There are hundreds of major misconceptions spread about what it takes to become a
streamer, what it's like to be a streamer, and generally about the streaming industry every single day.
Today i want to cover not one not two but three major misconceptions that i think are part of
the reason why new creators such as yourself will feel burned out disheartened and eventually quit
streaming or worse continue and never grow an audience and never understand why let's go
i want to tell you guys the truth about streaming but i have been terrified to
make this video now for months because i've been scared of the comments and the backlash
from the people who are upset to hear the truth about three things in particular the first we're
going to talk about is what it takes to actually be successful when starting out on twitch the
second how much money you'll actually earn and the third which we're going to say for the end of
the video because it'll upset the most people the reason why you might not be growing on twitch and
why you might never grow on twitch you guys know me though i hate negative videos that don't give
you actionable steps and places to grow so with every single negative misconception i cover in
today's video i am going to give you a series of actionable tips to break out of that misconception
and start growing as a content creator there are time codes in the description and top comments
so feel free to skip ahead to whatever you want but before i jump into that you know what isn't
a misconception how fantastic our sponsor own.tv is i want to say a serious thank you and shout out
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the first misconception of this video that i need to cover is about your motivation what is driving
you to hit that go live button and create content when nobody is watching or when you hit plateaus
or difficulties in growth some of the most common motivations that i see coming from you guys are
because the job looks fun and easy or because you like to be the center of attention or probably the
worst motivation i see which is also one of the most common is how much money the top streamers
make and how people want to earn that as well which we're going to cover in its own tip in a
second this is going to be brutal to hear but if either of these three motivations are your
core reason for becoming a content creator then you will most likely quit very early on in your
journey not because of anything wrong with you but because none of these things exist for a very long
time don't get me wrong there's nothing awful or evil about wanting these as your motivations it's
just when you're starting out this isn't enough to keep you going you need a core passion or core
keenness to fuel you in this journey when you start out if you're going to be upset that you
don't have thousands of viewers or you aren't getting paid thousands of dollars rather than
appreciate that you have five to ten viewers who love watching your streams or maybe you've got
five to ten people paying to subscribe to you then you're doing this for the wrong reasons it's okay
to want to have growth but you need to appreciate what you have now as well and understand how far
you've come the internet has absolutely ruined yours and my concept about how many viewers
is good if i have 30 viewers watching me that's about the same size as my high school class
and i loved when i made all 30 of them laugh so why wouldn't i be happy to have 30 viewers
i get asked daily what my secret to motivation is and how to start motivating yourself as a creator
and i will let you in right now there isn't one i see the word motivation being thrown around in
hustle culture or like some magical spell like you have to wait to feel motivated so you can start
working on your projects but spoiler that isn't how it works motivation is literally just the
reason to act if you say that you aren't motivated it just means you don't have a good enough reason
to act or you can't see a good enough reason to act so ask yourself why aren't you motivated
why is your reason not good enough before we move on to covering the truth about money and to the
tip that i'm most nervous about at the end let me give you three actionable tips about what it
takes to get motivated the first i want you to write down why you want to be a content creator
and you have to be very honest with yourself here for me i love making people laugh i love talking
to others and i love connecting with people and also i didn't get enough attention as a child
the second step is to start using smart goals s-m-a-r-t it's an acronym i have a whole video
covering it it is your secret weapon to productivity i swear i will link it in
the description and potentially on the cards at the end of this video check that out after this
one the third and final step is to stop looking at motivation like it is a magical feeling and
start looking at discipline and routine jerry seinfeld is the best example of this strategy
he is probably one of the top 100 comedians of all time everyone knows his name he uses a
concept that is now called the seinfeld strategy he got a large whiteboard calendar that had 365
squares on it for all 365 days of the year and he said that he had to write jokes every single
day and if he wrote a joke he would put a big x up on that board and he would do his best
to never break the streak of exes if he kept at it the streak would get longer and longer
and because it got so long the motivation not to break that streak got stronger and stronger
what he was actually doing was kickstarting a routine and the discipline but the most important
part about this is he didn't say the jokes he was writing had to be good he just said he had
to put the time in and work in and this will surprise you but by doing it every single day
he got better at it he got faster at writing the jokes became funnier and he had more material
to work with i want you to find your streak that you can do daily and then never break that streak
because by finding your streak you will find your motivation and you'll be able to continue to learn
and become a better creator if you're curious what streak i do mine with it's actually scripting i
script every day for a minimum of 30 to 45 minutes and it always keeps me three to four scripts ahead
the second misconception is all about money this was recently highlighted because of the twitch
leak that leaked everybody's revenue specifically people were really caught up with the top
streamers the twitch leak got everybody talking about how the top streamers earned millions every
single year and it also sparked a huge influx of people wanting to become streamers i got a massive
amount of comments from people wanting to as they say get that bag which if you're hip like me means
make all that money the reality that the twitch league should have highlighted though is how
actually the majority of streamers earn almost nothing off the platform recently myself and a few
other creators were having a chat we're all around 100 to 200 viewers and we got into the incredibly
depressing and idiotic job of looking at the hourly earnings we made on twitch for our first
year i can't go into too many specifics about this because obviously there are contracts in place to
cover our revenue but if we're talking about our streams in our first year first total revenue
earned well then it actually came out that most of us had around one dollar to four dollars an hour
earned in our first year now depending on how fast you grew in that first year you would be
higher up on that list for example i was around the three dollars to four dollars mark whereas
a lot of people were around the one dollar to two dollar mark here's the thing that makes it so much
more depressing though is that you're not just working as a streamer when you're live no you're
also spending two to four hours every single day planning out your content posting on socials
editing tick tocks or videos and just generally prepping to make sure your content can be as good
as possible and when you take all of those hours into account pretty much every single one of us
ended up earning around 50 cents an hour for our first year and i'll tell you what i streamed a lot
less hours than the majority of new creators do in their first year for the love of god
do not get me wrong i am not complaining this is not a woe is me moment i don't want pity or
anything like that and you can probably tell this definitely isn't a flex i'm just trying to show
you guys that even someone like myself who grew to partner as a variety streamer in under a year
still did not make anywhere near a livable wage from twitch i started streaming in march 2020
and i didn't quit my other two full-time jobs until march 2021 and i didn't quit because of
my twitch revenue i quit because of my youtube ad revenue and my youtube sponsors if i didn't
have this channel even now i could not be a twitch streamer and content creator full time
and don't even get me started on how much the twitch revenue fluctuates depending
on the time of year the month to month and just generally what you're doing on stream
and also how it comes directly from your viewers pockets in the forms of donations subs and bits
making it one of the least sustainable and least ethical ways to earn revenue as a content creator
i will say though all of that is coming in next week's video so subscribe and now for the truly
depressing part of the money misconception i see comments every single day telling me that this
is your only hope to make income you've had an accident you're in debt your family needs help
and you've heard how good twitch is for earning revenue as a creator so you're jumping in this
absolutely breaks my heart because as i've just shown you and as how so many creators can attest
you won't earn money as a content creator and a twitch streamer for so much further down the
line but i see it being perpetuated over and over and over again how much money you can earn as a
twitch streamer but in reality you don't earn that until you're much larger and you don't get there
until you've worked for hours on end for nothing i promised you an actionable tip and i'm a man of
my word if you want to become a content creator to earn money then i recommend diversifying as
soon as possible have as many different platforms going as you can such as a youtube channel to have
passive ad revenue or a patreon where you post exclusive content and most importantly
do not quit your job until you are completely sustainable because these platforms are fickle
and it can all go away overnight and then you're going to end up making how-to guides on youtube
it is time for the final misconception the final truth and this is the one that i'm honestly so
nervous to talk about i considered cutting it entirely because every time i even try and say
this every time i even try and hint at this i get told i'm the scum of the earth and i'm crushing
dreams and i'm not being understanding this truth is the fact that viewers and potential viewers
just want good reliable content that is entertaining viewers do not care about your
day job that means you can't have a consistent schedule they don't care that you can only
stream from console or that you can only do 480p they don't care about your terrible microphone
because it's all you can afford at the end of the day viewers don't care about the reasons why
you can't do the things that others are doing to be successful if a viewer joins your stream and
it is low quality maybe it's blurry maybe it's only 480p maybe it sounds terrible maybe it's
boring and not engaging they won't stick around to watch more and the really hard part to hear
is they don't have to if they do follow and they come back the next day but you're not live at the
same time or potentially you don't even have a schedule so they can't find when you will be live
next maybe you've changed your content drastically because you just got bored of the playthrough you
were doing well then they're likely to leave and find someone else find someone who is more
consistent find someone who's more reliable that they will be live when they want to watch content
or just generally has a higher quality stream that is just the truth of content creation it
is incredibly saturated there are hundreds of thousands of streamers out there for viewers to
choose from nobody owes me or you viewers and if we make low quality content well then there
are other streamers just a few clicks away that are making better content that people can go and
click content creators need to remember that we are delivering a service just like any business
and if we don't perform that service or we don't deliver on what we promise well then people will
go to someone else who delivers a better service i love clicking on random streams in the stream
scheme discord when people are asking for feedback and actually giving them actionable
tips and actionable feedback but one of the most disheartening things that seems to be happening so
often is when i give you those actionable tips to hear someone turn around and say yeah no i'm not
doing any of that i have a job so i can't have a schedule my pc's from 2010 my internet [ __ ] and
i hate editing my cat's plotting to kill me and i just don't feel like being entertaining or funny
until i already have viewers what am i supposed to say to that okay well good luck the actionable
tip here is to stop looking at all the reasons why you can't do something and start looking at them
as reasons why you have to work harder on the things you can do in order to be successful if
you can't have a consistent stream schedule fine make a consistent posting schedule on youtube or
tick tock or wherever take the time that you would sporadically go live and instead invest that time
sporadically editing scripting filming all your videos and tick tocks and releasing them build an
audience on consistency on a different platform that you can actually achieve and then when you
want to stream they'll already be there for you and this goes for every single reason as well
terrible internet upload other content instead of trying to stream don't like editing tough luck it
is literally a mandatory skill for video content whether it's streams or not you're gonna need to
learn how to do it i don't understand why people try so hard to get out of editing obviously some
roadblocks are easier to overcome than others i'm not saying this is simple or easy quite the
opposite i'm trying to explain that it is such a small percentage of content creators who are
allowed or lucky enough to do this long term that you have to take every single opportunity
you can to increase the likelihood that you will be successful because at the end of the
day if i start making terrible content tomorrow if i start ignoring what you guys want to see
if i make an honest but harsh video about what it takes to actually become a streamer or i stop
improving my content and stop trying to make it better then you guys will stop watching it and the
only person to blame is me it isn't the biggest streamer's fault it isn't the female streamer's
fault it isn't twitch's discovery or the youtube algorithm's fault and i'll tell you what it
certainly isn't the viewer or the audience's fault or the guy making youtube guides his fault no it
is my responsibility whether or not i take action at the end of the day it is my responsibility
whether i grow or not whether i make good content and how hard i work and how much i motivate myself
which is why i work hard to improve my content because you guys deserve good content you deserve
interesting informative and honest advice about what it takes to do this and about the journey
that i'm going on as a content creator so thank you for always watching me speaking
of improving youtube algorithms seems to think that you guys would really like to click on this
video and try it out why don't you give it a go see if youtube is right and see if it helps
improve your content and to help grow your stream i'll see you guys next week subscribe