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It's difficult for me to decide what to type in this post. I'm thinking so fast and yet I can't nor should I even dare to try to put it all down. I have been feeling abnormally lonely. And I think that's because I've been limited in my back and forth communications with other people. Circumstances being what they are around the world, I sense a general lack of interest in the content I'm making on Twitch. Some would say, move on with your life, there are other things you can do. But there really aren't.
I've been doing a lot of thinking. Everything we experience is some sort of communication. Whether it's something man has built or the maker of the world has built. Sometimes the communication is difficult to understand, especially if people are intentionally or unintentionally lying. Some philosophers might argue that it's possible that nearly everything or indeed everything we ever say is some sort of lie. This may be extreme, but it's a bit humbling perhaps in a proper sense to acknowledge that we are imperfect.
Building stuff in Super Mario Maker 2(SMM2) has been a way for me to communicate ideas to other players. And some players have done the same for me as a streamer, shared their ideas. This has helped me deal with my loneliness. But now that Super Mario Maker 2 is not very popular, I'm experiencing some withdrawal from having my loneliness somewhat dispelled? Is that what I'm going to call it? Hmm, I'm not sure how accurate that is. Can someone be addicted to not being lonely? Maybe I have an imbalance in my hormones. Better add that to the list of things that's wrong with me.
I'm not the only one that streams in order to not be lonely. But you know what? Streaming isn't really all that helpful to making me not be lonely. I streamed over 150 hours in the past 30 days...that's almost the standard 40 hours a week...and I didn't feel like it was as productive for dispelling loneliness as it used to be, even when I put more time into it than I had previously. Maybe it helps the few viewers that actually show up to my stream. By my stats, 3 people out of 413 who had notifications turned on tuned into the channel, and throughout my 140 minute broadcast of Super Mario Maker 2, it was revealed that each of those three watched the show for about 42 minutes. Some of these aren't even bad numbers to be honest.
What concerns me more are the differences between numbers such as 413 and 3. The 413 people are following users that have notifications turned on. Okay so that's 0.7 percent. Less than one percent. And if you change that number to 1110 people, which is the total number of following users, it drops to 0.2 percent. My average viewer count was 0.9 viewers. If even one third of the one third of people that get notifications actually did the same as the other 3 viewers, I can expect that my average viewer count would be... around 130. Which is quite frankly beyond the requirement for partnered streamers.
So why are so many people online feigning, or pretending if you will, to support small streamers? Maybe they get some sick satisfaction from it, I don't know. But it's unfortunate that it is so incredibly common for people to just prefer someone else and instead of being honest about that, they have to go and act like they want to spend time with the people that don't like as much, when they really don't feel that way. I suppose it's because they want to not 'get on your bad side' if they were to treat you poorly but in the end they are just putting a false hope on the streamer that they might be a friend or whatever.
Twitch has been so disappointing to me lately, that I think I might change my username on Twitch. I've been calling myself RayTeamStrategy and so have many others. And my lack of doing well as an affiliate is making me reconsider my username. First of all, I have nothing against Team Strategy games such as LoL, Pokemon Unite, and so on. I'm actually regularly playing them, believe it or not. However I can admit they can be stressful at times and therefore I feel like I must play them in moderation. Unfortunately, the moderation levels are so strict that I'm unable to actually make a decently competitive footprint if you will in the resetting ranking systems. I don't know what kind of ranking system exactly Pokemon Unite has, but if it's like Shadowverse where the ranks don't actually reset(get lowered automatically so players can climb again) regularly then I guess everything will be fine in regards to that. So, I like these games, but I don't feel like I've become known for them, and I feel like there's a disconnect between my username and my identity to other people.
So, I feel like I should just change RayTeamStrategy to DisappointedRay. I remember when my mom was responding to my requests for her to give watching Twitch TV a try and to chat with me on my channel she had to tell me that she is a disappointment. Which might be a little harsh, but perhaps she's right. Seems like the majority of people are a disappointment to me. Whether or not that's fair to call a PERSON THAT...like she did...personally I'm leaning towards no...it's undeniable that circumstances being what they are has led me to being a very, very, very disappointed person.
I like using different usernames sometimes. Particularly when gaming. And I think it's time to rebrand myself on twitch. I kind of wanted to keep my username in case Pokemon Unite was everything I could have asked for in a game and more but to be honest... I feel more like a variety streamer at my core than anything else, and I don't want to grind the ranks of various games to make a name for myself. I don't mind some competition in general, but the levels of competitive effort you have to apply to games just doesn't allow me to keep my interests broadened when it comes to gaming and I feel like I want to communicate to as many people as possible, even if that means it's harder to get loyal viewers.
I want to try to rediscover who I am as a lot of the time I feel peer pressure to do things the way other people are doing them and whether or not that's a good idea I feel like I'm not those people and while I don't necessarily want to rebel against whatever's meta to do, I still need to honor the concept of doing things my own way, especially when it comes to my TV content.
There are a lot of changes happening with my various sources of content, whether it's my YouTube, or my Twitch, or something from some game that I've been working on. I'm trying to think more, and act less, in order to improve the quality of the energy I spend each day. This isn't easy, and I don't think I'm as successful as I'd like to be. Especially considering how downright traitorous some Twitch users can seem to be from time to time. I feel like it's at least for me, a better use of my time to spend less time trying to be others' friend and more time trying to help myself out or being my own friend for lack of a better phrase.
One of the big changes I'm making is that I'm making it so archived videos on my TV channel are only accessible to subscribers. I'm also doing reruns on my channel now which will be running highlights or previous streams so that viewers can still see some stuff, especially if there wasn't anything in particular they wanted to watch. An important thing to keep in mind is that in order to gather viewers, the streamer needs people showing up to the live shows. In all of 2020, and 2021, I have not kept up affiliate requirement numbers. I haven't even been halfway there. And monetary contributions are practically non-existent, but that's not necessarily the issue(if past broadcaster viewers were generous contributors there would be no problem). The issue is I need to prod viewers that just settle for watching past broadcasts, however few they may be into watching my live shows. I have zero problem with people watching my past broadcasts for free on an ethical basis but the problem is the numbers have been unacceptably low all things considered, and doing these reruns and locking down the past broadcasts, while not getting me my numbers back, has shown a mild increase in the numbers. To clarify, these numbers are absolutely nothing to brag about, as I cover quite thoroughly in my latest YouTube video that is 61 percent done uploading as I type this...but I feel like I have restored those numbers to a point where I'm not feeling massively ashamed for being essentially labeled as a worthless broadcaster by the majority of the community.
Is the community worth fighting for? No, of course not. Have I been trying to fight for it? Eh, maybe. In any case, and before I type anything else let me clarify, I don't know what it would like like to do such a thing anyway, so I don't know how to analyze my own behavior in that context, but I'm leaning towards I might have been doing that...I think I should not fight for the viewers. What I mean is I should just do what I think is right and ignore feedback. None of the feedback I get is useful anyway. Much of it is lies and the feedback bits that aren't lies are irrelevant information provided for unknown reasons.
Like the other day, someone showed up to my LoZ:SS stream on a Saturday at the start of the stream. Then they got out of the stream and didn't come back at all. I noticed a shockingly low average viewer count afterwards that exposes that at the very least I received irrelevant information when the parent told me that the child enjoys LoZ when they showed up 2 days in a row and fled the Zelda stream. So you show up to the stream at the start and nobody was watching the entire time...nobody. I know I've never streamed a Zelda game before that moment and that the pandemic is making things very competitive on Twitch at the moment, but I am not sure that viewer realizes the embarrassment potential for me being teased about potentially getting someone to watch the show and then come to find out EVERYONE wasn't interested in it.
I make a lot of mistakes, sometimes I stream a game nobody wants to watch me play. That's fine. But I would appreciate more communication/honesty from the community in general. Unfortunately it appears as if I'm never going to get it and I'm just going to have to figure out how I want to deal with it.
I was tempted to try to make Pokemon Unite my next attempt at growing the channel, but it's clear to see that I haven't really harvested anything meaningful as far as viewer numbers go from playing SMM2. I don't feel confident that it will be worth my time to spend an easily regrettable amount of time on that game in particular. However, with that in mind, I still think it would be worth it to reanalyze my streaming schedule and make plans for Pokemon Unite to get a guaranteed day to be played. On the other hand I'm not sure if making a schedule is even a good idea. Well, when I became an affiliate I had a decent schedule going on, but I was modifying it from time to time slightly to make adjustments for associates that could direct me to 'fill in for them' if you get what I mean. On Twitch there is this feature where streamers can send viewers off to hang out with a different streamer and by rearranging a schedule one can get those viewers in there and that is a certain kind of boost that helped me to get affiliate in the first place. Unfortunately, despite how popular such streamers may have been, they have either lost interest in SMM2 or Twitch TV in general and are essentially no long my associates. I feel quite lonely as a result.
Maybe this is what it's like more or less to be dating someone or even married and then break up or divorce. I get some viewers for a few months and then I got a year and a half feeling sorry for myself before I get a new date? And that's what Pokemon Unite is supposed to be for me? I mean I guess it's not a bad idea, but I am not sure what I should do about that. I think I'd rather just be a variety streamer. I don't know if this is the correct decision, maybe I'll always be a failure as a variety streamer. So I need to take some time to think about what to do next. I've considered attempting to salvage my current username just in case the new name change doesn't feel like it's delivering and/or I actually start feeling proud of my Unite accomplishments and want to solidify an identity better by taking back my old name. I can do this by renaming my alternate account but there's also the possibility that instead of using the new name idea of DisappointedRay that I could use the name CoinGang instead. Well, technically it's CoinGangBot, I'm not sure if CoinGang as a name is available, or even if the DR name is for that matter. I don't think I'm in love with the CoinGame name... maybe it would have been nice before I learned about Levelhead but yeah, I think ArtisticRay or DisappointedRay would be better. I guess Disappointed is too...not positive. But I have to change my name to something. I'm going to put RTS as a username on hold, at least for Twitch anyway. I feel like I have no choice.
So, I guess this is where I drop some links and tell you all that I'm trying to rebrand and the Twitch channel link in particular may be updated later based on whatever I happen to decide. I just hope I remember to update it promptly.
TV channel
I realize I have left out a link to the YouTube channel or the new video, but I suppose this is fine. You can find it through my Twitch TV channel if you click around for it or type !youtube in the chat.
The pandemic has been a strange thing. It doesn't feel like it affects me IRL but I suppose it affects everyone even if they don't feel like it does. Well, for one thing it took more than a month for me to get my new PC this year when I ordered it. I try to not worry about things I can't control but in any case, I want to make it clear that I don't think I'm in any particular danger from the virus and I don't feel any necessity to get vaccinated at this point in time. I keep to myself and don't even have a real job in real life(IRL). So the idea of me worrying about getting sick and dying just doesn't even make a bit of sense. However, I have to mention I am proud of myself that I pushed myself to finish making my newest Super Mario Maker 2 Superworld. It is a solid piece of work I think and well, it might not be a wild hit, and the game may not have much of a community to appreciate it anymore, but I think this game is relatively timeless and that if people want to make returns to the game they can have some enjoyment out of such curated content.
I want to live each day thinking I might not be alive tomorrow. I'm not trying to hurry to my death, just trying to avoid wasting time. So that's why I'm not trying as hard as I could be to see growth on my channel, or else I would have been playing Pokemon Unite every day instead of how much I have been. I feel like I want to lean more into the artistic side of my personality, because my imagination when put to work can deliver some fun experiences.
And now that I type that I realize that this could be an instance of me trying to make myself feel better in a roundabout way. Maybe I'm denying the idea that I could be afraid of failure when considering Pokemon Unite. And I think there is some truth to this suspicion. It's like trying to ask someone out on a date. Maybe you don't even do it because you are worried you're going to be rejected, as I was by the SMM2 community. As I was by the Dota 2 community before that. These rejections lead to disappointment.
I like both name ideas. Part of me wants to try to be as positive as possible and another part of me just wants to be as honest as possible. I'm going to have to side with honesty.
