Episode 21 - feat. Askesienne - Boss LVL

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Boss Level, a podcast
where we feature conversations with guests who have leveled up,
bringing an xpeed boost to the table. This week, you're
here with me, Psyche and the absolutely stellar Hey Shady Lady,
Hey Shady, Hi Psyche. How's it going. It's not too bad.
How have you been there Arm recently? I don't think
I've spoken to you since then, got a broken ARM.

(00:26):
Five year relationship ended. Internet's going out all summer, thunderstorms
every day. It's been um one week since he looks
at me. It's been a really crazy you know what.
I really hope you're going to do that, but I
was like, I'm not, I'm not going to do it.
I'm hanging in there though. I feel like I'm going
through like a like a phoenix burning down and I'm
going to poke my little ugly baby bird head out here,

(00:48):
really and then you may rise and there will be
fun and it will be great. But yeah, you really
are going through Italy um well. On today's episode, we
are joined by someone we both work with super closely
behind the scenes, Libby a k an online community and
digital media expert. Libby is the senior Community manager of

(01:10):
Players Versus Cancer, co founder of Radiance Media, a marketing
agency for brands seeking to enter the gaming space, and
the leader and manager of Team Kitty, the longest running
stream team for women and fem broadcasters. Libby, Hi, thank
you so much for joining us today. How are you doing?
It is a joy to be here. I am good.
I am you know, having a not a you know,

(01:31):
a direct moment of going through it, um, but you know,
just one slash of has kicked my ass and it's
kind of nice to be baby bird poking out of
it in a similar fashion. But it's awesome to be here. UM.
Super excited to be chatting with you all, not that
I don't talk to you on a regular basis, but
to be you know, part of the boss level fam

(01:54):
um on this side of the table. Yeah, it's so
cool to have you on the side of table because
now I get to ask you all of the press
questions I've always wanted to. Excited, I'll probably be taking notes,
it's fine, I know. Well, why don't we start with, um,
what we were kind of bantering about a second ago

(02:14):
about your user name, So Libby a k A S.
Kessian and we were joking about how I've known you
for you know, a couple of years now, since I've
been on Team Kitty, and I've never heard your name
pronounced that loud until today. So how did you come
up with that name? Where is it from? Yeah, so
it's actually kind of interesting. Um, I think it is

(02:35):
quite funny that I bumbled my way into the streaming
space with a game and handle that is uh not
unpronounceable if you don't hear me say as cassian. Um.
But yeah, so we've decided for the purposes of the podcast,
you can call me Libby at any point. And I
answered to me, I answered to it, Hey you, I
answered to what's her face? Um? But yeah, scssion actually

(02:55):
comes from um my first grade teacher, shoutouts Mrs baired Um.
She had this thing where she would ask her class,
have you been an Ascessian today? Spelled differently A S
K E S I A N. I suddenly realized I
may have forgotten a spell. Um, I I A N

(03:15):
instead of I E N. Any that's too many letters anyway,
not the way I spell it, and the way she
explained it to our class actually was um that it
was this like society of thinkers and people who wanted
to learn and make the world better. And so she
would ask us in class like how are you an
ascession today? And you know, all these different things, um,

(03:36):
And it was sort of her like theming around good
citizenship to teach her first graders. UM. I later found
out when I was an adult, and I totally understand
this is like why she described it this way. It
was actually like kind of a cult, like almost like
a secret society, Like I don't even know it was,
um when I looked it up later. It obviously was

(03:58):
a little bit more than just like a bunch of
wholesome people looking to make the world better. Um. But
the whole idea was like are you thinking about things?
Are you researching? Are you bettering yourself or bettering the
space around you? And that's in the context of her
first grade class was like make sure that you are
an ascession today? And I don't know if just like
my parents really liked the philosophy here and brought it home,

(04:18):
but it was not something that like stuck in first grade. Um.
And then when I was in middle school, of course,
looking for my very first Blizzard battle neet user name
to put three I made it like girlier prettier, and
I made that like the I E N N E
ascession um as my user name for stuff, and like

(04:41):
as you know we do with user names, once you
use it in one place, you use it everywhere UM,
and it just sort of stuck. UM. I made it
my Twitch user names specifically because it was my battle
net and when I first kind of found online streaming
and content ration, I was like a you know, viewer
and a fan of people, and it was like, oh, well,

(05:03):
if I played with them, they would have seen so
I should make my user name in their chat a
SKESSI in two so then there's a connection with who
it is. And so that was sort of how it
became my user name. I love it and I have
this like heart connection to it. I don't want to
change it, but I also understand that it is um
like not at all. I mean spawns back to when

(05:26):
you're like five or six years old, Like that's a
pretty deep rooted or it's not you know, cool game
or foe where I could just like change it, and
it's like I don't know it. I love it, UM,
and it's actually kind of I've kind of just learned
to embrace it. Like literally my business cards when I
go to like conventions or twitch corn or stuff like that,

(05:47):
UM say on the one side, SKESSI and in really
big letters, and then under it just says, don't worry,
no one can pronounce it. Just call me Libby like
I've I've created that. That's a piece of it. UM
in in ats or like with streamers that I know,
I will just tell like I definitely told both the
other You can just call me Libby in your chat.
That's fine. UM. Or some people just say ask, right

(06:09):
because it starts with ask, which leads to some hilarious
because people think it's asked. C N. People think it's UM.
I got asked a scene once, Like there's a running
list of like funny ones UM. But actually the one
that I love that speaks to pronunciation is um skessy
just like cutting the middle out. That's so cute, And

(06:29):
I was like, I love that, like that that one
makes me think of um, oh my gosh, what's the
dark Crystal the Skexies. Yeah, totally, it's so funny. But
that's the that's the long winded tale of a Skessian um.

(06:50):
And I think the reason I've just never adjusted off
of it is I easily could have write a bunch
of people have done, you know, rebrands or like I
remember whence he was Psyche plays and you cut the
piece off of it, right, you know, the there's a
for me. It's just like I actually do like where
it comes from. And I don't know if I'm willing
to to cut my weird, quirky, little unpronounceable brand off

(07:15):
because I love it well. I also I don't think
you should because it's also a word that I would
never confuse for another word. So it's very once once
you're familiar with it, it's it's like their brains, you
know what I mean. Yeah, that's that's something that I
really struggle with because my name is just like it's
a word, and it's also like it's got roots in
great mythology, which is where I got the name from

(07:36):
the first places. I thought the story was really cool,
but um, for seo purposes, it's awful because for Psyche,
I think I'm like ten page just thought the dictionary
I probably have to search like psychy twitch instead exactly.
Don't get me wrong, I had a this is really cool,
but I had a friend who I hadn't seen in

(07:57):
literally ten or fifteen years, who find both me and
my partner because they remembered my user name that they
knew me by. Um, um, we're able to find me
on Twitch. And they were like, oh, you're so much
easier to find than your partner. Um, so I'm not
that I actually find. And I was like, well, that's cool,
because that's a nice thing. But at the same time,
sometimes I really regret having a name that is just

(08:18):
a word. I'm like, I wish I'd come up with
something that sounded really cool and interesting and yeah, maybe
it'd be hard to pronounce, but at least, you know,
Google would understand Mine works all right if people put
it in as hey, shady lady all one word. But
if people just search like shady space lady, it's like,
I don't know your girlfriend is being shady? Well, it's

(08:40):
usually sunglasses shops um by like eighty year old women.
You know, there's there's literally a shady lady shop. Like
there in the big city that I live near, there's
a shady Lady store that I can walk under and
stand into the sign and feel like fancy. But I
hope that you have done that and perhaps continue to

(09:01):
do that because it was totally docks me. Okay, if
you ever move out of that time before you leave,
you must do a photo shoot in front of the store.
And when they asked you, I'd be like, listen, it's
just given my browing your branding. Sorry, it's super weird thing.

(09:23):
Just on that topic, I was browsing TikTok and um,
we have a place in Northern Ireland called u Nords.
It's spelled new Town Odds, but it's pronounced new Nords um.
And there's this tiny family owned like I don't even
know what they think. They sell furniture, but it's just
like really small family owned business there. Who know it
has like hundreds of thousands of followers on TikTok because
one person I don't know is it's stitching or do adding.

(09:46):
I don't know which ones which um. Either way, they
did that with one of their videos and it's just
like really really silly video of them trying to advertise
their tiny little business and it's really cringe and whatever.
But people lapped it up and they're not like this
super like low really famous, tiny little business that I'm like, oh,
I want to go and do my Christmas shopping there.
I don't even know like what they sell, but TikTok,

(10:08):
like small business brand TikTok just like absolutely blowing up.
There's like a furniture store in Australia that's in my
three page all the time. I don't cry, and I'm
always like, oh, this is a great piece of furnituration,
and every time it gets me. And it's until I
get to their website where I'm like, damn it, this
is the Australian one again, Like I'm not entering from

(10:29):
Australia to the United States here. Yeah, this is unattainable.
But there is something so like adorable about like cringed
local business TikTok. It's it made. It warms my whole heart.
It can go to totally opposite direction though, I don't
know if you've seen the pink sauce lady. That's been

(10:53):
so don't sell ranch dressing unrefrigerated and ship it through
the mail to people and within with battles like don't
see completely. Yeah, so it's been so I don't know,
entertaining in all the ways. I'm sure she didn't want
it to be entertaining. When she started her small business.
But yeah, entertaining in the way that people watch like

(11:13):
airline disaster videos, just like not run the business. With
the phrase ranch dressing on. She had like a live
that was like, why would I need f d A.
It's not a medicine. And I really hope she figures

(11:35):
it all because like apparently the recipe for the sauce
is actually pretty legit and it tastes pretty great if
you make it yourself. Yeah. Yeah, but she wants to
recipe out smart. Yeah, we'll see how that turns out. LEVI,
you do. You've talked a little bit about streaming, So

(11:56):
what is your favorite game? It can be on stream
more off because I feel like we've been talking about
quite lighthearted topics, so I feel like that's a good
one to go into pink sauce topics like first grade
teachers and pink sauce. Um so favorite? Okay, So this
actually has changed relatively recently. Um. I mentioned like starting

(12:16):
up my gaming accounts in like middle school to play
Warcraft three. I grew up playing the RTS games. I
grew up playing World of Warcraft like from launch and
up until probably a year year and a half ago.
I would say that's my favorite game. I have personally
made the choice to put down Blizzard titles just because
of all of the things that Blizzard are doing wrong

(12:37):
by their employees right now. Um, I look forward to
picking those up when I see concrete evidence of those
things being fixed. Um. It was really really hard. UM.
I don't know if either of y'all played about this
second think maybe you did, But um, when you subscribe
to the game from launch, when they hit the fifteen
year Anniversity literally sent you like a statue of a
character like trust for the people who had had uninterrupted subs,

(13:00):
and like I have one, and it was so hard
to click the unsubscribe of like I can't do it.
But I made the choice of like, no, I need
to support ethical business practices. I need to walk the
walk instead of just talking to talk. But I would
have said up until that point, favorite game, favorite franchise.
I have a steel, like real actual steel version of

(13:21):
one of the swords from the Worcraft three game series.
I have a frost on um. But like, since then,
obviously I've had to branch out from my Blizzard junkieism. Um.
I like a lot of um, like building games, sim games.
I play an absolute crap ton of Planet Zoo like
expanding from the like, oh, I play the Sims, but

(13:42):
all you do is build houses and decorate them. And
then I when I have sims and houses, I like
torture the ship out of them, like that's what I
do in Minecraft though, And everyone's like, that's it, You're
just gonna stand here for four hours decorating. I'm like, yeah,
I see my Minecraft is. I don't even want to decorate.
I am always the person I'm like somebody's mole, Like
literally the mole. I will go into the hole and
dig and get a full ins for you. It's cathartic.

(14:06):
It's like knitting to me, Like it's just this very
repetitive soft thing in Minecraft. And it's always great because
when I play with friends, like man, I don't have
enough materials and I'm like here and I just mole
like spy and I was like, what literal animal that
digs hole? Um? But the I would say, my my

(14:29):
recent love actually is by accident, I bumbled into helping
out um a couple of friends, actually well my partner's friends,
but a couple of folks who are doing Red Dead
role playing five M for g t A and that
has always scared me a little bit. Actually just joined
a five M server that I haven't played yet. But

(14:50):
red EM I just look like the setting of But
I'm obviously biased because I just said it's my current
favorite thing. But red M, which is the red A
version I really like because I loved Red Dead Redemption
to read Dead online, but online of course is like
plagued with trolls and behavior um and the like the

(15:15):
fun of just like my I keep calling it ye
haw cowboy escapism of like it's basically playing Redd Redemption too,
but as your own character and then you get to
like live whatever story. And I have found that it
is just it is both relaxing and also like fulfilling
something for a game for me, where no, there's not

(15:35):
like a quest or an objective that I need to
go fulfill, but like I can spend a couple of
hours in a game and get a compelling story out
of it and play with my friends. UM. My character
is because I accidentally ended up volunteering UM to help
with community management. UM I have UM admin powers and
in cowboy Land that means you're a state ranger and

(15:57):
so I get to go be the law and it's great,
but because uh, a lot of the law folks are
like very sassy, um like get a win kind of cops,
and I'm like this, I'm literally just my community manager voice,
but in a character where it's like I understand that
you don't feel heard right now? Can I help? You
can go talk about and it's like there's I was like,

(16:18):
just try to play Red Dead and like be a yeehah,
shooty shoot cowboy, and I it's it's really fun that
like it is. Uh, it is a new love that
I was honestly really scared of. I thought our p
games would be like too much for me, Like, oh,
I don't know, like how do I manage a character?
And you know, am I got it. It's really fun.

(16:38):
I will send you the info. There's a lot of
places you can do it. Um. Obviously I'm biased to
Calco County right now because it's one that a bunch
of friends are are running. UM. But it is honestly
very fun. And sometimes I just log in and like,
if you've played Red Dead Redemption to you know how
gorgeous the game is. Sometimes I will in and ride

(17:00):
my stupid little pixel horse around the map with no goal,
no aim, I won't talk to anybody. I'm just vibing.
And as much as I could very easily go outside
and take a walk in nature, and I do m
very different vibes. I do not currently live in the
map of Red Dead Redemption too, so I cannot go
experience some of that nature. It's just been really, really fun.

(17:23):
That's how I fell in love with Red Dead one.
That was my first favorite video game besides Harvest Moon.
I was such a Harvest Moon person growing up, and
I never had another favorite game until I played Red
Dead one. I fell in love with the main character,
the soundtrack, the scenery. I did not like having to
kill the animals. Um, but eventually you get over it.
Eventually gave to it, like because you need the materials,

(17:44):
you know, um, and uh yeah, I don't know. It
was I I have never saw that herd at a
video game before Red Dead one, Red Dead two, I
haven't played all the way through. I played it. I'm
going the whole story the first like maybe fifteen or
twenty minutes, and then I think I or accidentally shot
my horse or hit my horse, and I was like,
because I was playing on either. I think I was

(18:07):
playing on mouse and keyboard and I couldn't figure it
out and I needed a controller instead. Um, and then
I couldn't figure the buttons out and it was something
My horse ran off into the snowy night time mountains.
That's all I remember. So I don't know if it
was a shoot or a hit, but I was like, okay, uh,
maybe another time when I bet this. I want to
play it really bad though, because I hear it's just

(18:27):
phenomenal um and it's it's as a lot of there's
very few like sequels to video games where it does
the original justice and this is one of those. So yeah,
I literally never played them, and I feel like I
was missing You're such a space person though. It's a
departure from what are used to for sure. So what'
funny is I have actually never played Red Dead one.

(18:50):
I played red and so it's on my list of
like I need to figure out. I don't know if
I have to, Like I'm assuming there some way I
could play it on a modern PC, um maybe like
an Emmy anyway, but I've played Red Dead too. I
didn't finish the story and I jumped right into online
because my experience with g t A was the same way.
I liked the story well enough, but I liked being
kind of in my own shoes in that universe. Um.

(19:13):
And so now I play Red Dead basically exclusively in
RP UM and I know I need to go finish
the story, but um, it will probably make your heart happy,
Shady that I my character owns the Marsdon Ranch. Yeah,
that's where she lives like a government agent as what's
not called the mars And Ranch and Calcunigie can't use

(19:34):
Red Dead lore in the space, but that is the
house that I that's awesome living. I don't know. To
interrupt the Red Dead Redemption chat, we've reached a save
points so let's go to a quick ad break. Well,
welcome back, everybody. We're here chatting with Libby a k
a as Cassian, senior community manager at Players Versus Cancer

(19:57):
and all kinds of other fun stuff. Um, we've been
chatting about how have you got into gaming? I guess
where her user name came from, And now a little
bit about Red Dead, one of the greatest video games
of all time. And uh, now I'm curious. I know
you said that you started out watching Twitch. So I
guess that you you kind of like segued into this

(20:18):
space by just being an avid video game fan and
then consuming Twitch, and then you fell in love with it.
How did you How did you actually start doing a
like career based in like twitch online video game spaces? Yeah? Um,
totally by accident, hilariously enough. UM, I have found that
many of my sort of random career moves have been

(20:41):
something I've bumbled into and been very lucky. Um. Not
that I don't work hard, but just like that a
door opens that you didn't even know was there in
front of you. UM. So I yeah, I was actually
originally in school. Um, I grew up doing competitive robotics.
So I went to school for mechanical engineering to start
and got partly to an internship UM during my undergrad

(21:02):
and was like, I like this, but I like more
when I was doing a lot of like design work. UM.
Actually was a test intern on um that cool coke machine,
the Freestyle. Um. Yeah, so it was like my job
as an intern was like building rigs to like test it,
break it whatever. But I found that what I liked
a lot more was when the client Coca Cola would

(21:25):
come and be like, Okay, what are these design changes
and how do they make a difference for our users
or audience? How are we going to take this really
cool technical component that you guys have designed and worked on,
and how are we going to turn it into like
marketing content that we're gonna make people want to use
this UM? And so I went to my college advisor
and I was like, you know, my internship boarded me
to tears because I didn't want to sit in front

(21:46):
of computer modeling all day. I have so much respect
for people to do, but it just was not aligning
with what I thought I was getting into. And I
described He's like, well, what did you like? And I
gave him that whole spiel and he kind of says,
that sounds like technical communications. That sounds like either technical
writing or like being on you know, sort of a
marketing team for technology product UM. And I finished up
my undergrad with their communications degree in and entering minor

(22:09):
um instead, and then I went into a master's program
for that is literally called marketing for Technological Innovation. Was
all around like the cross section of technology and like
marketing media whatever UM and my time entering Twitch and
like watching Twitch and working with creators. Was actually in

(22:31):
grad school. I was doing a lot of freelancing, right
because in UM. In in grad school, you often have
bills to pay, So I was doing like copyrighting, video editing,
stuff like that. And I was watching a lot of
games on Twitch and playing a lot of games, and
I started offering up my services in like editing and
marketing help to streamers that I was watching UM. And

(22:53):
I know that you guys can kind of see the
punchline coming, but one of the folks that I reached
out to was this woman named Kittie plays UM that
I loved watching and I really looked up to her.
And it wasn't even that she had a call out
for editing. She just was I think she was doing
vlog miss right where you vlogged for all of December Christmas,
and in one of her vlogs, I was just watching them.

(23:13):
She like is talking about her work and her workflow,
and then she like flops on the couch and I
was like, how need an editor? And I went first thing,
I remember being like, well she didn't technically ask, I
shouldn't email. This is really weird UM, which like my
career advice and don't do what I did unless you're
really confident, because, uh, she did not make a call

(23:35):
out looking for an editor, right, She didn't say send
me your resume. Um. And I just shot my shot
in her business email and I said, hey, like I'm
a community member and I was active in her chat.
She like we knew who each other was, right, Um?
And I said, I'm actually I'm a you know, video editor.
This is my background. Um. Do you actually wonder was

(23:56):
that just a one off comment? And I figured the
worst things she can say is sure is that she
just doesn't respond to my email. Like great. Then I
spent five minutes and I was practiced, um so all.
At the same time, I was sort of entering the
space where I was using my skills to help other creators.

(24:17):
And with those creators, you know, some friends and stuff.
I they would say something like, well, you should stream,
like you're socially adept and like we have fun and
we're playing games together. You've been on my stream a
bunch of times, like why don't you start? And I
didn't really know how. All I had was like my
mac Book Pro at the time, which was great. I

(24:39):
did actually stream from Macoop Pro for the first like
six months that I streamed. But yeah, challenging in and
all it. It was a very started from the bottom
now here a moment um. But I the thing that
drove me because I was very much in a space
of like, well, I don't want to like be famous, right,
I don't want to have a channel that is about like.

(25:00):
It made me feel very icky and uncomfy at the
start to be like, well, I don't want to be
like the brand or like the reason somebody's tuting in UM.
Obviously that's sort of a narrow view of what that
is because this was I just discovered the space. UM.
But I saw that you could stream for charity. UM.
I saw the I don't remember. It was the first

(25:22):
of the second year of the program called st You'd
Play Live UM. And at that point it was in July.
At that point in the program, it was in over
the summer, it wasn't in like April May. And I
was like, well, I'm already spending all my time playing
video games, and I do have like friends who do this,
why don't I do this? And like, even if I
make five dollars for a charity, then me going live

(25:44):
with my gameplay rather than keeping it to myself would
have been worth it. And I I forced my entire
World of Warcraft raid to open my streets. That's what
I would stream is I was a raid lead for
World of Warcraft. I um was like a super This
was before like fight guides were really common thing, Like
obviously they existed, but like you had to know where

(26:06):
to look. I would had like a notebook on my
desk where I would like draw the fight and like
map it out for everybody. This was pre discord. We're
using venture alow Like this is old school, right, and
I would be like texting my raiders like pictures of
my little notebook. Really silly, but very seriously. UM. I
love the challenge of like seeing a fight for the

(26:28):
first time and be like, oh, that's what that mechanic does,
Like okay, like yeah, it's It's definitely different now where
you could just go watching YouTube video and like how
the fight works and then be like, hey, everyone has
to watch this video before we play. But I love that, um,
and so I would stream. There were such bad streams, uh,
stream my raid and then like me talking through the
fight explanations and because I had made my whole Denman

(26:50):
team opened my stream like I wasn't sitting at zero
in the directory, so people were coming in and like, oh,
this person has like ten viewers. Wow, no idea what
I was doing horrible. Um. I couldn't read my chat
half the time unless I had it open on like
my iPad because I only had a MacBook without an

(27:11):
external monitor. So bad. But um, I streamed for the
month of at the time, because it was July. It
was in July or August m I streamed for that
time and raised five dollars. I like told my friends
and family. I like had my mom pull out the
page like show it to her friends, and I was like, oh,

(27:31):
I can actually do something quasi useful with with this
gaming time that I'm already spending, Like I'm already going
to be in my computer, I might as well do
something with it. Um And I kind of got the
bug and I started. I didn't take it super seriously
until about a year later, and then I like had
a schedule, like built a PC and decided that streaming

(27:52):
was something I wanted to do. Um, but it was
definitely I started as a consumer of content and then
uh moved into like, oh, that might be fun. And
what really drove me at that point was the idea
that it wasn't necessarily about me, that I could use
it to do something for somebody else. I think that's
so smart though. The fact that you had like your

(28:13):
rad team watching your stream. I feel like a lot
of streamers when they get started, they're like, oh, I
don't like I only have you know, one viewer, or
I don't have anybody watching my stream. Like get your
friends to to open up your stream, especially if you're
streaming right content, like get your rate team to even
just have the tab open. That's really smart. That's basically
what I did. Was like I did that, and then

(28:34):
I had a couple of friends like I at the time,
you know this was right. Everyone was like active on Facebook.
It wasn't just for you know, boomers. It was like
my college friends role on Facebook, and so I was
like posting on Facebook. I was like, Hey, I'm going
to play this game, or like there's this charity thing
I'm going to play, you know, this weird thing, and
I would have people pop by and like, I think

(28:55):
there's a lot of I think initially when some people
start streaming, they're like, oh, I don't want my real
life friends to find this, like, oh, that'd be so scary,
but like in the same vein, that can be a
really nice like springboard, um my, the competitive robotic stuff
I did in high school. I still coach um my
old high school team. Um I love my kids. They

(29:17):
can't come to my stream, They're not allowed. But I
have been u uh involved in the community for obviously
a really long time. So I would do that and
like a couple of robotics people from other teams, like
my friends that were on other teams in high school
or mentored here there would come in and be like hey,
you know, shout out from team or whatever, and it

(29:39):
was a connection point. So I already had sort of
a community, or not a community that belongs to me,
that a community that I was in where I had
close relationships with people, and so being able to kind
of pass the stream link to them was like, you're
not starting from zero, because I completely understand that firing
up a stream for your first month and having the

(30:00):
one person I don't know if I could would have demoralizing. Yeah,
like I if I had been in that situation, I
know myself well enough to be like I probably would
have quit. Like, no, that's not a answer I'm proud of.
But but like I know myself well enough to be like, yeah,
I'm really glad I made my whole Rade team open

(30:20):
the stream because it gave me this idea of like, oh,
people are actually care about this. Um. But yeah, that's
that's sort of my my step into content creation. And
I've done different things across you know, from from then
to now, I've hilariously enough. Whether I've kept it consistently
or not is not the point I'm trying to get too,
because I don't. But I have actually never changed my

(30:42):
weekly schedule and it's always been Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday. Um. Yeah.
I don't know why. Uh just it was what worked
with my like work schedule at the time at that
point in my life. And now I'm like, oh, I
stream on Tuesday, Thursdays and Sundays, so I can't do
anything on those nights. And that's that's like weirdly stuck
for all what like almost actually exactly eight years. Oh,

(31:06):
I don't like something about that. I don't like the number,
but yeah, July of fourteen, it eight years now, you
do I have to ask a question about the fact
that you've been on both sides of streaming from a
community management and like all of your work on Team
Kittie and all of that stuff. UM something I think

(31:27):
a lot of streamers and certainly me, UM, I've thought
about this. I don't know about Shady, but I know
I'm sure it's a question that a lot of streamers have. UM.
They often consider seeking out extra help, like an editor
or a community manager, or even like working with the
management company. In your experience, do you have any thoughts
on like when is the right time or how people
will know it's the right time to start seeking right

(31:47):
extra help like that from someone? I think I have
a couple of perspectives on that, UM my biggest one
and like it's hard to not make it like in
this economy joke, but like is when you can afford it, right,
I have definitely or when you don't like even to
say when you can afford it feels too cut and dry,
right when you feel comfortable putting out the resources to

(32:09):
have that support. Right. So, if you know an editor
is going to cost you X dollars per video, um,
either is your channel revenue covering that for you? Or
do you feel comfortable making that expense, right, like cutting
out the Starbucks to cover that for yourself. Um So
even to say can you afford it? Are you willing
to make that shift? Um? In terms of like management directly,

(32:29):
I think that's really hard to because you really have
to take a critical look at what that management company
is doing for you and what they're taking from you.
Um So, is it a system that you're paying in
a certain amount per month and they're guaranteeing you you
know such and such spots or um you know this
number of activations or is it something that will kind

(32:51):
of say, oh, well, whatever we get you, if we
get you anything, it'll be ten of that revenue. I
think it's it's super variant. I have had various stages
of editing for myself versus taking on an editor to
do videos and like highlights and recaps for me, and
I recognize within myself that I don't have the patience
to go back to video editing, and I if I

(33:14):
want to be serious about consistent consistency in my content,
I have to be willing to pay somebody to edit
stuff for me. Um. Just because I even though I
did it as a freelance job. I putting myself back
in that like sit in the chair edit the video
is mind numbing to me and I never get it done.

(33:34):
I deleted something the other day that was like, uh,
I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was
something like I have to spend way too much time
with myself as a content creator or something, and sitting
there for three or four hours on victory and then
immediately having to spend like usually four to six hours
editing that down is like the whole day. It's just
it's too much time with myself. I there's a well,

(33:57):
there's a there's a piece of that too, where like
sometimes some else can capture you better than you taking
your own work, like I hesitated for a long This
is when I was. At one point, I was like
three days a week, absolutely uncompromising. I wasn't working full
time and industry. I was still kind of like stop
gapping freelancing, um, but I was doing full time amounts

(34:19):
of content creation. And I would try to make these
highlight videos and they were like okay, but they weren't great.
And then I had a friend, actually his name's kipisop piece.
Now like a full time editor for like very large
YouTubers was like, hey, I noticed that you freelanced. Um,
can you teach me how you set up your freelance business?
And I was like, sure, no problem, and I gave
him some advice and he says, oh, can I like

(34:41):
try this process out on editing your videos, Like I
would do this for you at this crazy discount because
you're trying to help me get set up. And I
was like, absolutely. His videos are the funny. I think
they're funny, and I never think I'm funny, Like I
look at my own stream and I'm like, oh, she
is cringe, Like I hate um. But I watched his
videos and I'm laughing at something that I personally experience
because I did it. So it's like sometimes you need

(35:02):
the outside perspective to you, Like if you're staring at
yourself all day, it's like when you say the same
word over and over and then it doesn't feel like
it's a word anymore. But but for yourself, suddenly you're
not real anymore, because you know you you didn't like
you've been staring at the same stream, you and maybe
the stream, and you're looking at it now, maybe you

(35:22):
say some kind of joke Cuban telling since you were
in third grade and you just don't even think it's
that funny anymore. But about the editors, like oh my god,
this is like that's so libby. Yeah. I think with
either whether it's like some form of like assistive something, right,
I think it's really a look at where in my

(35:43):
process am I getting gummed up that I either am
dreading this task or like I can't do it, or
I could be making better use of my time, and
then like balancing whether that's affordable. I think when someone
is full time, it can feel very scary to lend
your income over to somebody else where, Like yeah, well,

(36:03):
if I wasn't spending all that money on an editor,
I could save it for me. And it's like yes,
but but would that content that yourself creating be of
the same quality and get the same response that this
professionally edited, Like I don't know why I keep falling
back on editor as an example, Like the same could
be true of like are you pitching yourself for brand
deals versus having somebody else pitch you? Um, whatever, The

(36:24):
assistive role that your someone's looking for is is really
just like it's the time investment balance, right, is my
time best spent doing this for myself? Or am I
willing to part with some component of my income to
uh have this done for me? And sometimes it's the
right fit and sometimes it's not. And like I've had

(36:45):
phases where like I worked with Kim for a very
long time and then I stopped. I was like, hey,
I'm not really streaming right now. I'm working a lot,
so I don't need you to addit stuff for me
because I'm not streaming oven um. And then by the
time we got back around and I needed an editor again,
he was too big time for me. And you know, like,
I love you, I'm so proud of you. I'm so
happy that you've done this. And he's like, yeah, I

(37:06):
literally don't have time on my schedule, and I was like, good,
you are succeeding and I'm so happy and so proud
of you. Um, And he's like a wonderful friend. But
like there's there's also times where I'm just like, all right,
I can I can do this myself. And I say
that knowing full well that there is a YouTube video
that I've been working on that I filmed almost a
year ago that I still haven't edited and that I

(37:28):
know is going to be really important because it is
based around my charity streaming book, which I have a
free book, and like I have a video that is
breaking all that information down and I know that would
be good to post and valuable. People cannot get my
ass and a chared out for the life of me,
like to the point where I want to reachhoot it
now because it's out of date, right, yeah, And you

(37:50):
just sit in that paralysis and it's like, okay, yeah,
I probably should have hired someone to do that. That's
why they happened. The reason why, Like last night when
my internet went out from the storms, it was just
so easy for me to like, yeah, I'll just go
to bed um because I was editing a video of
myself that I'm so sick of steering at such like
and I mean this in a very positive way, like

(38:11):
such productions too. There's so much effort in technical breakdowns
and I'm just like, I don't know, it takes so
much research for me because they're like tech tutorials and
I for me, it's and this sounds similar to YouTube Libby.
It's a lot of the stuff that I do as
intuitive I I can't explain how I know it. I
just understand it. Um. And that sounds sort of like

(38:34):
when when you're I think you it was in college
and you got pushed more towards communication and marketing, you
intuitively understand. Let me invite my RAID friends to watch
my stream where some people need to have their handheld
and told why and have that broken down in a
very technical way. Um. And then when I have to
sit down and break down stuff that I just kind
of naturally get and put it into technical explanations, I

(38:57):
don't know how to do that, so it takes so
much to research for me to understand how does someone
need the same place You do the same with the
elite to tomorials. Thank you, right, I do. And it's
funny because I relate to exactly what you're saying. I
think I'm really really bad at explaining things, so I
of course naturally decided I was going to make guide videos,
which classically you know, yeah, I know, I'll explain stuff.

(39:27):
The worst part is like, because it's something that doesn't
come naturally to me, like you were talking about Shady,
how long it takes to actually sit with that video
having to listen to the voiceover because I I don't
I don't know if this is the right way I
were going to do it. But I always record my
voiceovers before I put the footage to them, and then
I kind of try to get the footage to link up. Yeah, yeah,
and like that means elite. Look, I'm gonna be honest

(39:49):
with the elite dangerous for anyone who's listening. It isn't familiar.
It is a space in it does not hold your
hand at all, So there's plenty of room for me
to make guys. But it also is infamously like everything
to hicks a long time. So if I want to
showcase like fifteen different ships and what their roles are,
I have to get into the ship. I have to
come out of the hangar. I have to on dock

(40:09):
from the fleet carrier or the station or whatever and
fly around a bit and record some footage of the ship,
and then I have to dock up go back into
the hangar. And it takes so long to switch between
ships that for like a yeah, it's like a ten
or fifteen minute video, And it took me like eight
hours to record and stitch together all of the bit
and I'm like, for a fifteen minute video that feels

(40:32):
that feels pretty intense. It does, and people don't realize that,
you know, it doesn't feel intent. What this ad break
we're about to go on. Hell yeah, we'll welcome back everybody.
So we're chatting with Libby. And something I really like

(40:53):
about your journey, Libby is that you don't sound like
you're afraid of failure. UM, specifically thinking how you were
you reached out to Pitty plays when you notice again
like an intuitive you have a very good intuitive sense, um,
and then you will take risks whether it's going to
succeed or fail or not. And uh, you said something like,
well I'll learn from this. I think with your you know,

(41:14):
this is a good learning experience. I either get it
or I don't, UM, and I learned something. So have
there been any big failures that you think are like
pivotal to how you've turned out the way that you
are And they taught you so much and they've shaped
how you approach everything now that you'd like to share
mm hmm, okay, yeah, I think so. I think I

(41:35):
consider my like early university days, like I used to
be like, oh that's a failure because I didn't finish
the thing I said I was going to do. And
over time, I've sort of like adapted myself like, hey,
that's not a great way to think of changing your mind. Um,
but yeah, I I think, um, no one's careers without mistakes.
I have done dumb stuff as a creator. I have

(41:58):
you know, not been you know, consistent with work or whatever. Um.
I actually will call myself out for something from team Katie.
Um we. I started working with Kristen. Like the short
version of the escalation from video editor to business partner
is I would you know, first it was video editing.
Then it was will you help me manage my email
inbox because you're super organized? I said absolutely, I love

(42:20):
in box zero um. And then it was I would
kind of like someone would come into inbox and as
a brand deal and I like have an opinion on it.
She's like, wait a second, even business degree, right, And
I was like I have to actually she goes, why
are you just editing my videos? Like why why don't
we actually turn this into like you're helping with this stuff?
And and at someone who's you know, twenty two, I

(42:41):
was like, oh shit, okay, yeah, absolutely, like I'll take
on this like job that feels really big and scary
and morphed also into Team Kitty because UM, Team Katie
originally started UM when the team's feature started, and this
is you know, christ and kind of retelling me. This
was like, oh, Um, I'm just gonna put my friends
on like a team. Right, I'm just gonna put a

(43:03):
bunch of girls on a team. Will be great and
we'll help each other. And then she and I had
a lot of conversations around Okay, well, what if this
became instead sort of like a mentorship group something that
is like okay, we've got Kitty at the top and
we're getting these brand deals pitched. And then it's like, okay,
well what about my girls? Right? What if this became
to that was truly mentorship based UM, and a lot

(43:25):
of that had grown with word of mouth one stream
or to another. Hey, I'm joining this team. This is
I'm applying to this team. This is this thing UM.
And what happened? God, this is several years ago at
this point is UM. I got a question from a woman.
I think it was on Discord or Twitter, I don't remember. UM,

(43:48):
and this is one that I it taught me to
take a really critical look at my surroundings. Was hey,
um am I allowed to apply. I noticed there aren't
any women of color on Team Kittie, And I remember
I was sitting in my car and I was like,
fuck up right, Like and it's it was one of

(44:09):
those obviously that's like a constant discourse in like Twitch
teams especially. I feel like my Twitter feed recently has
been the same thing. It is not a problem that
you can learn to fix in a day. Um, but
it gave me a good shake up of like we
are not being as open with whether it's you want
to call it recruitment or whatever, like our practices as

(44:30):
a team. Um. The fact that someone can look at
the team and be like I don't belong there. I
was like, oh, well, that's not what this is for, um.
And it it basically caused us to kind of shake
stuff up and say, um, we need to stop just
looking outside of our own circles. So instead of going
to the existing people on the team and saying tell
your friends, it's like, all right, I need to make

(44:52):
a more conscious effort of finding women in other spaces
and without being sales e or gross, I mean, like
join my team, Like the you know, looking inside of
your own circle is only going to give you people
that look like your existing circle. Um. And it was
something that I at the time like totally considered myself

(45:15):
like an inclusive person and like my first answer to
her was like, oh my god, like of course you
can and should apply if she's a member of the team. UM,
and I will give her credit for this for calling
me the frick out on it. I'm going to try
not to swear. Miss ash Rocks was like I knew

(45:35):
Ash well at that point, and she reached to me,
was like, am I allowed? And I was like, okay,
I have done something very wrong here right like and
not that you know anything was intentional, but like even
you know, omission by mistake is a mistake, is a failure,
and um, a bunch of things on the team at
the same time kind of led us to create a

(45:57):
count Oh this is actually a really one and I'll
be short about it. I tend to do a lot
of things myself, and I tend to not delegate. UM,
so all of those things, yeah, all of those things
happening at the same time is um, why the team
has a council that is by volunteer um, which actually
we didn't talk about Team Katie stuff when we're not recording,
but but we basically Chris and I looked at the

(46:20):
team and it was like, okay, well, originally I was
running the team because I was a grad student with
not a lot to do and then go to class
and do twitch stuff. Um, now I'm you know, beyond that,
and I'm doing a lot. Um what do I need? What?
What do we need to do to make sure that
the team goes from Kristen can't handle this team thing
that she really wants to do because she's too busy. Too.

(46:40):
Now the person who is in that role is also
ending up with lots of stuff on their plate. You know,
what can we do? So we expanded the team into
a council. We made a really concerned effort to sort
of reach outside of the bubble. But like, sometimes you
just need that Like I hate using a violent metaphor,
but like that slap in the face of like, yo,
you did not do this right, um, and a bunch

(47:03):
of things on the team kind of happened at once
in that moment of like hey, let me like you're
doing too much, you can handle it. We need to
make this expansion, we need to make these changes, like
it needs to be done and you're not the only
person who has to do it or should have to
do it. Um. And so I liked taking that and

(47:23):
kind of expanding how we ran the team and how
like the philosophies of running the team. UM. Did not
enjoy being called out. It did not feel good in
the moment, but sometimes you need that. And uh, I
think there's a huge difference between Like obviously, if I
had done something intentional in that way, then it would
have been like, hey, you shouldn't be doing this anymore, right,

(47:45):
But we had this like very open conversation as a
team and it was you know, where the team was
at that point and how we can improve. And I
think there's always ways to improve. And the stuff that
you do, whether it's and I'm like I can list
off a million team Kenny thinks for myself right now, UM,
But whether it's with a community that I I've managed
for work or stuff that I do kind of is

(48:05):
a volunteer in the space. UM. Either way, it's like
you have to be open to that uncomfortable moment where
someone shows you that you did not do something right,
And I think the measure of are you going to
get it right is how the how you respond to it.
I think a lot of people will take that criticism
and get really defensive and like shitty with people. I mean,

(48:26):
like I wasn't doing that wrong? Yeah, And and my
biggest thing is like, even if I'm super mega uncomfortable
with the critique, to be able to handle it gracefully
and like make a plan for what's next. Yeah. That's
a really tough skill to have, though. I mean, it's
something I think has been a work in progress for me,

(48:47):
is being able, because I think it's really really healthy
when someone comes to you and tells you something that
um you maybe wouldn't have heard from someone else and
you haven't heard today, and then you you hear this
different perspective, and it can be super super unco ordable.
And I think a lot of people, like you say,
their first reaction is to be defensive or to shut
down or whatever, Whereas really, no matter how uncomfortable and

(49:09):
ikey it makes you feel, you should be like, oh,
I don't believe that happened. Okay, thank you for telling
me that and for giving me essentially a gift because
you know, I know that there's something that you can
work on that can improve things, and that's really cool.
It's just really hard. It takes a lot of emotional
maturity um to be able. It's because there's an ego
problem going on. People I did something wrong. No, yeah, exactly.

(49:34):
I mean we see people talking about like streamer Twitter
all the time, and I'm not going to give any
specific examples, but you frequently see things where like someone
will get called out for something that they said, and
the reaction is to immediately doubled down and what they
said before, rather than just accepting that you know, I
didn't mean X, Y or Z, but I've clearly given
that impression to a lot of people. So I have

(49:55):
to work on wording things differently in the future, or
I have to work on the way I represent that
my opinion or whatever it is, instead of just accepting
that I'm going right, okay, how can I How can
I work on myself and improve things for next time
so this doesn't happen again? And that's super immediately going
It's super important in these spaces because, uh, what like

(50:16):
the job title a lot of times is influencer and
so we need to make sure that we're being responsible
with ourselves and we're having a good IMPACTUM on the future,
because we're helping kind of shape. This is why it
drives me so crazy when I see people that are
just obvious garbage that have these huge audiences and they
don't care about the repercussions of their words or actions.

(50:38):
They're not willing to sit and listen, especially when it
comes to diversity issues and minorities in these spaces. That's
why it frustrates me so so much, UM because they
shape our next generation of gamers. And then that's why
when I get on you know, FPS games, I'm still
getting called slurs and stuff because their favorite streamers still
do that and they defend it. There was a clip

(51:01):
recently on Twitter and I don't remember who posted, but
it was basically a clip of like a probably too
young to be on twitch I know what you're talking
where it was like he's I think it's it looks
like a twelve year old boy. Like I'm not trying
to be literally, it's like a fifteen year old boy,
which would be fine, but like and the caption of
the tweet is like, hey, for everyone who says like

(51:24):
toxic streamers aren't doing any harm. Check out this kid,
and the kid's stream is like playing an FPS game,
calling people's slurs and then pulling up women's streams. I'm
gonna make fun of this woman because it's content, like
the child says that, and it's and then his profiles
are just linking to all of these very like widely
called out toxic streamers that are like the very toxic

(51:51):
and of course this, Yeah, that set me off. I
had to turn off Twitter. I was like, I can't
look at this today of every day that I'm like,
that's enough Twitter for today, and it's like the morning.
Since I started using Twitter less, I have been a
more productive and happier person since I stopped. And it

(52:13):
really has a lot to do with clicks period. I
think it would happen no matter what, like subsection of
Twitter I was active on. Of course it's streamer Twitter
we call, but there's a blank Twitter for everything, you know,
like stay at home mom Twitter. There's a whole robotic
Twitter is the same way Twitter up learning to navigate.
So what's weird about this robotics competition thing is it's actually,

(52:35):
um the league is something that my family started, so
I was a competitor in high school, but like for
for lack of he's a founder of the nonprofit. But
like in an E sports term would be like the
league commissioner, right, it's my uncle. And so I was
a participant in high school and it was assumed that
anything that I said was like official at like fifteen,

(52:59):
and I act I always say, that's like sort of
accidentally my first community management experience because I was learning
on the fly as a teenager to like adapt my
messaging to an audience because they would perceive me as afficient.
Like and I would be on the forum and I
would say something this was you know, pre discord with

(53:19):
like a V bulletin forum. Like I would sit there
and say something and I was like, oh, well Livy
said it, so it must be true. And it's like whoa, whoa, whoa,
Like it was weird. It's how I got into like
moderating and messaging. But was like robotics. Twitter is the
same thing. I have read some talks I guess stuff

(53:39):
about myself the worst. Did you guys know that I'm
the absolute worst? Everything is welcome to Twitter, where everything
is your fault no matter it's always your fault. I
love that. It's just so wild. I actually just don't
installed the Twitter app from my phone. I'm still using
all my PC. But I've decided that I just have

(54:01):
a really bad habit of getting like super hyper focused
on Twitter and then like scrolling through and reading stuff
that is not it is it doesn't. It typically just
makes me feel helpless and angry. Um nine times out
of tend even if I start out looking at fun stuff,
it will rabbit hole its way into like you know,
with the trending tag on the side and Twitter showing

(54:22):
me all of the top news stories, and I'm like,
there's a reason I'm not watching cable news right now, Like,
please don't feed me this. Like, yeah, I would like
to ask something maybe, um, a little bit more positive
than the toxicity of Twitter. We all know it's just
an absolute healthy let's go. I was genuinely going to ask, um,

(54:48):
since we've kind of talked about like the challenges that
you faced and um all of that stuff, like the
kind of journey that you've gone through, what are some
of the actual like highlights of your career, Like what
are some of the favorite things you've had happened or
that you've achieved. Yeah, I like this question a lot better. UM.
I like who this comes after? Wow, It's almost like
this outline was well designed. Wow. Anyway we um Okay,

(55:13):
So highlights are really interesting because in all of the
things we've talked about, we've touched on very little of
my actual day job that I do, uh, which is
community management. Like we've talked so much about streaming and
streaming spaces. Um. But I would say my highlights are
I've I've worked at a couple of pretty cool places. Um.
I worked at Steel Series. UM. I worked at Congregate,

(55:35):
which is a game that at least for you know,
the thirty year olds is like where we played games
in middle school before our teachers wouldn't see. Um, I
get to work with the community and and I they
had acquired a mobile game that was independently developed. It
was like two guys that were just it was a
browser and a mobile bottle royal. Um. Not my speed.
But I got hired onto Community managed and it was like, hey,

(55:57):
you know, those community is really spicy because it's like
middle and high school boys, which is already red flag. UM.
And they're really mad that we acquired this game because
they think we're trying to kill it. Um. And my
highlight for that, honestly is I went through some yucky
stuff with that community. I am very, very grateful that

(56:17):
I had Kristen Kitty as a mentor in my early
streaming days about online safety because that community tested the
limits of what is appropriate in you know, trying to
find somebody. Is it a difference between commenting on their
Instagram and calling a pizza place in their town and
ordering pizza right, like that level of ikey um. But
I when I left that role, that community had totally

(56:41):
changed tone. And it is not just me. It was
our developers being super transparent. It was sort of the
company giving me support in how to manage that community.
But it became this Yes, there were still pockets of
people who would like I'm not even kidding. There was
a guy who made um, I think like four or
five hours worth of a documentary about me, like literally

(57:02):
was titled like this community manager is ruining our game.
It was wild. It was really bad, but like so
that still existed, um, but the like actual official community
spaces where our players were, um, you know, I I
put on my best you know, teacher cap and community

(57:23):
manager cap and kind of tried to figure out how
we could best adapt that community to be a productive
place where players felt like they actually had space to
give feedback on the game. It wasn't just that they
were shouting into the void, because I realized part of
their anger was just that they didn't think that their
ideas were going anywhere. It used to the original developers
would sit in that discord all day and just talk

(57:45):
to them and be like, oh, you want this kind
of gun in the game, Oh yeah, no problem here
it is right, And obviously that's just not how large
studios work. UM. But being able to give them, you know,
some form of agency, some some form of voice there
was was really like big for me. I love it,
um on. If we're going on paper highlights, um, I

(58:08):
So all the work that uh Christ and I had
had done with Team Kitty, UM early on was like
I said, when in the height of the Kitty plays era,
right where she was streaming basically every day, you know,
brand deals all over the place, hosting this, you know,
championing that. UM. One of the kind of big things
with Team Kitty was how can we take a so

(58:30):
that's offered to one creator and make sure that it
influences or supports other creators. UM. And there's a lot
I think that has changed about the team and things
I would like to bring back about that kind of
era of Team Kitty. But UM. One of the things
that Kristen and I were realizing that we were doing
for a very long time, UM was a company would
come in and say, oh, we want to work with

(58:53):
Kitty Plays and you know, here's our idea for a
brand deal. You're gonna have the logo over your stream.
And it was just like boring standard same stuff. And
the time we'd turn around and say like, yeah, we
could do that, but what if you and we would
like start adding things to these packages, like what if
what if instead of just a logo on the stream. UM.
Like one of the ones I remember was, UM, a

(59:15):
hair color company was like, oh, we just want you
to like, you know, have this hair color on stream
and talk about it. And it was like, what if
instead we bring a wig in and we're doing a
cosplay creation stream and we're using the product to do
you know, we realized we were doing that for free,
like right for free obviously, because like you know, the

(59:37):
team members or Kristen or whoever was going to get
paid for those activations, but like the consult of that
changes were free. And so we founded Radiance Media together
specifically not too represent individual creators, because that's something we've
always tried to avoid with Team Kitty. We Um someone
who Kristen originally and hired to manage Team Katie was
like basically trying to turn it into an agency of like,

(59:59):
we'll get you brand do we take And I know
I don't have the energy to do that, nor do
I particularly want to. But what we really focused on was,
you know, the brand that has a meeting someplace that
says we should work with gaming and they go, yeah, cool,
but we don't know how to do that. Hello, where
are your friends? And we will teach you how to
navigate the space. Um And so that's when we we

(01:00:21):
started radio. So we did a bunch of projects in
that regard and through whatever combination of that work and
releasing my charity book, which I is also a huge highlight,
but I don't want to ramble about it for too long.
Um Is I got this random email that I thought
was fake from Business Insider last year that literally was

(01:00:42):
we'd like to include you in our article in Top
twenty Women and Gaming, and I was like, what excuse
like did you did you mean the sinister Christen? Like
but um, and it was really cool, like I you know,
I touched them, I had my picture and it I
was actually the the they promote you like, promote an
article and it becomes a trending topic on Twitter. As

(01:01:03):
we were just talking about how much we hate Twitter,
Like they didn't tell if anybody in the article that
they were going to do that, and then all of
a sudden, my face was the trending topic photos. It's weird,
but it's it's actually cool because the reason it's a
highlighted Like yeah, obviously the recognition is awesome, but as
someone who is very frequently the background worker to someone

(01:01:25):
else's accolade, not that what we do is by any means,
you know, one sided, but like the number of times
it conventions people ask me if I'm Kristen's assistant and
she has to be like, no, this is my business partner.
Like I am very I am not super super public
with everything that I do, and to be recognized for

(01:01:46):
that work and have it seen as just as valued
as like you know, at the whatever snapshot in time,
number one streamer on the platform. You know it. It's
really redeeming to know that the background work, you know,
it matters in your own head, but like that somebody
else sees that it matters. Was like, oh, I am

(01:02:07):
doing something cool, Like okay, Like it was, it was great,
and I'm super super grateful for that. It was. I'm
not a person who needs a ton of validation. Um,
you know the occasional Hey, that's so awesome, thank you
so much. Really like does it for me? And I'm
good for like a year on on external validation. But um,

(01:02:28):
that's not true that like I'm not this is not
a free pass people to not ask him tell me
I'm doing a great child. I would love. I welcome
that feedback all the time. But like, it was really
cool to see the other side of the work that
isn't just not just just as a bad term, that
isn't solely the influencer side of things. Um was really cool. Um.

(01:02:54):
And my my final highlight, which I'm sure we'll talk
about because I know us that you said you wanted
to talk but it at some point, but um, it
was self publishing a whole last book on charity streaming.
I sometimes I'm really I know that I know something,
but then when I try to go explain it, like
we we talked about, like you sort of either got
me yourself up on how you explain it or you

(01:03:15):
feel like, oh, maybe I'm not as qualified to do this. Um,
and I saw this. You know, I've always wanted to
put together a resource I know, Um, there has been
a point in streamer Twitter when making resources available to
other streamers has been a contentious topic. So I knew
I wanted it to be free, uh, and I wanted

(01:03:36):
to put my background knowledge. I have a to two
things that I had outlined. One that was around charity
streaming and one that was around kind of community building
and community management as it applies to creators, which I
haven't finished yet. But uh, you know, one book a
year seems like a fair rate. Um. And last at
the around this time last year, actually, you know aroundst

(01:03:57):
that this time last year, I applied for a grand
to that Twitch was doing called Twitch Passed Forward and
it was about their like ten year anniversary as a platform,
I think, um, and it was like, write us a
pitch for something that would improve our community and like
celebrate the things the community does. Um. And some people
made extensions, and some people said, and I wrote a

(01:04:17):
pitch for this grant, a proposal around I would like
to make a free resource on charity streaming. UM. But
obviously that entails the time to write it, the time
to get it edited, you know, reviewed, and that kind
of stuff. UM. And I want to see if I
can do this strand and I actually won the grant
UM and then I published Charity Streaming one on one
at the beginning of Uh was it this I don't

(01:04:41):
even know. Yeah, it was this year. I don't know.
I don't remember, though, I remember when you got to grant.
That was so cool. You're right, I do want to
talk about it. You were talking about how I'm not
going to talk about it, and I was like, yeah, no,
you are. So I want to know because you're have
written a charity streaming what I want, which for anyone

(01:05:02):
who is listening, as Libby was talking about earlier, it
is a guide that helps streamers get started with priority streaming. UM.
What is one misconception that you wish you could dispel
about charity streaming. Oh? UM, I feel like there's a
bunch of of broader ones Um, I think the misconception
I want to dress really is people think it's the

(01:05:23):
super super hard thing where if you're already streaming, or
if you're you've got the basics of a stream set up,
you absolutely can do a charity stream. You might not
have the giant million dollars raised production that others do,
but there's this idea that like, I'm too small, it's
too hard, it's not going to work out. Um And
you hear all the time when streamers are asking their

(01:05:45):
communities to donate to charity, like, oh, just a dollar
helps if you have a dollar, And that is true,
but I also make sure want to make sure that
applies to the creator, right if so. Like my my
current full time role is I met an organization called
Players Risk Cancer, which works with the American Association for
Cancer Research. Um All, all the a c R does
is fund grants for cancer research. So it's not a hospital,

(01:06:07):
it's not you know, buying toys for kids. It is
just straight up changing the science right and making better
science for cancer treatment. Um. And we could have a
group of community members and someone raises ten thousand dollars,
and someone raises a thousand dollars and someone raises five
hundred dollars and someone raises fifty dollars, and all of
those people are valuable and have made impact because you're

(01:06:29):
part of a broader group that is raising awareness. It
is so easy in everything that is streaming world to
look at numbers and compare yourself to people with different
numbers um and it makes I think it can scare
people off of charity streaming because it's like, oh, I'll
look really bad if I made a charity stream and
I only raised a hundred dollars. And it's like, but

(01:06:49):
if you have people that raise a hundred dollars, that's
a thousand dollars. It adds up so fast. Yeah, exactly.
And I think people get scared because it it looks
like an added technical expense of your time and your
resources on your stream. And while that can be true,
you can't go it's another alert layer like you, Oh,

(01:07:12):
I I love events when I go absolutely nuts for
charity and like, I like that. It does divert your
content almost entirely when you do stuff like that, right,
Like I had a day where I had Google eye
stickers as like a treer incentive, and someone was like,
if I drop. I forget what the number was, but
like if I fill your bar, will you just cover

(01:07:36):
your whole face and Google? And I had to decide
in that moment, like is this lack of gaming content
going to be worth it? And it was it was
so funny. I was like the like remember when gener
Marbles made her face and it was but it was like, Okay,
I do have to make the decision. And if I
were a creator who was more potentially like specific game focused,

(01:07:59):
that might have been the right call for me to
like divert my content and sit there for two hours
putting Google eyes on my face. But it's you can
have the thing where you go absolutely balls to the
wall and your entire content as around charity, or you
can just have like a little logo up and be like,
hey guys, this week, all my you know, my revenue
or the stuff that you put into here is going
to this charity. It's really important to me. You know,

(01:08:21):
every dollar accounts thanks so much. Like there's there's a
whole spectrum of Neither one of those is the right answer,
and it doesn't have to be as hard as your
brain makes it look to start streaming for charity and
where can people find your charity streaming one on one
guid because I think that's a really good start. Yea,
So it is. I know that I have it at

(01:08:41):
bit do l y slash charity streaming one on one
capital c capital s um camel case as the marketers
call it. Um. It is pinned on my Twitter, which
is Libby k. It's sort of if you think you
should search a skessy and charity streaming, it will come up.
It's on my cofee page, but I made like I
keep see little link for it. Um, so it's completely free. UM.

(01:09:02):
I obviously will not turn down someone passing a dollar
or two on koffee because that is lovely of them,
and I have had folks do that. But it is
completely free. It's intended to be completely free um because
I don't think that information should be gate kept at all. UM.
And anyone who does download it. Anytime I updated, I
email out new versions of it. So if I change
something or I'm like, oh this tip is outdated, uh,

(01:09:24):
everyone gets updated info. Um. And like I said, I'm
supposed to have done a bunch of YouTube videos about
it too, but I haven't edited them yet, so I
get there well we'll get there. It'll happen eventually, Shady,
Do you have any other questions for My favorite question
is always to ask, what if we think about fifteen

(01:09:46):
year old Libby, what do you think fifteen year old
Libby needed to hear would want to hear from you?
What kind of advice would you give someone like fifteen
year old Libby who was going to go into the
fields that you were going to go in or had
the interest to, Oh, this is going to be sort
of left field because I haven't talked about this the time,
but that it's okay not to follow everybody's expectations of

(01:10:07):
what you're supposed to do. Like I grew up doing robotics.
I was a captain of the team. It was in
the mechanical lead. So I was like, I have to
do mechanical engineering, but I don't know if I really
want to do it. And I didn't really listen to myself.
I was like, well, this is what I'm supposed to do, right,
And even when I was in college and I didn't
know that I was for sure about what I kind
of had that Naggie feeling like I don't know this

(01:10:29):
is for me. I waited and I waited, and I
was like, but everyone's gonna be so mad at me
if I don't do what I was supposed to do.
And it's like, you're you are the only person you
have to live with for your whole life. Like I
heard that. I'm pretty sure I heard that on TikTok
and I was like, um, that actually hits right. Everyone
in your life, whether it is a good third thing
or a bad thing, is at some point going to

(01:10:50):
leave you in some way. Right, as much as we
want to think that our parents will live forever or
you know, the boyfriend that they meet is going to
be there, the one right, you're the only person you
have to live with for your whole life. Seven. It's exhausting,
but you have to listen to that person and and

(01:11:11):
respect and like, you have to respect that person. You
have to know that if you're not meeting somebody else's
expectations but you've met your own, Like you, it's really
hard to be at peace with that. But I think
fifteen year old Liby probably needed to learn that. Thirty
year old libies, but like, I think that would be
my my My fifteen year old advice is, like, you

(01:11:33):
do not have to live your life by somebody else's expectations. Uh,
and doing the like weird, cool nerdy thing that people
think is it's a real job is actually like kind
of the cornerstone of your career. Now, So good job, kiddo.
I love that. That's my fifteen year old needs is
a hug. Yeah, yeah, I think we all do. I

(01:11:55):
think that's really good advice to just in general for
people that are in this people that be listening to
boss level probably all need to hear because it's so
easy and the streamer space and the online space to
fall into peer pressure and expectations of of the people
in our little clicks we were calling them early with
like Twitter like robotics Twitter or whatever, Like it's so

(01:12:16):
easy to feel like we have to be doing what
everyone else is doing, or if we step out of
the box a little bit, we're going to get you know, um,
we're not going to be as successful by doing it.
And a lot of times it's the left turns as
you called it, that stand you out. Um, I guess
that's a that's the scary thing. It's like back to
like human animal psychology a little bit. But we're all

(01:12:36):
part of like a flock or a herd, and it's
usually what's the squeaky wheel gets the grease, but it
can also be the rusty nail gets the hammer. So
we're scared to be that one little sheep that like
pops out of the herd. That one gets all like
all the accolades if it's successful, but if it's not successful,
they get eaten by a wolf, you know what I mean.
So it's they can feel really scary. But it's also

(01:12:57):
often in fear where the most progress is made. So
and you're absolutely right, I feel like, especially with like
the you know, trying to seek the new meta for
streaming and whatever, and sometimes you do have to do
something a little bit different to everybody else to actually like,
you know, make waves and do something that draws attention.

(01:13:20):
It's tough right there. Um, But I mean I I
really like talking to my stuff like this because I
feel like, um, frequently we like we were talking about streamer,
Twitter and whatever. Um. I don't really want to call
it an echo chamber, but at the same time, like
I do feel like, yeah, if you fit. Um. I

(01:13:43):
feel like a lot of the time it's the same
content being cycled over and over again. It's the same conversations.
It's the same It's like a three month cycle because
there's new streamers coming in and then they think they're
the first streamer, which I'm not. Like, you know, it's
the first time they've noticed X y Z is wrong
in the industry or something. But someone who's been in
it for me, I started, I've seen this cycle happen

(01:14:03):
a dozen times. At this point, I'm fed up with it.
I'm just like, I'm not, you know, participating in this
this point, it's such an energy like, Yeah, I'm just
gonna y'all have at it like you have fun. Oh
it's tough. Um So, I would like to find out, Libby,
do you have any other projects that you'd like to

(01:14:25):
shot out, anything that's coming up, anything outside of like
the charity streaming one of one that you were talking about,
Like what other things have you got coming up in
the future that you'd like to share? Um, well, if
I ever get off my butt and finishes videos, it
will be much more comprehensive information on that kind of stuff.
I am trying to expand that as well into sort
of my my marketing and community background, like creating similar

(01:14:47):
types of resources that are maybe for someone who is
newer or trying to re envision what they're doing. I
don't have a release date on that yet because that's
not done UM for me for yeah, like eventually. So
what I can say is if you follow me on
Twitter lebby k, then you can find out what it's done. UM.
The I guess the work thing I'd like to shout

(01:15:09):
out it is also charity related is it's currently AUGUSTO
and coming up for Players Versus Cancer in September is
an event that we have called End Cancer Disparities, which
is all fundraisers working towards UH raising money for the
American Association for Cancer Research, but specifically around that's something
that the a c R published is called our Cancer
Disparities Report, and it is basically a giant research based

(01:15:31):
call out on how cancer care and cancer outcomes are
inequitable across different marginalised populations. And so the End Cancer
Disparities event is looking to raise money for UM grants
that fund minority scientists to help close those gaps because
cancer is not the same in every community or in
every you know, socio economic group or ethnic group or

(01:15:52):
anything like that. UM, and it's super important to make
sure that everyone gets equitable care. Um. And so I
am running a streaming program for UH September where we're
fundraising for the a c R. And if you want
to do that, uh, I can help. So that is
another thing that I can be of assistance with. If
that is interesting anyone who's listening. Alright, I do. I

(01:16:16):
do like having a nice positive thing to meering. We've
done through some of the toxic stuff. It's been a
great conversation though. I've really enjoyed it. Yeah, I mean
really enjoyed picking your brain. Yeah. I always say that,
and I always feel really creepy when I say that.
Give me the insides of your brains. No, let made

(01:16:40):
it worse. It's fine, I can always make it worse. Um. No.
I have so enjoyed getting to be on this side
of the conversations, and it has been enjoyed to spend
some time with you too, because I love you both dearly,
as as hosts, as also the wonderful things that you
do in your own spaces. I am so grateful for
both of you and happy that you asked me to

(01:17:01):
be here today. We're glad that you could train um.
So yeah, I don't know, Psyche, you got anything you
want to shout out? Um? I literally. The only thing
is that I've just taken a two week break from
all content creation outside of the podcast, so I on
my return stream is on Monday of August, which I'm
pretty excited about. On Friday, the twelfth of August. Some

(01:17:22):
of you who have listened to previous episodes will remember
that I mentioned doing a streaming in Games Industry Q
and A, and I never did it because things got
a bit much. So I'm doing that on Friday, the
twelfth of August, and that is on my Twitch channel
twitch dot tv four slash Psyche. It's exciting, I'm excited,
and what about you, Shady? The only thing I got
to shout out is I have been busting my butt
and spending way too much time with myself editing this

(01:17:43):
O B S tutorial that I'm working on. It's I
think I'm I'm calling it. Hey, shady Lady over explains
O B S um it has the I made a
blog post of it. It's the tiniest little scroll bar
and it's three hours of video content that it's scripted,
so there's nothing really to edit out. Um. So it's
a three hour like deep dive into O B S
and explaining all the technical jargon, the bit rate, why

(01:18:06):
to use um. I should hopefully have that finished editing
by this week, so sometime in the second week of August,
that should be up on my YouTube channel. So if
anybody is uh, just barely scraping by getting through their
O B S stuff and want someone to break it
down in very digestible terms, and that's that's all I
got to shout out, really, besides my normal streaming, if
I can, you know sweet yeah, fingers cross the storm stay.

(01:18:30):
I know it's been really crazy this summer. We've had
a lot more thunderstorms in I love some summer thunderstorms though,
But now when they take my internet away when you
need Yeah, So, Libby, thank you very much again for
joining us. Where can people find you across the internet? Yeah?
Um so my Twitter is libby k. I know the

(01:18:50):
general best practices all supposed to be the same, but
a scion is really hard to spell on twitch. I
A S K Y S I E N N E
um or on. So if you just searched Libby, there
is actually a channel who uses Libby. I thought about
at one point regranding, but it's not me, not for me.
Um so online, I am Libby K. On Twitter, I'm
ass and pretty much everywhere else. Um and yeah, that's

(01:19:14):
my internet presence in ant show. Awesome, sweet and shady.
Where can people find you? Hey, shady lady. Everywhere all
over the internet, up and down. That's easy. I'm so genty.
This is what I'm talking about rebranding, So yeah, everyone
can find me is twitched on TV for us our
Psyche four days a week and on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
Psyche plays and Psyche twitch on TikTok because my name,

(01:19:35):
even even my secondary name, got taken. Well, thank you both.
This conversation was awesome. I really enjoyed it. It's been wonderful.
Thank you. I hope you'll have a good rest of
your week. Yes, and thank you so much. Thank you
Libby again for joining us. Listeners. Your side quest this
week is to join us on our discord channel where
we can continue the conversation. You can also find us

(01:19:57):
on social media as the Boss Level Pod that's Los
l v L Pod, and catch up on video episodes
on our YouTube. Thanks everybody. By

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Episode 21 - feat. Askesienne

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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 21 - feat. Askesienne