44):
And we just as human beings, as a method to
protect ourselves, are used to blocking out. We're used to
like focusing on the bad stuff to protect us from
going into those things. Again, that's just how we're wired
as human beings. Um, But I try really hard to
just assume good intent until somebody proves to me otherwise.
Causha is optimism is probably my motto. Yeah, what was

(08:09):
the process like of switching from you know, doing all
these different things and being YouTuber too, then taking this
job at Twitch? Like, obviously I'm assuming at Twitch you
used many of the skills that you had gained doing
all this other stuff, but at the same time, to
go from all this stuff to like a full time
job in gaming and community and stuff had to be
kind of a big transition. Yeah, there was a job.

(08:32):
I forgot to mention because yeah, yeah, so at the
time kind of the trajectory of of why I landed
at Twitch and this job is um I had been
a YouTuber already and at the time that I was
doing my YouTube content. Again, these were these were the
early days of YouTube, right, things were not Monetization wasn't there.

(08:56):
You had to be under um an m c M
to be able to make money on YouTube. So, like,
I think it's important for people to realize, like what
you experienced today as creators was not what happened a
decade ago. It was a vasty. You weren't to YouTube
as your job. I was, well, you could, but you
had like it wasn't like people do now. Like nobody

(09:18):
was saying I'm a full time creator unless you were
one of the creators, unless you were a beauty pie
back then or like on that level. Right, and even
back then, I think he had like I remember him
hitting five million subscribers on YouTube, which was a massive
deal back then. Um. So I was doing YouTube, but
I was not monetized on YouTube. Um and so the

(09:38):
reason why you did it was very much a passion project.
People did it because they loved it, and the hope
was I'm going to get picked up by a network
MC as a multi channel network. I'm gonna get picked
up by network. They're going to enable ads and then
I can actually start monetizing my content. YouTube did not
have a partner program at the time. It was very different. Um.
And so I was doing a lot of these videos,

(09:59):
and at the time, the generation of content creators was
much younger. You know. Here I was a seven year
old and a lot of these content creators were sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen,
you know, very young. Um. They didn't know how to
like pay taxes or run a business, or they needed
mentorship is really what they needed. And so in the
Minecraft space, I kind of stepped up and we would

(10:20):
go to things like packs and I would make sure,
you know, people knew how to get to their panel
and they knew where there, you know, packed badges were,
and I would coordinate dinners for everybody to get together
and say hi. Because we were only used to seeing
each other in a virtual space, I was effectively community
managing Minecraft at the time without knowing that's what I was,
because community managers weren't a thing back then, and so um,

(10:41):
as I did that, I started forming lots of relationships
with all of these creators just because that's who I am.
By nature. I'm a very helpful person. I love connecting people.
I loved meeting people. UM and I went through a
divorce at the time, and so because the economy had
crashed again this makes me sound so old, and like
economies crashing and synergies and um, I had to get

(11:03):
a job and so I was working a really tough
job as an i T recruiter at the time, and
so through doing all of this stuff, I was I
T recruiting, So I was working. I'd get up at
six in the morning, I'd get my daughter ready, I'd
take her to daycare, I'd go to work. I'd work
all day. I'd get done at five thirty, I'd pick
up at six. We'd get home at six thirty. We'd

(11:24):
spend time together until eight thirty. I'd put her to bed,
and then from about nine until about two in the
morning was when I was editing, uploading, recording, making thumbnails
and the good bet at too. And I'd wake up
at six. And I did that for a year of
doing this YouTube stuff, and this I was a shell
of it. I think I'd lost like thirty pounds. I
was like a hundred twenty pounds me at the time,

(11:44):
which is not what I am to I was very
far from what I am today. Um. And so my
parents sat me down and they were like, hey, um,
this seems really bad, Like you're not healthy. This job
is taking its toll on you. You know, you're at
that point where you could potentially monitor is this YouTube
thing as a serious thing, but you just don't have
the time to like really put into it because you're

(12:05):
working so that you can support your kid. What if
we what if you quit and what if you're in
My parents were divorced at time, so this is a
big deal. Um. What if we together helped you pay
your bills for six months so that you could try
this YouTube thing and see, we see the potential for you.
Um if you could just do the time. And I
was like, wow, okay, yeah, I hate this job, that

(12:26):
would be great, and so I did. I left that
job in November and you can go back and look
at the YouTube analytics. UM. In November and December, I
started producing content and started kind of calling all these
people that I had meant, wored and gotten together and said, hey,
what are you doing? And I doubled my two So
I think I went to like thirty or fifty thousand
YouTube ups at the time from like fifteen. So I

(12:46):
had i'd shown like, if I do this consistently and
I have the time, I see significant growth. UM. But YouTube,
I'm sure you guys know, content creation is a scary,
unpredictable thing. You can make ten tho dollars one month
and fifty hundred the next month, and there's no health
insurance and there's not a lot of benefits and you know, um,
and as a single mom, I was like that, this

(13:07):
is a scary proposition. Do I think I can do it? Yes?
But my gosh, this is a lot of pressure to
not have that safety net to fall back to. And
so right about that time in January, somebody from Twitch
called and said, hey, um, Twitches is a gaming company
and I was streaming. I was partnered on Twitch at
the time, so I knew. And they said, um, we're

(13:29):
really um positive and confident in our ability to connect
with competitive games, Doda Esports, Call of Duty, League of Legends,
all of those types of game cs go, but we
don't understand why Minecraft is this massive like content generating
machine on YouTube and it's not really on Twitch. Would
you want to come work at Twitch and effectively do

(13:52):
everything you're already doing community management uh in the Minecraft community,
and we'll just pay you to do it here. And
I was like, is this a steady paycheck and help
in terms there? Like yes, I was like, sign me up. Um.
It was a huge thing for me because one it
was it was the it was the safe route right
for me at the time, and I had no idea
which which was going to become at the time, but

(14:14):
I knew this was a way for me to do
something that I was already doing, an environment that was
going to foster my ability to do that, and it
gave me a career trajectory going forward that I just
I didn't think that I was ever going to retire
as a content creator. I loved doing it, I loved
the community, but I wanted to know that it was
doing something. I wanted to know that it was like

(14:35):
driving a purpose and it was giving me something to
do in my career. And so Twitch gave me that opportunity,
and so I took it because it was the it
was the safe route. That is a very interesting story
and I can't wait to get more into it. But
I think for now we're actually going to take a
really quick ad break. We'll be right back and welcome back. UM.

(14:58):
So we are still here with In and we were
just talking about, um, your journey to Twitch, how you
got to you know, work in the position that you
did at Twitch, which was an amazing, amazing journey. I'm
still learning, like some things new from me, because like
I knew some of that, but I was like, I'm
still learning something. So it said, there's a lot of twists.

(15:19):
It's not like I went to college, I got a degree,
I got the job, and now I'm here, like I
I went this way and then right and then left
and then backwards and forwards like it it's a messy
it's like the meme of the guy like connecting all
the strings. That's like my career directory. That's fine. It
all came to a wonderful conclusion. So we're all good.
I feel like a lot of people in gaming do

(15:40):
that as well, because there are just so many and
especially because gaming like is kind of a newer industry still,
like obviously now it's been around for a little bit,
but it's still sort of figuring itself out in a
lot of ways. And I actually wanted to kind of
touch on something you said, which was then you know,
you talked about how you went like full time into
YouTube and your subscribers doubled, but it's also already so

(16:00):
impressive that you had fifteen thousand subscribers to begin with,
and I just, you know, I just have this um
I'm always so fascinated by this concept because I see
more and more so many people coming up wanting to
be full time content creators, but they don't even have
the fifteen thousand you know, I'm not saying I say
even as if i've I've never had fifteen thousand subscribers
on YouTube or anything like that. But yeah, but but

(16:21):
I see so many people, you know, like just starting
off and going, I want to be a full time
content creator and then they have like less than a
hundred subscribers on YouTube, the don't really have any followers.
And it's just so interesting to me that that's straight
where they go. Instead of focusing on like I want
to make good content or like I want to build
a community around something, they just go straight to I
want to be a full time content creator. And I

(16:43):
think there's so much like we kind of glamorized being
like a full time content creator these days. And even
though like you were just saying, you know, you don't
get the health insurance and like it's such a it's
such a tough thing to do, it's such a luck
of the draw thing as well. And so I'm just
always so fascinated by this kind of topic. And I
would love to see if you had any thoughts you'd
like to share on you know, sort of maybe why

(17:04):
we see so many people wanting to be full time
content creators without really uh, thinking about well, they have
to actually create content then to do that. Yeah, I think, um,
I love that you said that we glamorize it. I
think that is very true. Right. I think social media
in general, um, gives the impression that you know, there's

(17:26):
like I love I love home renovation TikTok's right, and
they have like the tiktoks where they go can we
sit because a good part, right, And it shows you
the before and after, and it's like thirty seconds of
like and now I have this beautiful home, and it's like,
but you didn't show that fifty dollars you had to
spend in the three months and that probably tears of
blood and sweat at the time. And I think, um,
you know, as we have just progressed as as a society,

(17:49):
we are a very like we want it and we
want it now, and we there are a lot of
wonderful perks. And my husband as a full time content creator,
he works for himself. He gets to make a schedule.
He it's to pick and choose what he works on
every day. He gets to, you know, be the person
that holds himself accountable. Um. But there are also a
lot of cons right, There are cons that like, he's

(18:10):
the stop gap. If he doesn't do well, that's his income. Right.
If something happens, that's what it is. Right. If it's
a slow month, that's what it is. There's not a
lot of benefits. He has to every time he makes
money going how much of this do I need to
hold for taxes? How much of this needs to go
into four? Oh? N K? How am I prioritizing my
business expenses? He is an accountant and a project manager
and a producer and a content creator and an editor

(18:31):
and a thumbnail and like all of these things, right,
he has to wear eighty thou hats, and so it
can be very overwhelming. And I think, Um, without knowing that,
you have to have that experience to know that that
is what it's like. And somebody can tell you it's
really hard. Somebody can tell you it's really hard to
run a marathon, and until you run a marathon, you

(18:51):
don't realize how hard it is. Right. You can train
and train and project, and then you get there you're like,
oh wow, that was really hard. Um, And I think
that's what it is. Right. We want to be our
own bosses. We want to do these things Um, I
think what's what's interesting is that, UM. What I my
anticipation is that you will start to see just like Hollywood,

(19:12):
where actors and actresses you know, have their their acting
careers for ten or fifteen, twenty years, and then they
start becoming producers and directors and they start doing other
jobs to get out of the line light behind the camera.
I would anticipate that we're about to see in the
next five years content creators who have been doing this
for fifteen and twenty years, UM start to do that.

(19:33):
I would I would expect that we start to see, right,
because you have the bell curve right where you like
start at the beginning, you hit your popularity, and then
as new people are coming into the ecosystem, you start
to see those declines. UM. I would expect that we
will start to see gaming content creators have the same
cycle that Hollywood is now seeing, where that's just the

(19:54):
project you do it. And then right we're already seeing
content creators become apparel companies and music companies and they're
starting to diversify their portfolios to transition out of that
world for all of those reasons. UM. But yeah, I
think you know, young kids, they just get to see that,
you know, ex creator spent a million dollars getting a
Maserati and they want to get a million dollars and

(20:16):
get a Maserati. Don't realize that just like that creator
did that. There's only like, you know, one Lebron James.
There's a reason there's one Lebron James because there's only
one of those content creators and it's just a hard
path to get there. And it's it's tough because I
never want to like crap on anyone's dreams and be like,
you're not going to make it. But at the same time,

(20:36):
statistically speaking, not everybody is going to make it. If
everybody is a content creator who is watching all of
this content, you know, some people got to eat. Like
you know, you're creating it for someone, right, Yeah. And
I say, like I say this all the time for
people because like I know, I'm going to VidCon as
a feature creator and I'm like really nervous about that.
And like because when I was at pax Sy's, I

(20:59):
was getting this question from people who like watch my streams,
just like how do I do what you do? Or like,
you know, like it's kind of like the glamorization. And
one I always tell people, please take me off whatever
pedestal that you think that I'm one, because I promise
I'll probably fall off or trip off of it because
I'm just clumsy. But like also the fact I said,
you know, this is a lot of hard work. No,
I used to do higher ed before I became a

(21:21):
full time content creator, and like, wow, that was a
lot of hard work and dealing with a lot of
personalities and politics and stuff that I honestly didn't want
to deal with. Um content creator, I say, it's like
a hundred times harder, And I say it's the hardest
I've ever worked, but it's the happiest I've ever been.
And like, you know, like people don't think like you
were up to I am, what were you doing everything?

(21:44):
Living or living your life or doing all the things
that you can't do because while you're making content, you're here,
you can't be calling and making doctor's appointments, are scheduling
your normal life or grocery shopping or like doing the
things you have to do. Um just I just I
just had it readjust my schedule to remember to do
those things. So like my Fridays don't contact me because

(22:05):
like that is a day where I am going to doctors,
where I'm grocery shopping and seeing my family being a
human being, and it's just like, you know, you're not available.
I am not Nope, can you Nope, I can't do it. No,
because I because you have to have those boundaries, because
it's like it can really consume you. There was a
time I don't I don't think. I think there's one
time my mom like knocked on my door my partment.

(22:26):
She's like, I haven't seen you for three weeks. I'm like,
it's been that long. I love the house and that. Yeah,
it's it's hard, you know, and it's not meant for everybody. Um,
I mean I sometimes feel still to this point, I
had I think I had at one point three d
and fifty thousand subs on YouTube, and because it's been inactive,
you like lose subs over time, they like people lose

(22:48):
their accounts or they de activate their accounts, and YouTube
un subscribed. I think now I'm at like two hundred
and seventies something thousand. But I think about the fact
that there are people who would do a lot to
get two hundred and seventy thousand subs on YouTube, and
I've just let it go. But I couldn't. My boundaries were.
I saw what it was doing to myself. I saw

(23:09):
what it was doing, you know, my my kiddo was
involved in some of my content sometimes, and I couldn't
do that. I couldn't work all day in games and
then make content all night at games because I had
no boundaries and I couldn't do that. And of all
the things that I am a mom and a wife
and a daughter and a mother and a you know,
a co worker and a friend, something had to go.

(23:33):
And I chose to kind of deactivate the very public
parts of my life in order to get back some
semblance of boundary in my life. You know. We have
a lot of conversations sometimes with people about really random
things that like I have to do to protect myself
and my kiddo from being a public figure. Um, And

(23:55):
they're like, oh my god, I didn't even realize you
how to do that. And it's like, yeah, that's the
reality of your life. You know, like you have to
do a lot of things that the general public just
aren't aware of. And it's too late for me to
like completely unwind it right, like I can't put the
cat back in the bag. Um. But for that point,
for the boundaries, I had to say some things I
have to let go of. And there are certain things
that if I fiercely love something, I typically don't share

(24:19):
it on the internet because I don't want it to
get ruined by those types of things. Um So, you know,
you just gotta put those boundaries up and stick to
them and do what you can do, because you get
to a point otherwise where you know you ended up
like me, I ended up having um uh, Like I
feel like there's a stiging around the term like mental breakdown.

(24:41):
But I got to a point where I couldn't claw
myself back out. And I was in regular therapy already.
I was already a single weekly therapist. And it happened
despite the fact that I was in therapy. And I said,
you know, I don't know how this gets any worse,
and I don't know what to do, and I don't
know how to handle it, and I don't know how
to I am not myself. I'm a very bubbly I'm

(25:02):
like wearing pastel rainbow colors, and I have like rainbows
everywhere and I just was like completely apathetic. When my
therapist asked me to describe how feeling, I said I
was gray. I felt gray, like as a like, I
just feel no nothing about anything. I feel very non emotional.
I don't feel attached to anything. There's a wonderful article
that came out during the pandemic call, but I'm not
always very attached to being alive, and it talks about

(25:24):
how you just kind of feel them like you're floating
in places. And the only way that I fixed that
was to re establish my boundaries and hold firm to that.
And it's a really hard place to be when your
whole life is in the public eye. And I love
video games and I would pursue tell anybody to pursue

(25:44):
a hobby or a passion in making content. That is
not what I'm saying. But what goes along with that
is a very high amount of mental work that you
have to do to maintain a humanity about yourself that
isn't monetized or criticized or up for likes and dislikes
and shares and all of those things. And we can, Yeah,

(26:08):
when you are a content creator and you do that
in gaming, you you have to realize that, so I
am very thankful. I love my job. I love gaming.
I love being able to take all of the things
I've learned about being a content creator and be able
to advocate for bettering creator experiences internally at gaming companies.
I love that fast. I love education, I love rewards.

(26:29):
I love making sure that we are building programs to
make it better to be a player. It's why I'm
at right because their literal mission is to be the
most player focused game company in the world, and they
embody that internally and externally. So you know, there's a
lot of things I learned as a content creator that
make me better at my job now because I have
that intense amount of empathy. Um. But it can be

(26:52):
a wild ride, for sure. Yeah, I know. I just
did my genealogy and our last guests UM, which which
Twitchy she gifted it to me, and I got my
results on juneteenth, and then I was like, I'm not
sharing this with anyone. This is mine because I know
it will be ripped apart regardless of like, you know whatever,
Like I just don't I don't want to hear your

(27:14):
opinion about something I don't even understand yet. Yeah, And
like even when I begin, when I do understand it,
I still don't want to hear your package because I
just don't. I don't. I don't want people to take
the joy out of it. Like that's like, that's that's cool,
you know what I mean? Yeah, Arin, while you were talking,
I was getting really excited because you hit on like
a couple of things that like really resonated with me.

(27:35):
And then also that's something that Confetti and I have
talked about, which was like boundaries, but specifically I know
we've talked about how like, you know, Confetti, you one
time had posted like picture of you and your skateboard,
and people like demanded skateboarding content and you were like no,
you know, and then like like I I like to
roller skate a lot, and I occasionally share roller skating content.
You're just dumb videos of me skating and stuff, and like,

(27:57):
I have someone who will comment he goes every time.
I just want to see you fall. I hope you
fall in your ass your Instagram. I saw that. I
just thought I was so weird, did you see? I
was gonna say, like I didn't respond to it, I
don't think, but I kind of wanted to being like
why if you were following me, if you were a
fan of me, and you're ending it with like a
little happy face laughing face emoji, why on earth would

(28:19):
you want me to fall? You were literally telling me
you don't see me as a human being. You see
me as a source of entertainment. Because the reason you
want me to fall is so that you will be entertained.
You don't give a fuck if I hurt myself. He
literally said he wanted to see me fall on my ass,
which is like a horrible thing to tell somebody. Why
would you say that to someone? So, like I completely
understand and like and I totally get like not wanting

(28:41):
to share something that you love, because yeah, like that
for a little bit, that was like maybe I don't
want to show you. Yeah, I think they were your
new skates. And I was just like, yeah, would you
say that to somebody? Yes? I think. I think people
are used to write, like if you look at the
history of content and what ppular content resonates, and even

(29:02):
like on twitch, right, we we have trained audiences for
like charity marathons that will do the wildest stuff for money, right,
for charity, even when it's in good causes. We will
eat spicy things that we hate. We will do things
we really don't like. We will write for two or
four hours. We will do entertaining things for for the content.

(29:24):
Do it for the content. Right. And and I had
this interesting moment as a parent where, um my kiddo
had like loves to stream. She will ask frequently, Mom,
can we stream together? Mom? Can we have done that? Right? Um?
But we have very firm rules in place about things
that she can and cannot do and things that we can't.
You know, we don't use our real names, and we

(29:45):
don't talk about where we live, and you know, we
don't have we don't use her real name and all
these other things. Um, my daughter is on the spectrum.
This is not a secret. I've talked about it on stream. UM.
I try not to go out and like you know,
put that out there because that's her personal information. Gen right.
And we have rules now where I don't tweet things
about her unless she approves it, Like she has to
say yes you can tweet this, Yes you can say

(30:07):
these things. Um. But there was a point in time
where she was streaming with me, and um, we had
code words. Um. These are just tactics that we delivered
when she was very young, um, and we used color codes,
and so I would say things like, hey, you're orange,
which meant you you don't have a lot of control
over your behavior right now, you're getting too excited. Because

(30:27):
when she gets in any heightened emotion, good or bad,
she tends to not have like people on the spectrum
kind of lose their executive functioning. They can't they make
they make impulsive decisions and as a kid, that comes
out in a lot of different ways. Um. But the
internet is wheeled and chat would laugh at her because
she would say something sassy to me, which then she

(30:47):
would do more because she got the reaction from them.
And so I had to say, you're an orange, right.
I gave her the warning and then she kind of
went you know, above and beyond. And I said, okay,
we chat were to take a break and we'll be
right back. But the pause stream we had to walk away.
You need to collect yourself right if you keep doing this,
we can't stream right Because I also it's my job
as a mother to protect her from doing things that

(31:10):
she might regret later or find embarrassing later. That's my
job to do that. And so we had a conversation
with Chat where Chat was egging her on, and I said, Chat,
stop it. I'm the mom here. I don't care if
you think it's funny. I don't care if she's engaging
with you. You have to stop right or I will
stop the stream. And I had to both parent my

(31:32):
child and Chat at the same time because they're not
they're not used to that dynamic right of being told
stop it, this is a boundary, or I'm I'm going
to cut the stream. And so then later on I
think the next dream of dream after Chadd asked me
questions about what is orange mean and what does this mean?
And so I had to say, like, look, and I

(31:53):
had a very small community, which is why I was
able to do this, and I've had tens of thousands
of you know, concurrent viewers watching. I probably wouldn't have
done it, but I have a couple of hundred people,
so it's a manageable amount of conversation to engage with.
And the people that were there were long time viewers
and we're part of the community, so I I felt
safe having the conversation but saying, hey, you all have

(32:15):
to realize that you like when I show you this
part of who I am as a mom. But I
am a mom and I'm a human being, and I
have to take care of my kiddo and she's on
the spectrum, and we have to have these rules, and
so we talked about what orangement. We talked about how
and why we have to do the things. But being
vulnerable is a luxury as a content creator, because you

(32:37):
don't often get that. So I was also very lucky that,
you know, the community that I have I would say
still have not had in past tense, but when I stream,
it's still the same regulars. Um has granted me the
opportunity to be safely vulnerable in a place where these
parts of who I am now as soon as I
step out of that bubble into the general public on
Twitter or Instagram or anywhere else, no right, but in

(33:01):
my safe little space on discord or wherever it's it's
tolerable and it's manageable. But I just I don't think
they're used to that, right, so they'll even encourage me
when I'm mothering my kid to go against what mom says. No,
don't do what she says. I think it was like
one of the things that they were chanting, and I
was like, I'll put y'all in time out to watch me,
watch me do it. My mom mode does not ever

(33:24):
turn off. Watch me keep trying. I oh go ahead, sorry,
Oh no, you go ahead? Really no, because like you
know that that um cautiously vulnerable. Like I'm a very
close off person and very private person, and my counselors
always tell them, She's like, you need to wait practice
owner bilk. I'm like, I can't do I'm like, have

(33:46):
you been on twitter dot com? We can't. I can't
do that. No, because people people are wild and like
they'll take things and run with it or like it's
it's a game to test. How can I push your boundaries?
Because like now I know the boundary? How for can
I push it? And it's like not at all? But
then you know, you get um, you know I always
talking about like the intersections of like race and being

(34:07):
a woman on on in any kind of content creator space,
and it's just like you get categorized as like this
angry black woman for me, and it's just like no,
I just don't want you to call me pet names.
I'm not you're sweetie, Like, don't call me that. Yeah,
it's like, well, how about queen, how about babe? You're
really like no, I'm just gonna ban you for a week.

(34:28):
This this reminds me of when people like roast streamers
and like it's something. It's a kind of phenomenon that
I feel like a lot of my streamer friends have
like been posting about where some like someone in chat
will maybe make fun of them for something and they
kind of like go along, like a, Hi, you're right, yeah,
I'm clumsy or whatever or whatever it is. You know,

(34:48):
even if it's something small, and it will kind of
snowball and like chat picks up on it, and they
don't always realize that it can sometimes be like an
actual vulnerability for the streamer, Like they just think it's
funny and then all of a sudden it turns into
your entire your chat is bullying you because they think
it's funny. And again it's like, well, how did we
get here? Aren't you guys watching me because you like me?
Why are you rooting against me? I think I think

(35:09):
what gets lost a lot in in just social dynamic
in general, is that they know us, we don't know them.
And so I think, you know, when you have really
close friendships. I've got mods that I've known for almost
the entire decade I've been on the internet. You know,
some of these people were invited to my wedding, right, Like,
I know them very well, and so they can say

(35:32):
like somebody like I would let Milady be like, Aaron,
You're so dumb, and I'd be like, ha ha, that's
fine if a random person, even if I would be like,
I don't know. Context is almost always lost on the Internet,
and so when context is lost, everybody thinks they're part
of the joke. And that's not the case, right because

(35:55):
they forget that, Yes, there are some names in chat
when I would meet them at twitch connor vid On
and I'd be like, oh my god, that's you Like
love that right, I'm so like, thank you for being
a chat That's a small fraction of the actual number
of people who engage in my content. And that means
that you know, those boundaries my um kiddo's counselor has

(36:17):
you know, she has this really good metaphor for boundaries
are not one fence where everyone sits. It's a it's
a section where they kind of radiates out, and so
there's a boundary with this close of core group of friends,
my brother, my husband, my kid. And then there's like
this next boundary, which are like my close friends and
my extended relatives. And then there's this boundary which is

(36:38):
like my coworkers and people that I know, and then
there's this boundary. And when people don't know what boundary
they're in, there is no boundary, and so you have
to be right And how much mental work is it
to every person you meet tell them where they fall? Like,
it's just such a hard, unsustainable thing, and so you
have to as a creator set hard boundaries. And people

(36:59):
don't that because they don't have the context to understand
where they fall in that spectrum of boundaries. And so
some people I think just because etiquette assumed that there
isn't one, or they push it because they think that
they have the rapport with you to be able to
push that boundary, and it's like no, back over there,
back over to your fence, please, thank you. I think

(37:21):
it's just an interesting human experiment for me that I like, Again,
I tend to assume good intent from I tried to anyways,
But you know, we as humans have been subject to
a massive amount of social growth from the Internet in
a theory again, in short, they know it's been around
since I you know, the early the late nineties, really
in a public vicinity, right from the time that we

(37:42):
were using its schools and you know, on our day
to day and a well instant messenger. It's been since
the late nineties, right, But in the span of human
time for the last twenty five years, how much social
growth is that for us to get used to how
to engage with people when social norms are changing, Like,
I'm not surprised for in this area, but I do

(38:03):
think that as we continue and people start realizing like
oh okay, I understand the norms, well, it'll get better.
I have hope, fingers crossed, fingers crossed, positive optimism, cautious
vulnerability like I'm hiding, I feel well. I believe it

(38:24):
is time to take another quick ad break, so we
will be right back and welcome back. Um, we are
still here with Aaron, and I'm want to talk about
your journey from now we're going from twitch to Riot,
so can you say a little bit about that journey.
I also want to say side note, my friends think

(38:45):
you're the coolest person in the world and it's like,
oh my god, like does she like can she play
valerate with us? I'm like no, could I? Yes? Do
you actually know that's like one of those things where
like in concept much better than in tractical round terrible
at bad. Um yeah, so interesting. So you know very much.

(39:06):
When I started at Twitch, UM, I took an opportunity
because I had it, right. It was an opportunity for
me to continue doing a thing that I loved with
a some type of career trajectory that was like a
very unknown, unexplored area. The gaming industry in terms of
streaming was still knew. There was no guidebook or playbook

(39:26):
for how to grow successful live streaming. Right. There were
a couple of other companies that were doing it, but
not really at the level that Twitch was. UM. And
so I started out at Twitch as you know, partnerships
come in Minecraft was like my first title at Twitch. UM.
But Twitch then didn't have again as like I want

(39:48):
people to recall back, UM, we didn't have twitch Con,
we didn't have affiliates, We like barely had a partner program, right.
I think we had like maybe six thousand partners in
the world at the time. UM, there were no partner parties.
There were no partner jerseys, there were none of that
stuff existed. There was no Creator Camp, none of that UM.

(40:09):
And so once I kind of felt like I had
a really good grasp on Minecraft, UM, I started saying like, hey,
you know, we were seeing around a pack and I
was like, you know, you've all these partners tweeting, come
meet me in the twitch booth. Why are you not
doing formal meet and greets so that you know, we
provide a service to them. It gets branding out, you know,
they feel really rewarded and incentivized. And the answer was like,

(40:31):
nobody here knows how to do that. And I was like,
we'll figure it out. You know, I ran events, I
can do that. Do it, I'll do it. Um. That's
my Like, I'm like, the we can do it, that's
like me um. And so I started doing that. We'll
I'll figure it out for lots of different things, um.
And that kind of became what I did at Twitch, right.
So I figured it out with UH meet and greets.

(40:53):
I figured it out with partner parties. I figured it
out with partner jerseys. I figured out with creator Camp,
with community meetups, Like, there are lots of things that
I started building in my early days at Twitch, and
I learned two things about myself. One, I love that
I love not having an answer or not being told
that like this is what everybody else does, that there
is no way that other people are doing it, so

(41:14):
I get to figure it out wholly on my own.
I love building things from scratch. Those those are like
things that I feel really good doing and I excel
at that creative thinking and problem solving. And the second
is that I felt really rewarded after seven and a
half years looking back and saying, like the Ambassador program
I built, that community meetups, I built that creature camp,

(41:35):
I built that right and obviously I didn't build it alone.
I had teams of people. But I can look at
things that I contributed to and feel a sense of
pride and accomplishment that I have made an impact. And
those are two things that were really important to me.
Was that I had the ability to create things that
were needed and the ability to feel the sense of
pride that the things that I was doing mattered. And

(41:56):
after seven and a half years at Twitch very rightful.
So Twitch is getting to a place where all those
things are kind of done already, right and what Twitch
needs to do, and what Twitch is doing is really
going back to the core and perfecting the things that
they need to do to do well. Right. Um. I
love that Twitch doesn't want to be better than YouTube,

(42:18):
are better than TikTok or better whatever. It's why you
don't see them kind of pull the Instagram strategy. We're like, well,
now we have shorts, now we have odds, and now
we have that. Right, They're just they just want to
be the best Twitch. Then it's it's I mean, it's like,
what are you doing? Like you're everywhere like yeah, Like
she doesn't even go here, Like I don't know. They
don't have a sense of identity. And I love that

(42:38):
Twitches really trying to make sure that they excel at
what they're good at, set of throwing all of these
things into the ether. Right. Um. But what that means
is there's not as much opportunity anymore for innovation and growth.
And I was finding myself in a place where I
was just always iterating on things that I had already
done and I didn't know it at the time, um,

(42:58):
until a recruiter reached to me and said, hey, there's
this opportunity. Um, And I didn't know what gaming company
it was for at the time. They just said, you know,
here's what it is, and they want to build this
team from scratch. And I was like, oh my god,
that's what I'm missing. I'm missing going into the unknown
and and carving out a place to move forward. I
missed that a lot. And so I started interviewing at

(43:22):
Riot and I had this wonderful group of people that
were my interview panel, comprised of UM senior women within
the company, women of color, women from diverse backgrounds, and
I was like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes is yes.
All of these things aligned with my values and all
of these things are the things that I love to do. UM.
You know, they talked about wanting to be the most

(43:44):
player focused game company in the world, and there was
not a global player community. It was all individually UM
established in regions, and they wanted to build consistency and
a global point of view, and they needed all these
programs and all of these things UM and I just
kind of fell in love with that mission statement and
getting back to the root of what I love doing,

(44:04):
but now at a scale where instead of it just
being me figuring these things out and then it was
me and two other people. And then when I left,
I had a team of eight. Um. Now it encompasses
a team of what will soon be I think probably
almost forty people um working across community, UM, social media, editorial,

(44:25):
which is like behind the scenes content when you see
like dev diaries or devdoodles that comes from the editorial team,
in the influencer team. So those four components make up community.
And I was like, this is an opportunity for me
to continue growing my skills as a leader. What is
it like to manage multiple disciplines at one time and
build this global strategy at a huge company like Riot,

(44:46):
who has you know, five of some of the coolest
games out there? Um. And I just got really excited
about it. And so UM it was a really long
interview process. It took a long Um six weeks was
the total interview time. I know. Um. I think I
did like seven or eight interviews. Um. And then they

(45:08):
came back and said, do you want the job? And
I was like absolutely, So I made the decision. It
was not a decision I made lightly. I had told
people for a long time, you will I will retire
from Twitch. I will die at Twitch. You will bury
me in purple. Um, because I still love Twitch as
a company. I grew up there. There might fear me. Um,
my husband's a twitch streamer and my friends are twitch streamers,

(45:31):
and UM people I mentor tri streamers like I am
so part of that that community and so part of
you know, that that purple culture. But I just knew
that if I wanted to keep growing and I wanted
to do new things, and I wanted to really test
the boundaries of what I'm capable of, you know, going
from leading a team of eight to team of forty,
that's a lot. That's a big step. Um. And I

(45:53):
thought I was ready for it, and Riot believed in me,
and they thought I was ready for it, and so
here I am. That's incredible. Yeah, yeah, it's fun, I
feel you know. I it's like your superhero origin story
and yeah, what what's really interesting is, um, I'll tell
the story in a very you know, positive way. But

(46:16):
I got to a point in my career where I
had somebody tell me that they didn't think I was
capable of doing more. And they were like, I don't,
I don't think that you can you know, accomplish more,
And uh, I thought, well, that's a lot of audacity.
It was a lot of audacity, but it was awesome.
But it was also well it was in the context

(46:37):
I would have been asking for feedback right, Like I
hadn't gone out and sought the feedback of like, you
know where am I going? What's my next step? You know?
What do I do? And um? I heard that and
I had two responses to that. First of all, was like,
who are you right? Like, I'm I'm a very no
one can tell me I can't do a thing. If
you tell me I can't do a thing, I'm so
like Southern honorary that like, I'm going to do it

(46:58):
despite the fact you told me I couldn't do it. Um.
But it also made me wonder like, well, is this
why I'm not moving forward anymore? Like if this one
person believes in this, does the company as a whole
belief in this? And so to have that same week,
that same week that I got that feedback was when
the recruiter reached out to me and said, do you

(47:19):
want to do this job at another company? And if
that's not a sign from the universe, was like, I
am not like a hyper religious hyper like philosophical person.
But you know, sometimes like things to me are a
little too coincidental, and that whole week I've been like, God,
like maybe they're right, Like am I capable of doing more?
And then here comes this person saying I think you

(47:42):
can do more, and I was like, I can do more.
So uh, here I'm doing more because somebody told me
that I couldn't. So I I did the same thing,
like when I know somebody who I was looking for
feedback to from somebody I admired, and they had told
me that I would never be successful no matter my
work ethic, no matter what I do, and that really hurts,

(48:05):
especially like in the streamer space. I was just like
I look up to you, like that's really hurtful. Yeah,
and I'm so spiteful. Oh my god, what you just did? Yeah,
like that's going to live in me. Yeah, I'm a cancer.
So I cried a lot first, and then I had
to I cried for a week, and then I was like, Okay,
now I can move on, and we're like, when's your villain?

(48:25):
Air star? I was like, probably right after that sentence,
that was probably it. Yeah, I think you know. One
of the things I've learned um is we are capable
of a lot more than we think we are, right
and the reason why we limit our capabilities is because
people haven't set the right expectations with us, or they
haven't told us what it is we need right. So

(48:47):
instead of saying I don't think you can achieve more,
what I wish would have been told to me was,
I think what's stopping you from progressing? Is this that
gives me like an actionable thing to move for word
on right feedback without a way to action on it
isn't actually feedback, it's just blank criticism. So telling me
I can't ever achieve more is a pointless thing. But

(49:11):
if you tell me I think what's stopping you is
you know, you don't delegate, or um, you're disorganized, or
you show up late to things, or like whatever the
thing is, Like, I can handle that and I can
fix it. I have told I tell lots of people.
I tell my kid, I tell my team, I tell
people that I work with I can fix any problem

(49:32):
that's not death or taxes, Those two things I can
help you with. But any other problem, if you tell
me we can work together on a solution, now, is
it going to fix it a a cent. Is it going
to be the way that you think? No? Is it
going to be if you need something by Friday? Can
I do that? No? But I might be able to
do it by Wednesday. Right. Compromise an actionable feedback and
honesty and integrity go a really long way and helping

(49:53):
people understand how they can be better and meet the
expectations that you have. And I think sometimes people, whether
they're a manager or a leader or a peer, they
don't know how to deliver that and so it makes
it really hard. And so then you get people like
me and a lady who are like, oh, yeah, well
I'll show you. I'll figured out myself. It's really hurtful too,
because it's just like, you know, I come to you

(50:14):
like with that vulnerability, like I'm being vulnerable with you,
and you just like you stepped on me. That hurt. Yeah,
I'm not gonna be spiteful, but yeah, And you probably
don't go back to that person for feedback either. I
never have. I don't even think I spoke to that
person since that conversation honestly good because it's actionable. I

(50:36):
think we are going to be getting to the time
where Aaron has to go soon, so I thought we
could unfortunately wrap this up. Errand do you want to
plug your social media or I'm teasing, I'm teasing yes,
you can find me at a realian A U R E, Y, L,

(50:57):
I A N pretty much everywhere. And is there any
um like special projects or anything like that that you're
excited to tell listeners about. It's okay if the answer
is no. Um, you know what's really funny about part
of the other reasons why I'm not as active on
social media anymore is because now my job is to
plan things that are months out in advance, So I
can't talk about the things because I get to work

(51:21):
on all the cool behind the scenes stuff. Um, I
would just answers yes, but I can't tell you that's
that's right, which sounds like so like, I don't know, pretentious,
like yeah, I've got so much cool stuff I'm working on,
but I can't tell you. We just spent an hour
learning about how cool you are, so we already know.
I would just say, you know, I am really proud
of the work that Right is doing and my teams

(51:42):
are doing, and so you know, keep an eye on
the riot space. Um, for sure, there's lots of cool
stuff that that is coming out and that we're team.
Our teams are always working on for all of the
various communities. Um, personally, I'm about to take a ten
day trip to Scotland, so boundaries and vacation. I'm taking
some me time and going. Um, so I will be

(52:06):
very active on social because I'm very excited to actually
be like, look at all this cool stuff. I like
love Scotland and I love the culture and I want
to share that with people. So, um, that is a
personal thing I'm very excited about. Was I'll be going
to Scotland soon. My dog he's ready. My dog's like
you no, no, he doesn't ready right now. He's just

(52:28):
ready right now for me to get heard the wrap
up voice and so now he's like, oh she's done. Yea.
And Confetti, Where and our listeners find you? And what
are you working on that you're excited to tell us about?
You can find me at Milady Confetti literally everywhere. Consistent
branding I coming up. I mean, like I said, um,

(52:51):
I don't know when this is going to be featured,
but I will be a featured content creator at vidcoan
and I'm very nervous for that, and I'll also be
speaking about LGBT e qui a representation in it. I'm
happy pride by the way, um So that's really cool
that's happening. YouTube is a is A is a beast
for me. So I'm I'm excited to learn something new

(53:12):
and go into a new experience with positive thoughts, cautiously.
What did you say, Aaron, cautious positivity, cautious optimism. Yes,
that's what that's my approach. I'm very I'm very scared. Um,
thank you. Um So, yeah, that's a really big thing
that I have coming up and I'm really excited about it.

(53:33):
I'm excited for you. Um. And then for my social media,
I'm at just bro hard most places. I'm not super
active on Twitter and Instagram and TikTok. I guess I
don't have anything I want to plug though. I'm not
really working on anything too exciting that I want to
share with with the listeners. But also don't forget to
follow the podcast on social media. We are at the
boss level pod that's l v L and join our

(53:56):
discord for behind the scenes look at the show. You
can hang out and chat with me in the host
so you can suggest guests if you'd like, um and
just kind of pick our brains. And then also we
have launched our YouTube channel where we are uploading full
video episodes of of of past episodes that we have recorded,
so definitely check that out. And we also have some
fun other kind of behind the scenes clips that I

(54:16):
believe we'll be putting on YouTube as well, so check
that out and we will see you guys next time. Bye.
And also if you see Jessic skating videos, be nice,
leave nice comments, but I will and you do not
want me to get get my hands on you. Thank you, bye.
I love it.