QueerlyBee on cultivating community, putting your values into action, and protecting your mental health as a creative

Bee is a queer, autistic & disabled gaming & lifestyle creator that focuses on soft content designed to be good for co-existing and parallel play! They focus on co-working, the sims 4 and indie games and use these things to facilitate conversation about things they’re passionate about.

In this episode, I talk to Bee all about creating community, putting your values into action, protecting your mental health as a creative, and building a business in a way that works for you.

Awesome. Okay. So welcome to the show Bee. The people in the introduction have heard a little bit about what you do right now, but I would love to know a little bit about how your journey started. So would you say that you have always been creative or always been into creating content or that kind of stuff? Tell me a little bit about where this began.

I would say I never could have imagined that I would be like a full time content creator, that this would be like my, my work, but I have always had inklings of a lot of interest in it as a creative Like even when I was in university, sometimes when we would be studying media, I would be like, "can I do mine on my favorite YouTuber?"

And like, and like talk about how that kind of media and content creation has affected, you know, young people who watch content creators and are inspired by them or, you know, I don't know. It's always really fascinated me. I think it's very interesting. It's very, I want to say it's very new, but it's obviously not that new.

But as like you know, when I was young, my parents, they didn't understand. They didn't know what I was talking about. Like they didn't grow up watching other very normal people sharing parts of their life. They grew up watching maybe celebrities, but that life felt very unattainable, not very realistic to what they were going through and experiencing.

Whereas when I was growing up watching content creators, especially. Picking and choosing to watch content creators who, you know, specifically talked about things like queerness and disability and their own personal lives and how they built families and how that looked different from what I'd learned in schools and stuff.

Like I could really relate to them. Whereas like I could never relate really to a celebrity who has that level of like a fame and fortune and whatnot. So, I guess I never would have expected becoming a full time content creator. And that journey has been more complicated, but I've always been really inspired and passionate about and curious about content creation as a field.So when it finally did happen at the same time, it wasn't like a total surprise or something that came out of left field.

Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like you're definitely part of the same generation as me, watching all the early 2000s or 2010, YouTubers, all of those people. And then when we were teenagers and stuff, it was very new. But now obviously there are teenagers being like, I want to be a TikTok star.

Yes. I worked with middle schoolers for a while and it was really weird hearing them think of that as like a career option at that young age. And I remember that a lot of my supervisors and stuff were like, like, "no, you need to come up with like- because they were a lot older than me- you need to come up with like a more realistic job plan." And I was like, "here, no, let me get some of my YouTube friends to come and talk to you about what is it really like. Like, what are the hard parts, what is owning a business like, what is paying taxes on a freelance salary like? If you want to do this, you can do this, but you should understand it's not all easy glitz and glam lifestyle that it sometimes looks like it is from people's videos."

Yeah, for sure. Even I've definitely thought " Oh, that'd be so cool to just do YouTube as a business. And I'm like, "Oh, it's actually really hard to plan the content, record the content, edit the content, to come up with the ideas, promote the content.

There's a lot that goes into just doing the content. Plus everything else that comes with running a business and all of that good stuff." So it's definitely a lot.

So how did you get into actually doing this, streaming and creating content and becoming a full time content creator. Where did that start?

I am a pandemic streamer as many are. I feel like a lot of people took their- what was it called? Like we all got like payments from the government- and when it was like the height of the pandemic and we were all a lot of us working from home.

So the combo of those two things allowed a lot of people to buy the tech equipment that they needed to explore like creative things that they were interested in combined with a little bit more time, because a lot of us were able to finish our work in a shorter period of time than eight hours from home.

So I found myself, I had just moved back to Wisconsin which is where my family is from. I had just graduated from university and I didn't know what life was going to look like because I was graduating into this pandemic that no one understood quite yet.

And I didn't really want to be at home, but I didn't have anywhere else to go after university. I didn't have a job lined up like some people did, where they could like move somewhere so.

I had gone to school in New York, and during that time I figured out a lot about myself. It was four years of like being completely on my own. I didn't have any family in New York. I didn't know anybody when I went there. So the amount of growth I had to go through really quickly to be that independent was fun. It was exhilarating. It was hard.

And then I had to go right back into the environment that I had been in before school, and I felt really small and squished because the people there didn't know me anymore.

Like I knew them, but they didn't really know me anymore because I had changed a lot in those four years. I had become a lot more confident in my queerness. I had come a lot more confident in my disability, and, and just like my personality had come out a lot more.

So I started seeking that online community because it wasn't safe to really go out about in my hometown, both like, because it's not a very friendly place for queer people to live in like rural Northern Wisconsin, but also because I didn't want to catch COVID. I wanted to stay inside. So I found some really small streamers and mostly queer spaces where I was making friends and I was like, this is really fun.

And there's elements to this I really like, like community building and storytelling and connection with other people in an online setting that was like really controlled. Like the streamer could create the type of community they wanted.

And so I was like, "I think I could do this." Like, this could be fun. And I spent my first stipend check from the pandemic on my first PC, which I still stream on today, three years later. She's had some upgrades, but giggles. And I started doing it and I don't know, the rest is history.

"I think I could do this."

I guess it's just something that I really fell in love with. And when it became like a point of becoming full time, it's a really complicated feeling of, of excitement and, and joy because I am really passionate about this work that I do and I love it but also it came from a period of all of the pandemic restrictions started getting pulled away. People stopped masking and the government stopped providing any support and those services for having stuff picked up instead of delivered or picked up instead of having to go in places, like all of that slowly faded away, even though COVID was very much still here.

And as a high risk person, I still really couldn't risk becoming even more disabled by getting COVID like once or multiple times. So it was never really accessible to go back into work, so I just kind of never did. Like I quit a really toxic job environment. And then I had a, a stint where I worked at Starbucks for a while.

It was never really accessible to go back into work, so I just kind of never did.

And then I got together with my partner and my partner and I were like, this is not good for me to be in this public facing job with like such a high COVID risk. So then I was lucky enough that they were willing to take on that like financial burden of letting me like explore something that doesn't bring in a super consistent income, which is a huge privilege.

But also, it's really complicated because even if I wanted to go back to work I couldn't do that without some pretty big ramifications. So it's like, I kind of have a choice in what I'm doing, and it's, it's, it's really cool, but also at the same time, sometimes it's really stressful and tough that I don't have that like consistent income to be able to bring into the family for bills and things like that, especially in the current economic crisis kind of that we're in.

So it's messy, but I wouldn't trade it for the world, is what I always tell my community. And I think that that is still true.

Yeah, absolutely. I can a hundred percent relate to all of what you just said. I am in a similar position, I am working for myself, the income is not consistent, it's very up and down depending on a lot of things.

And I'm also chronically ill. And so, you know, we've talked about me getting a job before and I'm like, it's a great idea, but it actually just doesn't work like I can't show up nine to five or be in those places where it's risky for me to get COVID on top of my chronic illnesses. So yeah, it's definitely a complicated thing, but we are very lucky. But also we've worked really hard to make these careers for ourselves that works for who we are and what we're dealing with. And that's really cool, on top of being scary and stressful sometimes.

Yeah, it's, it's a very, it's bittersweet, right? It's really good. And it's also really hard sometimes so. And I like to show people both sides because I think a lot of people sometimes are like, they unknowingly don't know what the plight or like difficulty of being chronically ill or disabled can be like and they say things like, "it must be so nice to be able to work for yourself," or like, "I would love to be able to do that but I could never" and it's like when it's not 100% your choice that no other working environment is accessible to you, it is not 100% like this win like positive excited thing. It's it's a combination of, I'm really grateful for the creative pursuits I get to do, but I also wish that I had all of the options available to me that everybody else has at the same time.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. All of these things that we're talking about, like chronic illness, you've mentioned queerness, mental health, identity, all of these things are obviously very important to you and you talk about them very passionately and openly on your social medias and your streams, like all of that stuff.

Did you do any specific work to figure out, what are my values? What is my message or my brand going to be like, or have these things just evolved over time?

Both, I would say. I definitely like came into it with already holding some of these values from just my life and my like political understanding of the world. And like I had studied a lot in university. I took like, my course was like a build your own course kind of, so I was able to really pick and choose a lot of the classes that I was taking. And so I took a lot of courses in disability and women and gender studies and queer studies, and I worked at the Queer Resource Center for my last year that I was in university and I was really involved with some of the protests.

We were doing a lot of work on campus trying to make it a better environment while I was there as well so all of that was already very integrated to who I was as a person in terms of my values.

But then when it came time to sit down and think about streaming, like I didn't want to just get on the computer and start playing video games. Like I love gaming and gaming is a huge part of what I do with content creation. But I really think about gaming as a tool to foster community, a tool to encourage conversation. You know, I'm there to talk to people, I'm not there to play the game. And that's something that is very different from your traditional like gamer bros who are on Twitch showing off how well they can like win these games.

I really think about gaming as a tool to foster community, a tool to encourage conversation.

And like that, if that's your cup of tea, then cool, I don't care. It doesn't bother me. Like you have a skill set that sure, show it off and and make money from it and stuff that people want to watch.

But for me, I really yeah, was centred in this idea of like community care. Like I feel lonely when I first started streaming. I feel lonely because I don't have that connection in my real life with people who understand me and understand my identity. So I'm curating a space that's for other people who are feeling that way who are feeling lonely and like they're not safe and surrounded by people in their real life who make them feel comfortable to really be who they are.

I'm curating a space that's for other people who are feeling that way who are feeling lonely and like they're not safe and surrounded by people in their real life who make them feel comfortable to really be who they are.

And that this space, this little online corner of the internet can be a little safe haven, a little safe nook for them to be able to explore those parts of themselves and share those parts of themselves with other people who are going to meet them with nothing but like, love and kindness and support.

And so that involved like really thinking a lot about my rules and what kind of content did I want to make? And how would I respond when trolls or people like that comment or come into stream? Cause we've experienced hate raids on Twitch and other things like that. So like, that required more of that like forward thinking and that like deeper thinking about like, how do I make this space not only where I'm saying like, "Oh, this is a safe space," but where I'm doing that work to make sure that people actually feel that way when they come.

And that's like an ongoing process that never stops. It's just like always checking in with yourself of like, "hmm, I didn't quite like how that went or how that was received. So how can I shift what I'm doing to make it a little bit more in line with like, what feels right to me with my values and my brand."

Yeah. It's, it never stops. It's just a constant little like rigmarole that we have to do. But yeah, I would say it's definitely both. Like I came in with a lot of those values, but it also requires a lot of thought and planning to make sure that how I'm acting is actually aligning with those values that I say that I have.

I came in with a lot of those values, but it also requires a lot of thought and planning to make sure that how I'm acting is actually aligning with those values that I say that I have.

Yeah. A lot of businesses or brands can spout values and put some nice words on a page or anything like that, but it means nothing if you're not actually doing that thing. So I think that's really awesome that you're being very proactive and intentionally checking in and saying, "am I making this space align with my values? Does it represent these things?" I think that's really awesome.

And obviously that's important for your audience to create a safe space for them. It's also important for you to make sure that, if that hate's coming at you or the community is dealing with things that are kind of overwhelming or a lot for you that it's safe for you to do that too.

And I saw that on Twitter, you had talked about hiding some analytics on your stream manager and stuff like that to make things a little bit easier on your mental health while you're streaming. Why do you think it's important to have those kinds of things in place? And do you have any other sort of tips for making those places a little bit easier in terms of like the analytics, the mental health of, of it all?

Yeah, I, it's, I won't say it's always easy, there's definitely days where it does get to me as well, but I think there are things that you can do to set yourself up for less of those really hard days where you're being really critical of yourself.

I try, there's a number of times where I try to remind folks that the advice that you're going to see when it comes to being a content creator or a streamer.- I think streaming in particular- there's like a lot of grind culture that comes in where people are like, "you just got to be working 24 seven, you got to be putting out a video every day on these 17 different platforms. And like, don't forget that you have to also go hang out and other people's streams to quote unquote network."

And like all these other things that people will give you for advice, like I could go on and on and on. And I'm like, I'm, I'm chronically disabled. I've got like a good like five hours of work in me in a day. And then I'm like, honk shoe me, me, me, me. So I can't keep up with those standards that people put out. And I learned that really early on becoming a content creator.

And one of my biggest goals has been reminding other people who can't keep up with that, that that's valid and that you can still succeed as a creative and you can still see and build a really beautiful community. It's just your pace is going to be your pace and it's not going to look like everybody else's.

One of my biggest goals has been reminding other people who can't keep up with that, that that's valid and that you can still succeed as a creative and you can still see and build a really beautiful community. It's just your pace is going to be your pace and it's not going to look like everybody else's.

And I think when I do things like turn off my analytics while I'm streaming, that is an example of like lining up my actions with my values because there's nothing wrong with using your analytics as a tool to try to figure out like what your community is resonating with. It's just data, it doesn't have to be emotionally charged, but a lot of times it is because we start to associate the worth of our content with who has seen it.

It's just data, it doesn't have to be emotionally charged, but a lot of times it is because we start to associate the worth of our content with who has seen it.

And when I'm live in particular, that is not a healthy time to be looking at that. Like in that moment, my focus and attention should be on the people who chose to show up for that day, who are having a conversation with me and sharing parts of their self with me and sharing their day with me.

And if I'm like clicking, looking at these analytics, stressing myself out and focusing a lot more on who's not there, right? I think then I'm not being a very good community leader and I'm not being very grateful to the people who did show up, even if that's one person, 10 people, 20 people, whatever it is.

So I think that is an example of something that even though it's really hard that I want to have my actions line up with what I say I value. And for me, what I value is community.

I would rather have a low analytic stream day, quote unquote and have really nice conversations with everybody who was there than have- because this has happened to me- I've had streams that we got hit with like a big raid, which is like when another creator brings their community over to you.

And it kind of creates, like the people who are normally hanging out, get really shy because they're like, "Oh my God, a hundred people just came here." And then stream is silent for the rest of stream, like not literally, but it's very quiet because a lot of people get shy and they go and they lurk.

And we have a lot of lurkers in our community in general who have worked up a lot of courage to start talking to us and things like that. But when a bunch of new people come out, they don't necessarily feel as confident, as confident or comfortable to do that.

So for me, the stream where I had like 30 people and we were actively talking, I leave that stream feeling more fulfilled and happy with how the day went because of the conversations that happened, than necessarily the stream where my analytics might show that that was a better stream, but I was kind of just talking to myself.

For me, the stream where I had like 30 people and we were actively talking, I leave that stream feeling more fulfilled and happy with how the day went because of the conversations that happened, than necessarily the stream where my analytics might show that that was a better stream, but I was kind of just talking to myself.

Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I always try to remind myself too, when you think about those numbers and everything, if you had 30 people literally in the room with you listening to you talk, you'd be like, "Whoa, that's amazing. Why are 30 people here to hear me talk?" And so then if you put that then in the context of a stream or a social media post or whatever, it's actually very cool and a lot more than it might seem in the scheme of the internet.

Yes, and also like I think we've seen over the course like as soon as you've been a creator for for longer than a couple of months you see that these platforms are are constantly changing their algorithm. So if you're chasing views, that, in that way, you're going to become burnt out very quickly because the strategy that you finally figure out that's working for you doesn't work indefinitely, and if it's making you unhappy, and then it crashes and burns because they changed the TikTok algorithm again and then that strategy doesn't work anymore.

You're not going to find a lot of like inner joy that's going to help you get through that period where maybe your, your analytics are not where you want them to be. Whereas if you're making content that makes you happy and you think it provides value to the people who are watching it, even though it may still stink and get in your head a little bit when those analytics are lower, it's like, I'm still passionate about the work that I'm doing. So I'm happy to keep doing it regardless of who sees it.

And I think that's really important to the sustainability of you as a creator. I think a lot of people chase views so much that they burn themselves out and then they can't be a creator for a long time. Like I would rather be here in eight years doing this and have a slower growth because I'm doing it the way that I want to do it in the way that I'm passionate about it, than forcing myself to do it the way that you should, which might make me grow faster, and then in a year's time, I'm like, I hate this. I don't want to do this anymore. Yeah. You know?

I would rather be here in eight years doing this and have a slower growth because I'm doing it the way that I want to do it in the way that I'm passionate about it, than forcing myself to do it the way that you should

Yeah, absolutely. And, you just mentioned the shoulds, you mentioned before about the kind of expectation that you're streaming all day and showing up on all these platforms and all of that stuff, which yeah, is not very sustainable.

You've obviously managed to grow your audience and you have quite a great community on Twitter and TikTok and you have your Discord and everything to o, and Twitch obviously, and now YouTube- what do you think has worked for you in terms of getting your name out there and growing that community?

There's so many little pieces to it, right? It's like a really complicated little jigsaw puzzle that involves like luck, it involves making genuine friendships in this space and then people want to support you so they show up because they care about you. I think that's a huge part of it.

You have to make content. I unfortunately see surprisingly like a lot of people who are frustrated in their lack of growth, but they aren't putting out content for people to find them and I'm like, "I understand where you're coming from and I can empathize, but a big part of your job is putting the content out for the people to find you. And if there is no content for them to find, then it's a little bit tough for for you to grow and find your people." So I would say all of those things play a part of it.

I think I kind of spoke about it before, but like doing your thing and being really authentic to who you are, even if it's not what those expectations are, you're then going to find more authentically that the people who do come your way, the people that do come and find your space, that those people are much more in alignment with the kind of community that you're trying to create than if you're trying to appeal to a broader audience.

Obviously you might grow faster that way, but you might get a bunch of people in your community who you don't really resonate with. And then all of a sudden your space isn't that safe for anybody, but also for yourself. And that's really important.

Doing your thing and being really authentic to who you are, even if it's not what those expectations are, you're then going to find more authentically that the people who do come your way, the people that do come and find your space, that those people are much more in alignment with the kind of community that you're trying to create than if you're trying to appeal to a broader audience.

Yeah. I mean, it matches up with what you said before about you'd rather have 30 really engaged people who are, your space is perfect for them, than a hundred people who it's not. So yeah, that makes, makes a lot of sense.

I saw that you had also done or started some like challenges, like you had the Hundred Berry Challenge and you've done the Sims Pride Road to Rainbow Legacy Challenge. Do you think those have helped at all in growing your audience?

Yeah. I think in the Sims community specifically- which is the game that I play the most often, the community that I generally have fostered, a lot of them do enjoy that game- it is quite common to do challenges of those sorts because the game is nine years old at this point. So you're finding a passion in something that, that like doesn't have a lot of glitz and glam anymore right?

Like it's been out for a long time. You're not gonna get community members and views based off of hype, which is something that can happen a lot if you're creating content over a game that has like new iterations. You know, maybe like if you're a content creator and like the second version of the game that you mostly play comes out, like that's a time where you're going to gain like an influx of a bunch of new members if you've been creating content for that game for a while.

So with the Sims being nine years old and the franchise kind of telling us that they have quite a few more years of content for us. Before we will ever see The Sims 5, you have to get creative in order to draw people in. You have to be doing more than just turning on your game and kind of just playing, right?

So for me... that looks like being a like a storyteller. Like I create my Sims, I do these challenges, and I get really passionate about these stories that we're telling, and chat gets really involved with them, and they want to see what's happening next, and they're excited to see the developments that happen, either because I choose that I want that development to happen, or something silly happens in the game, and we just run with it and just kind of go for it. So in a way, yes, because I think it keeps the content interesting.

And at the same time, I think it's not like a main pillar of what makes it successful as content. I think it's just an aspect that plays a part of like, you want to be coming up with creative ideas that are going to excite people to want to see and be motivating for them to show up rather than just, okay, I'm here, I'm playing The Sims, you know, like, It gives something for the audience to become invested in with you.

And The Sims is, I'm autistic and The Sims is one of my special interests. So I think the joy that I have around it can be very infectious. And people often say like, "Oh, like I want to play The Sims now." Like whether they like have never played and they're like, I want to try it, or people who have played but haven't picked it up in a while are like, "Oh, you're making me want to play it but like, I'm in the middle of my work day, so I can't."

And it's like, I'm sorry, but also I'm not sorry, because I guess that's my job, considering they call me an influencer. Those challenges are just for fun and something for the community to get really invested in and to give me a sense of direction as well.

Sometimes with content, you have so many ideas that it's like, you can't pursue every single idea that you have, at least not right when it comes up, maybe over time, eventually you'll be able to get there, but you have to pace yourself, so.

They give me a little sense of direction, so I'm not kind of over here and then over there and then over here and then over there. Like it gives me a little, little thing to focus on and hone in on. So I like them. I think they're fun and I'm excited to see where they take me.

You want to be coming up with creative ideas that are going to excite people to want to see and be motivating for them to show up

I saw that you also stream other things sometimes, you were doing bullet journaling recently, I know you're into crafts and stuff. Is that also just to keep things interesting for you and to make sure you're giving yourself a break from games, or tell me a little bit about doing other stuff too.

I am actually newer to focusing in on one game. That's something I've been trying more this year. I, when I was in my first two years of streaming, I was more of a variety streamer and I would play- the Sims was always included in that- but I would play a more wide variety of games.

And I found that that did kind of give me that sense of being, there's an authenticity to kind of just showing up and doing what you want for that day. And I liked that element of being a full fledged variety streamer where I would just kind of do whatever I wanted for that day, whether that was art or Fortnite or The Sims or, you know, whatever, an indie game.

But what I found from like, a more logistical standpoint is it's not the best for building community sometimes when you're smaller as a creator. Just because you don't have that sense of direction that I was kind of talking about before and there's less intentionality. At least that was my experience. I'm sure there are people who are variety streamers who don't feel this way and that's totally okay, of course.

But for me, it, it lacked that level of intentionality because it was very much like "I'm just going to hop on and do what I feel like doing today" and I think that wasn't as conducive to the kind of environment that I like to create, which is a lot more like forethought and planning of like, "what do I want to talk about today? What kind of conversations do I want to have? And what do I want to do with my game plan? How does that connect to the kind of conversations that I want to have?"

So I've been honing in a little bit on what is it that I'm most passionate about at my core? And for me, I really like simulation games because I feel like there's a lot of storytelling aspects to that and creativity to that where I can tell stories that in other forms of media aren't really shown. I can make queer and disabled characters and tell the complexities of their stories. And I really enjoy that process. It's a special part of what I do.

And then I also narrowed down that I really enjoy indie games and showing off the creative work of smaller developers who don't have the budgets necessarily, necessarily that like triple A games have to promote their games.

So I've narrowed down this year a little bit more and focused in on simulation games and indie games. And that has given me a lot more structure and I think it helps the community also know what to expect. Because even though me as a person, I'm bringing the same kind of energy and vibes every single time I come on stream, a Fortnite stream is still just very objectively different than a Sim stream.

And I had to be real honest with myself of like, I can enjoy games like Fortnite and I can enjoy those in my own personal time, but they don't fit into what I'm trying to do with content. And so I'm gonna take a step back from those. I still like to mix that kind of thing in when we're doing like a special stream because I think it's fun and the community likes to see me doing different things.

And sometimes it's funny because they're like, "Bee can play like a shooter game, tell me more!" Or like a horror game. because they're not used to seeing me do that anymore, but it keeps it fun. It keeps it light and celebratory. But I generally speaking have kind of like found a more specific direction I want to go with my content and I do, I do think that that has helped me a lot.

It makes sense that it's easier for you to like plan and have that direction, it's easier for your audience to expect. And then it's also easier for new people who find you to understand what you do and to get your niche or your brand quite a bit quickly and get your vibe rather than being like, "Oh, they do all these many million things."

Yeah. Yeah. And like, don't get me wrong, I've seen creators who do a really good job at being a variety creator, but I think that requires you to shift your brand to be, my brand is more about me, right? Like it's about the brand, my personality and that's kind of what I'm marketing to you and then you have to be willing to go along the ride with whatever content I provide because the brand is new.

And I think that's really cool, like I like it, but for me that was a lot of pressure. I, I wanted to put more emphasis into, yes I'm a part of it and I'm a big part of it but also like, the content is a big part of it too. And so I wanted to make it more clear for people what they can expect, especially if they are new and they're trying to figure out, is this a space for me?

I think from just my experience, I might be wrong, but the variety streaming kind of thing works a lot for people who might already have an existing audience somewhere else. A really big YouTuber or Instagram influencer or whoever, already has quite a big audience who loves them as a person and will follow whatever they do and all of that stuff. So when they start streaming, they can just do whatever because people will watch it anyway. And yeah, so that makes a lot of sense.

And, I know that along with narrowing down, niching into the kinds of games that you play, you've also started to focus more on YouTube, right? Is that right?

Yes. Yes.

So tell me a little bit about that and how that's going.

Well, this is a complicated one. So, for people who are not very involved in the Twitch sphere, in a, in a short summation, in the last like two years, Twitch as a platform has not been very good about showing the creators on their platform that they value us and that they want to make changes to the platform that benefit us rather than make it harder for us to create content on that, on that space. And that has been really draining.

Like as a creator who predominantly focused on streaming my whole career thus far in the first two years that I was doing things, I considered myself a streamer more than I considered myself like a content creator. Because predominantly I streamed and then occasionally I turned streams into content, and occasionally I would record content that was like related to what I was doing, but mostly I was a community organizer within the space of streaming. Like I really just liked that live content feel where I could talk to people and we were building community and doing things together.

However, when you start to think about sustainability of you know, this is a career and the sustainability of your community and all the efforts you're putting forward, there's not a lot of return on investment in your time when it comes to streaming. That content goes away after a while, and there's no way for new people to find like your old streams, for example, unless you, you can highlight them on your Twitch page, or you can put them on YouTube, which some people do to help improve this, but there's no discoverability on Twitch.

Like people in general, very rarely are going to like go on Twitch and like find your page because at most they're going to look for a game or a category they're interested in watching. And if you are not in the top analytics standpoint of that particular community, you're going to be four, five, ten, twenty pages deep into the search that they do. And Twitch doesn't do a lot to, other than like a little recommended shelf on the side, sometimes that someone might click on, they don't do a lot to like push your content like that. They fully see that as your responsibility to find audience members from making content on other platforms.

And they don't have a lot for being able to even communicate with the audience you do have, so a lot of times your going live notifications won't go out to everybody, like a lot of people will say like, "Oh, like I didn't even know you were live I would have come and hang out earlier but I didn't know because Twitch didn't send me the thing."

And you're just, no community panel type of thing like there is on YouTube where you can like send out a message to everyone who follows you either. So it lacks a lot of tools to make it possible for it to be easier on the creator to build a community and build content on there.

And in addition to all of that, they take 50% of every single subscription that you get financially from people. So that's been tough. And recently they came out with some news that they were, everybody has been advocating for a higher pay split because Twitch is like the lowest of all the other platforms that do payments. Like a lot of other platforms do 70, 30, or 90, 10, and Twitch still does 50, 50. And they came out with this Partner Plus program, which was going to allow certain content creators who met certain analytic requirements to get that 70 30 split.

And that created a lot of turmoil because the way it was designed was only accessible to very few streamers and they were all really big content creators because they didn't include gift subs or Prime subs in the count for how you could access being a part of that.And that leaves out a lot of people. There are people I know, like quite a few of them who have a thousand plus subscribers every month, which is huge, and they still don't qualify because a lot of their subs are gifted by community members.

And now that's being kind of punished in a way, even though it's weird because it's. It's a tool that Twitch gave us. Yeah. And it's people gifting subs out of the kindness of their heart and giving financially. It's not like Twitch makes any less money from those. And they've come out and said it, you know, on their stream, that basically like financially, they didn't want everybody to have access to it.

And it's just been really hard feeling like the platform is really out of touch with what creators need, even though we're the ones that keep the platform afloat. Like they wouldn't have a platform without creators who are making the money and bringing the people in.

So I think a lot of content creators during that time who were streamers and who were prioritizing Twitch really had to take a second and over the course of the last like year or so, re- evaluate whether that was a platform that they wanted to invest a ton more of their time into.

And I'm still really passionate about what I do on Twitch. I don't think any other platform has the tools that Twitch has in terms of community building when it comes to live streaming and those are things like the channel points and how you can customize your channel and you can have like the alerts be personalized to you. Like there's a lot there that you can do that really builds this like special little niche space.

And I love that and I've obviously been doing it for a long time now and my community is also not just gonna like completely follow me over to another platform. That's not how it works. So I've just shifted and adjusted to give myself more space to explore other platforms this year, mostly YouTube and TikTok.

And that means a little less streaming, which is scary because I'm not a partner yet and it's something I've always wanted to achieve. And there's a lot of encouragement of expectations that in order to meet that goal, you need to be doing like a ton of streaming, like long streams, like all these really big, high energy things that require a lot of spoons and time that I just simply can't.

Like maybe other people could just like add something to their plate, but as I mentioned earlier, I have five hours of work in me and then i'm honk shu me me me me. So like I have to be really intentional about how I split up my time, so I started shifting to only three streams a week and so far it's been really nice, you know.

I haven't noticed a big difference in attendance of people who were hanging out before are still hanging out now, and I'm able to put out content for them that then I can post on days that I'm not live. So it's kind of nice because if I'm not there, there's still something for them to enjoy.

And I've been able to be a little bit more creative, right? Because like with editing and being able to like build something out, it's a little bit more of a creative process than just kind of like going live and talking to people can be. So, so far so good.

It's not easy, youTube is a beast. From my research as a creator, YouTube is one of the platforms that is it's a long term investment, right? Like the beginning is really slow and it can be tough because you're putting in a lot of effort and time, which doesn't always get seen by a lot of people. But the more you stick to it and the more you learn about it and the better your content gets like in the long term, it's the most sustainable platform for like making an income that's like reasonable and consistent. And that's, you know, I'm thinking about five years from now Bee and our family and things like that.

So I just had to reevaluate where I was investing my time and I think for now, that makes sense for me to invest more time into YouTube.

That makes a lot of sense. It's disappointing about Twitch being that way, but it's kind of like, how can you find the silver lining and the fact that YouTube, "I can be a lot more creative, like now I can do vlogs."

When I saw that you were vlogging and stuff, I was like, "Oh, I love vlogs. I'm so excited to watch those." And yeah, it's cool to try something new and I'm excited to see how that goes for you.

So as we wrap things up, I have one last question for you. What do you think is either the biggest lesson that you've learned or the best piece of advice you would give to other creators who want to brand their passion.

Oh, that's such a hard question. It's a big question.

Hmm. I think I said it earlier, but I think it, it still applies is that, go at your own pace and do things for you and for the betterment of your community, not for any other external validation reason, right? Like if it sits right in your heart, if it sits right in your soul, if it feels like content that you are passionate about and that you think would bring value to the people who enjoy it, even if that's a small amount of people, longevity wise and sustainability wise, that is gonna bring you so much more joy and success and sustainability than anything else.

Go at your own pace and do things for you and for the betterment of your community, not for any other external validation reason, right? Like if it sits right in your heart, if it sits right in your soul, if it feels like content that you are passionate about and that you think would bring value to the people who enjoy it, even if that's a small amount of people, longevity wise and sustainability wise, that is gonna bring you so much more joy and success and sustainability than anything else.

And it's not easy. It's gonna require unlearning and constant, I always have to like redirect myself back, right? Like you're getting this messaging that's contrary to that. A lot of times people saying like what I said earlier, like you have to do this and you have to do that.

And you're going to have to have that ability to look at that and say, "that's not for me. That might be for somebody else, but that's not for me. So I'm just going to keep going and doing my thing rather than getting stuck on that and seeing that" and being like, "oh, like, am I not doing it right? Is, is, are they right? Like, do I have to do it that way? What if I can't do it that way?"And if you're like always getting caught kind of in that mental spiral, that's going to be really draining for you and make it hard for you to be able to put any content out, to be able to creatively to be creatively inspired. So take things at your own pace.

You're going to have to have that ability to look at that and say, "that's not for me. That might be for somebody else, but that's not for me. So I'm just going to keep going and doing my thing"

And like your growth is your growth, like comparing to somebody else's really not helpful or conducive because you don't know what their circumstances are. I frequently try to be really transparent with, with things and my partner edits all of my TikTok videos.

Comparing to somebody else's really not helpful or conducive because you don't know what their circumstances are.

And I say that because it's relevant because sometimes people look at me and they're like, be like, I don't really understand. Like you say, you're disabled. You say you don't have like a lot of spoons and energy and I'm in a similar boat to you. And I relate to you and I relate to that struggle, but I just don't know how you keep up with everything.

And I will look them in the face and I will say, "I don't, I don't. I'm often behind on my own content, and also I have people helping me, and I only am able to have people help me because I've been doing this for three years, and I've had a couple of really good opportunities that have allowed me to have a savings that allow me to hire an editor."

Like, those are things that, they came from my hard work, sure, but they were also luck and things that you might not have access to yet. So you do what you can with your resources and don't worry about whether or not you're doing what I'm doing or anybody else is doing. And I think that that has been critical for me to learn. And then I try my best to pass that on to other people because it's so, so easy to get caught up in like, constantly telling yourself that you're not enough and you are, you can do what you can do and that is enough.

Yeah. That's perfect, perfect piece of advice. And I think you are an incredible testament that, you know, not that people should copy what you're doing or anything, but that you can do exactly what you just said. You can build your community in a way that works for you, whatever that looks like.

I think this conversation is going to be really helpful for a lot of people to hear how are you doing it? And that's okay that you're doing it this way as opposed to some other ways. And yeah, I'm really grateful to you for sharing your story and for telling us a little bit about what you're doing.

Thank you for having me.

You're so welcome.

Thank you so much to Bee for joining me on this episode of Brand Your Passion –  I loved this conversation and I hope you did too. Their storytelling, passion, and commitment to building a brand that works for them is so amazing and I can’t wait to keep following Bee’s journey!

For even more from Bee, check out their website and follow them on Twitch, TikTok, YouTube and Twitter!