I've been doing this for more than 2.5 years and yet I feel like I'm always learning something new about being a #vtuber . It's easy enough to give advice, things like sticking to a consistent time or playing something that isn't a pain to slog through, but in practice you-
never really appreciate this as much as when it becomes relevant?
Like, I'm coming to terms with the fact that, there just aren't many games that I feel comfortable playing on a hard/very hard difficulty on stream, much less in general. That comes with variations in-
-difficulty and personal skill level and, frankly, just how long you've been playing it. I can get my head knocked around constantly in most fighting games and be back to playing the next round through like, FT20. But as much as I love Selaco, it is such a chore to play on-
-admiral mode- as most doom clones are. Those difficulties, even according to the developers, are meant to be stressful if not outright unfair. These are games where your opponents are hitscanners, for one thing. You need to literally memorize their positions and even then-
-it will STILL be unfair because of randomized spawns. What was once an interesting challenge and entertaining stream turns into repeating the same corridor for 30+ minutes while you're only getting more tired and more frustrated, holding back the doubt off how your viewers-
Contrast this with a game that either is "hard" but not in a way that is necessarily unfair- meaning you'll figure it out after a couple tries- or a game that expects you and wants you to die, so it streamlines the respawn process or randomizes the next map.
I don't typically enjoy rogue likes, but maybe that's because the "genre" (outside of Nethack etc anyway) was fairly rough back in the day, and games today are a lot more streamlined by comparison. 4+ hours of Empty Shell gone in an instant- and I even spent time during that-
-stream to vtube mostly in character and progress some #lulzlore bits with my viewers who are following that ARG in the background. It really broke up the pacing a bit and allowed me to "rest" between deaths.
Why can't I do this with, say, other games? Shooters, even?
Maybe it's not even a problem of the genre or the difficulty. Maybe it's a problem of expectations, like trying to hold myself to finishing a game for the first time in months. (I don't even remember the last game I played to completion on stream). The nature of my current-
-real world situation means that I can't stream at a consistent time, more like a time "range" more than anything, and other factors- like the state of the world, and my (fragile) mental-emotional health, honestly makes being a vtuber feel like a chore. And then there's-
-social media being typical social media, with garbage takes mixed in with grifters doing what they do best. It's hard, I guess, to have anything to do with this industry and adjacent fields, and doubly more when you personally feel like you have nothing else going for you-
-in your life. I don't see any point in going back to school. The industry I graduated with (journalism) is actually more depressing than the entertainment industry, and the field I'm in (healthcare) is just a slow grind into a depression filled, mediocrity soup.
I hold onto this because I feel like the alternative is watching the seconds of my life tick by, with very little time to feel happy or, well, self worth. I have to shut off everything to avoid being told by strangers online that if I don't do this or believe this or eat this-
-or think this or look like this that I simply don't exist. Then when I do all I have really is the silence and the silence used to be great for a few months. Then those months became weeks and then those became days and I realize I graduated from college... 12 years ago.
and what do I have to show for it?
I wrote a science fiction novel, you know. And then I spent like... three, technically four, years running a roleplaying group expounding on that novel because I never cleaned it up and never got it published.
And then one thing and another happened, and that group got torched. I needed a new thing to become passionate about and in a hurry, because I think maybe what horrifies me the most about all these years spent as a so called "content creator," is that I hate both of my selves.
But I tolerate the online one. The "fictional" one, insofar as any and every person that you see who creates "content" is "fictional." The dolled up version that looks and acts a certain way because that's what brings you the clicks, babe. The likes and subscribes.
You think I'd feel comfortable being a nonbinary bisexual effeminate male in meatspace?
What about an investigative jou-
Just stop right there and understand, I'm only here because what I am or who I am has no value-
This is probably one of the few times I'll ever allow myself to be "vulnerable" on social media, and that's because as of right now, I am so fucking tired. So, so fucking tired.
I'll leave it to you to decide just how much of it is "true."
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