Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / A SMNTY Interview with Jamie Summers

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A SMNTY Interview with Jamie Summers · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff
0:07
Speaker 1: I Never told you Protection of iHeart Radio, and today
0:19
Speaker 1: we are very very excited to bring you an interview
0:22
Speaker 1: segment with a lovely listener in front of the show,
0:25
Speaker 1: Jamie Summers, who we got to talking and realize this
0:28
Speaker 1: this is a whole episode, but if you haven't heard
0:32
Speaker 1: our previous episode we just did on twitch and a
0:36
Speaker 1: brief history of Twitch and some of the issues around Twitch,
0:39
Speaker 1: check that one out first for some context. Jamie has
0:42
Speaker 1: some great insights and personal experience, so we thought that
0:46
Speaker 1: much just add so much to hear from somebody, because
0:48
Speaker 1: if you've heard the previous episode, Samantha and I don't
0:51
Speaker 1: have a lot of know how when it comes to twitch. Yeah,
0:57
Speaker 1: I mean, I've got some ideas. The wheels are turning.
1:01
Speaker 1: So listeners, if you got any support or like, please
1:04
Speaker 1: don't do it. Any replies you want to give, you
1:08
Speaker 1: can send them her away. But yeah, let's dive right
1:11
Speaker 1: into this interview and today we are thrilled to be
1:14
Speaker 1: joined by a friend of the show, general wonderful human
1:18
Speaker 1: being who sends us things, the best thing, the best things,
1:23
Speaker 1: Jamie Summers. Thank you so much for joining us, Jamie,
1:25
Speaker 1: it's absolutely my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Yes, s
1:28
Speaker 1: a chess. We were so excited to have you because
1:31
Speaker 1: we've been lucky enough to get to correspond with you
1:34
Speaker 1: and get to know you through that, but this is
1:37
Speaker 1: the first time we're seeing each other face to face
1:40
Speaker 1: and talking. The magic of technology, that's right, remember actually
1:47
Speaker 1: being I was on one of your live streams, though
1:49
Speaker 1: there was one time that happened and I was able
1:51
Speaker 1: to get on because I'm in Atlanta and you're in California.
1:54
Speaker 1: Was like, oh, let mean you have to get on there.
1:55
Speaker 1: I got to get get on there. So I'm like,
1:57
Speaker 1: I feel like this is even better of course, but
2:00
Speaker 1: like I've seen her heard me, uh cursing like a
2:05
Speaker 1: sailor in the middle of the game, because I'm like,
2:08
Speaker 1: that would be yes. And I remember one of the
2:13
Speaker 1: very first when I first started working here listener males
2:16
Speaker 1: that I responded it was from you, and it was fantastic.
2:19
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yes, yes, yes, yes, But can you introduce
2:24
Speaker 1: yourself to the listeners for us please? All right, Well,
2:27
Speaker 1: my name is Jamie summers Um. I have been going
2:31
Speaker 1: by dark Sakara since before. Some of the people who
2:35
Speaker 1: watched me were born. I got the name the name
2:38
Speaker 1: Sakara as a Japanese major, and then I moved to
2:41
Speaker 1: California and changed my major. But I'm originally from Alabama.
2:46
Speaker 1: I transplanted to California some couple of decades ago, and
2:51
Speaker 1: I have been a gamer since gosh, the seventies. When
2:59
Speaker 1: I was like two or three. My first movie was
3:01
Speaker 1: Star Wars Jealous. I was nine months old, so I
3:05
Speaker 1: don't remember anything. But I grew up playing video games
3:11
Speaker 1: since I was a little kid, and like, I have
3:15
Speaker 1: memories of only being able to play Frogger on roller skates.
3:19
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so I'm just all around nerd. I love
3:24
Speaker 1: just about any game, except for like only one sports game,
3:28
Speaker 1: which is a super high impact on Supernintendo. I love
3:33
Speaker 1: about you left that hanging. I was like that the
3:35
Speaker 1: sports game knows what it did. Yes, like dear sports ball.
3:40
Speaker 1: Do you're saying somewhere else? Yeah? So you've been involved
3:47
Speaker 1: in gaming for a long time. I'm curious because today
3:49
Speaker 1: we're talking about Twitch and a lot of what's going
3:53
Speaker 1: on with it, especially when it comes to women in
3:55
Speaker 1: non binary folks. Because you have been involved in Twitch
3:58
Speaker 1: for a while, can you talk about how that sort
4:01
Speaker 1: of happened and how you you took your gaming to Twitch. Well,
4:06
Speaker 1: it actually originally started with uh with my podcast because
4:10
Speaker 1: we tried to do video casting after we were done
4:15
Speaker 1: with Live through sixty five, which is how we used
4:17
Speaker 1: to do it live. Um, we went to this thing
4:19
Speaker 1: called justin TV and that kind of showed me like
4:24
Speaker 1: some of the sides of of streaming in general. And well,
4:28
Speaker 1: later on justin TV became Twitch Now. I also used
4:32
Speaker 1: to stream doing my artwork on live stream, which was
4:36
Speaker 1: a different service, and I was like, I like video games,
4:42
Speaker 1: and there's the streaming service and a few of my
4:45
Speaker 1: friends have talked about it. I'll give it a go.
4:47
Speaker 1: I have a very obscure collection of video games. Um,
4:52
Speaker 1: I like weird games. And hey, no one is streaming
4:55
Speaker 1: hot to full boyfriend. So the pigeon dating game, so
5:01
Speaker 1: that's new to me. There's a whole back story. I'll
5:04
Speaker 1: sindy stuff on later started an April Fool Joke in
5:08
Speaker 1: Japan is a web based game and developed the fandom.
5:12
Speaker 1: It's like the Goose game. No, it's a dating sim
5:15
Speaker 1: with pigeons. Wow, occup going farther and farther away, all right,
5:20
Speaker 1: we'll come back to this later. You're not. But I
5:23
Speaker 1: like the offbeat games like that. This is something that
5:26
Speaker 1: people go weird. And so I started on Twitch in
5:31
Speaker 1: two seventeen, um, just streaming really sporadically, but I had
5:36
Speaker 1: some bad experiences that pushed me off the platform. And
5:39
Speaker 1: then you know, fast forward to Pandemic and you know,
5:45
Speaker 1: I've been playing a lot of a lot of animal
5:48
Speaker 1: crossing and then I was looking for something new to play.
5:51
Speaker 1: And so my friends like, hey, watched this streamer play
5:55
Speaker 1: Dead by Daylight and I was like okay, and we
5:59
Speaker 1: got to be friends, and I met other people playing
6:02
Speaker 1: Dead by Daylight and I was like, if I am
6:05
Speaker 1: going to learn to play this game, I'm going to
6:08
Speaker 1: do it publicly and embarrass myself because it will keep
6:11
Speaker 1: me playing it. So I went back on Twitch, I
6:14
Speaker 1: re reactivated my channel. I started streaming my very first,
6:18
Speaker 1: really terrible game of Dead by Daylight. And I've gotten
6:23
Speaker 1: I've gotten better, but it's a it gives me something
6:29
Speaker 1: to do. I get to meet new people. I I've
6:33
Speaker 1: met a lot of people, and it was nice to
6:35
Speaker 1: put faces, like in real life flesh faces instead of
6:39
Speaker 1: video faces. When I went to Twitch Con very recently,
6:43
Speaker 1: and the especially the Dead by Daylight community has the
6:48
Speaker 1: lgbt q I A plus circle is pretty supportive, and
6:54
Speaker 1: I felt welcomed almost immediately, and it encouraged me to
6:57
Speaker 1: branch out into other things that I love. So I'm
7:00
Speaker 1: also streaming classic s E S RPGs, especially ones that
7:06
Speaker 1: either never came out over here or had remakes that
7:10
Speaker 1: came out over here, like I'm playing Final Fantasy five
7:13
Speaker 1: right now, and then my other obsession, Cult of the Lamb.
7:17
Speaker 1: So it's basically, when I find a game that I
7:20
Speaker 1: really love, I stream it because if I love it,
7:24
Speaker 1: I want to share it with other people and engage
7:27
Speaker 1: other people so where they might branch out of their
7:30
Speaker 1: comfort zone and play different things. And on top of that, uh,
7:34
Speaker 1: women in general, whether or not you identify completely female
7:39
Speaker 1: or like me as Parai female which is mostly female
7:42
Speaker 1: to a little such a dude thrown in, we're like
7:46
Speaker 1: just under twent of the streamers on Twitch, and we
7:50
Speaker 1: definitely need to have more of us out there and
7:52
Speaker 1: we're representing, so that was another big factor for me
7:57
Speaker 1: hopping into it. And and I'm I'm ace a sexual.
8:02
Speaker 1: We are unicorns and we need to come out of
8:06
Speaker 1: the shadows before you know, Tim Curry hunts us down.
8:10
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, legend reference and I got that reference, thank you,
8:15
Speaker 1: thank you. Any was confused. I actually got that reference
8:19
Speaker 1: to currys waiting to murder me. What he plays a
8:22
Speaker 1: really scary looking devil. It petrified me. It was Tom
8:25
Speaker 1: Cruise's first film. I've talked about this, but I can't
8:30
Speaker 1: watch the unicorn scene, but I digress. Oh my gosh. Okay, Well, so,
8:42
Speaker 1: I love what you said about the community aspects. I'm
8:43
Speaker 1: curious about that because I've never really used twitch and
8:48
Speaker 1: so and Samantha correct me if I'm wrong. You haven't
8:50
Speaker 1: really know very little, right, um, but that is something
8:55
Speaker 1: that we came across when we were reading. We saw
8:58
Speaker 1: similar numbers that you do around women, um, and also
9:03
Speaker 1: just some of this toxicity. But we also saw a
9:05
Speaker 1: lot of stuff of people saying like, but I found
9:07
Speaker 1: this community, and I found this community. So if you
9:09
Speaker 1: could expand on that, well, um. This also ties back
9:16
Speaker 1: a little bit to to my show is that one
9:20
Speaker 1: of my co hosts is out gay, and so he
9:23
Speaker 1: introduced me to UH to the Dead by Daylight l
9:28
Speaker 1: g B t Q I a community first and foremost
9:31
Speaker 1: Rob and his husband Allen, and they both stream as well,
9:34
Speaker 1: so it was sort of through through them that I
9:36
Speaker 1: was able to to meet I started off meeting what
9:40
Speaker 1: I say, the right people, you know, the people that
9:43
Speaker 1: I could identify with, the people that felt similarly to me.
9:47
Speaker 1: That and the community is just amazing, Like I think
9:53
Speaker 1: the first person I started watching was Losing Color with
9:57
Speaker 1: a you, um amazing dead by Daylight player um and
10:02
Speaker 1: just a delightful human being we finally got to meet
10:05
Speaker 1: in person, and such a delightful person. But it was
10:08
Speaker 1: through LC that I got to meet other people, other
10:11
Speaker 1: streamers in the community like Nick and prints um put
10:15
Speaker 1: ins Um. I love everybody's names. Uh, you know, just
10:22
Speaker 1: so many different people has lands leapin online. Just those
10:25
Speaker 1: are but you know, but they're all guys, you know.
10:29
Speaker 1: It was more through them than I started meeting some
10:32
Speaker 1: of the trans women on UH in the Dead by
10:35
Speaker 1: Daylight community, like Howdy Kelsey really amazing, really amazing player
10:41
Speaker 1: or uh the Leona oou you know, like the little
10:45
Speaker 1: energy um and and I felt encouraged by just being
10:51
Speaker 1: friends with them. They're always ready to talk you up
10:55
Speaker 1: when you show up in the room to give you
10:57
Speaker 1: a shout out, and it's kind of kept me doing
11:02
Speaker 1: this even when I go into my chat and I
11:04
Speaker 1: have five people, you know. But it's the it's the
11:09
Speaker 1: fact that people are very quick to defend each other,
11:14
Speaker 1: you know, very quick to stand up that you know,
11:17
Speaker 1: they'll make sure that they're in the right when they
11:19
Speaker 1: defend somebody. UM. And on top of that, like, I'm
11:24
Speaker 1: actually doing a streaming marathon on November fift to raise
11:28
Speaker 1: money for my mom's medical bills UM, and every last
11:33
Speaker 1: person in the community that I've reached out to says, yeah,
11:36
Speaker 1: we'll play with you when you do it, and will
11:37
Speaker 1: help you promote it, and you can talk about it
11:39
Speaker 1: in our channel, and some of them have even already donated,
11:43
Speaker 1: so and and on top of that, the other thing
11:46
Speaker 1: I love about the community in general is that they
11:49
Speaker 1: partner with streamers for a cause. Some of them do
11:53
Speaker 1: UM raising money for medical research. Raising money for the
11:59
Speaker 1: Trevor Project is one of the big ones that I
12:01
Speaker 1: see for UM. For l g B t q A youth,
12:05
Speaker 1: They're always doing fun different types of fundraisers and tournaments
12:10
Speaker 1: to raise money and I like being a part of that,
12:14
Speaker 1: given that I also am one of the Sisters of
12:16
Speaker 1: Perpetual Indulgence. Um. Although I'm a rogue none that that
12:22
Speaker 1: part of doing good and being charitable was seeing that
12:26
Speaker 1: in this community. Is the other thing that that really
12:29
Speaker 1: attracted me to this group. Yeah, and I guess for
12:33
Speaker 1: the listeners who don't know, do you want to explain
12:36
Speaker 1: what the Sisters of professional Adults? I'm said here going
12:39
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's the real thing, so I'm
12:40
Speaker 1: not going to ask. So the Sisters started in the
12:44
Speaker 1: seventies in San Francisco, where a group of gay men
12:47
Speaker 1: put on none habits to protest about the AIDS epidemic,
12:50
Speaker 1: and it grew from there. It's now international. Um, we
12:54
Speaker 1: have houses and many cities around the world. I separated
12:57
Speaker 1: from the local house though due to issue us of misogyny. Um.
13:02
Speaker 1: So I'm a rogue nun. I do my own thing,
13:04
Speaker 1: but I mostly uh do work now online and with
13:08
Speaker 1: the San Francisco House. I like them a lot. But yeah,
13:11
Speaker 1: they they go out and raise money and help the
13:14
Speaker 1: lgbt Q I a community, and you know, help with
13:19
Speaker 1: like here. I know our group puts a lot into
13:21
Speaker 1: the Gender Health Center here to help people with their
13:25
Speaker 1: identity and and the Sacramentaries Foundation. So we're basically we
13:32
Speaker 1: do the work of nuns. We go out there and
13:35
Speaker 1: we do what we what we believe, except we just
13:39
Speaker 1: look a lot more fabulous, you know, put on that
13:43
Speaker 1: put on that drag. I even my sister name is
13:47
Speaker 1: ve Kiki. That is some of the creative things that
13:52
Speaker 1: I'm like, Wow, I did not know this was under
13:55
Speaker 1: this umbrella of this community. That's amazing. One of the
13:58
Speaker 1: originals with sister missionary position of course by a different
14:03
Speaker 1: name now, but yeah, I love that. You know, I
14:21
Speaker 1: don't know much about the Twitch community. The things that
14:24
Speaker 1: I hear about are oftentimes the big stories. So of course,
14:27
Speaker 1: you know, you hear whatever the fallout is and or
14:30
Speaker 1: the encouraging things, because I've heard both things where people
14:33
Speaker 1: are driven off of this platform because of the constant
14:36
Speaker 1: harassment and or not enough security, not enough overall supervising
14:42
Speaker 1: of what's going on in that type of platform. But
14:44
Speaker 1: then of course, yeah, I've actually actually heard about people
14:46
Speaker 1: uplifting people and bringing people into the community with open
14:49
Speaker 1: arms and really like showing them family through online, which
14:55
Speaker 1: we know happens in all kinds of like being a
14:59
Speaker 1: part of the general AO. Well, you know, you know,
15:04
Speaker 1: you know my spouse, but like it's kind of the
15:09
Speaker 1: beginning of like understanding these two types of separate reactions
15:14
Speaker 1: when it comes to Twitch. And you tell me, because
15:16
Speaker 1: you as you have talked about before that you had
15:18
Speaker 1: been driven off. Why do you think platforms like this
15:21
Speaker 1: get to be so extreme or in your own experiences,
15:25
Speaker 1: what makes it worth coming back to answer both questions,
15:28
Speaker 1: I'll start with the first about the extremities with any platform,
15:34
Speaker 1: the bigger it gets, the with more people, it's a
15:38
Speaker 1: more chance for drama. You know, that's just the nature
15:41
Speaker 1: of any group. And I think that with some of
15:45
Speaker 1: these more highly publicized people, like what happened with Amaranth lately.
15:50
Speaker 1: Now that wasn't anything directly related on Twitch, but it
15:54
Speaker 1: affected her Twitch persona and how she you know, how
15:57
Speaker 1: she had had to present it. You know, that's a
15:59
Speaker 1: that's a terrible situation to be in. But the community
16:03
Speaker 1: has been very polarized about it. There if there's been
16:06
Speaker 1: those those jerk faces out there, I'm trying not to
16:09
Speaker 1: use anything stronger who have like completely blasted her when
16:15
Speaker 1: she was not in the wrong. I mean, there's been
16:18
Speaker 1: a lot of people that's really supported her and I'm
16:20
Speaker 1: glad she stayed on the platform to continue to do,
16:23
Speaker 1: you know, to do her her thing, to be to
16:26
Speaker 1: be who she is and actually be able to be
16:29
Speaker 1: honest about it. There have been you know, I've been
16:32
Speaker 1: hate rated before, when all those hate raids were going on,
16:36
Speaker 1: you know, saying terrible things about me being Jewish, about
16:41
Speaker 1: me being female presenting, about you know, being a queer
16:46
Speaker 1: person on the internet. And of course we got that
16:50
Speaker 1: taking care of pretty quickly, but the hate raids were
16:54
Speaker 1: very big scene because Twitch is a target, it's an
16:59
Speaker 1: easy target it and i'd say gamers, there's still that
17:04
Speaker 1: rather public perception of those of us who play games
17:07
Speaker 1: that we're you know, the nerds, you know, the the
17:12
Speaker 1: we we were all super bullied in high school and
17:16
Speaker 1: m m m. And not all of us were, with
17:17
Speaker 1: some of us were. And I think that just that
17:21
Speaker 1: perception requires a lot of delicate handling to dismantle. But
17:29
Speaker 1: it's again part of that is what leads into the
17:34
Speaker 1: people looking down on streaming in general. Were of course,
17:38
Speaker 1: Amazon seemed to realize that it was gonna make a
17:40
Speaker 1: ton of money, so they were pouring into it, so
17:43
Speaker 1: I think and of course the bigger you get the
17:45
Speaker 1: more open you become for for criticism, and people don't
17:49
Speaker 1: know you. I mean, you may try to be your
17:52
Speaker 1: most genuine self out there on your streams and on
17:55
Speaker 1: the Internet and however you do it, but in the end,
17:58
Speaker 1: people don't know you there. They don't really know who
18:03
Speaker 1: you are unless you know, taking the time to converse
18:07
Speaker 1: with them and get to know them as a person.
18:09
Speaker 1: So that also leaves this big room for judgment. And
18:14
Speaker 1: with the anonymity of the Internet, it's like they don't
18:19
Speaker 1: know who I am. It's not like you know, fifteen
18:22
Speaker 1: years ago, where I could track someone's i P for
18:25
Speaker 1: you know, making a thread on a web forum say oh,
18:28
Speaker 1: by the way, you live here, But now we can't.
18:33
Speaker 1: We don't really necessarily have that ability anymore in the
18:36
Speaker 1: age of VPNs and i P masking and and all
18:40
Speaker 1: of that. So they and on top of that, there's
18:44
Speaker 1: this other contingency that's been using twitches report policy against streamers,
18:50
Speaker 1: especially you know, l g B, t q A plus
18:54
Speaker 1: streamers who you know might reclaim certain terminology, but the
18:58
Speaker 1: use of that terminology is against twitches t os, so
19:04
Speaker 1: they get them banned. That happened to my friend putting's there.
19:07
Speaker 1: There's all sorts of of drama that goes on with
19:12
Speaker 1: such a big facility. And like again I said, the
19:14
Speaker 1: bigger the streamer, the bigger you are a target. Um.
19:18
Speaker 1: Of course, the more marginalized you are as a streamer,
19:20
Speaker 1: the bigger the target you are too. So especially another
19:25
Speaker 1: big thing going on with UM, with female streamers in general,
19:29
Speaker 1: is this fetishization. Oh, you're this anomaly. You have to
19:33
Speaker 1: look like extra hot and all of this. And I
19:37
Speaker 1: fell into that. You know, I do my makeup every stream.
19:40
Speaker 1: I try to look my best. And finally I said,
19:43
Speaker 1: you know, screw it and shaved my head most of
19:47
Speaker 1: my head. I'm growing it out. But it felt liberating
19:52
Speaker 1: for me to sort of buck that convention and go, well,
19:54
Speaker 1: your standards aren't my standards, So you take me as
19:58
Speaker 1: you get me, and if you don't like it, you
20:00
Speaker 1: can go just to this, you know, hot tub bikini
20:04
Speaker 1: stream that apparently is a real thing right at now.
20:10
Speaker 1: As far as the thing that keeps me on Twitch,
20:15
Speaker 1: it's going to be things like my friends, the community.
20:20
Speaker 1: I've built my own community in my chat. We we
20:22
Speaker 1: all have like our little mini communities, but they all intersect,
20:26
Speaker 1: like these concentric circles UM and my little community is
20:31
Speaker 1: very supportive. You know. I have the support of my
20:34
Speaker 1: co hosts, I have the support of my other streamer friends.
20:38
Speaker 1: And it's really like, when when I announced about my
20:43
Speaker 1: voice issues because I've been fighting um throat strain, the
20:48
Speaker 1: amount of outpouring of love and support that I got
20:53
Speaker 1: from my my community just by itself and from my
20:58
Speaker 1: streamer friends, I was like, holy crap, you guys don't
21:01
Speaker 1: know me. It will. I mean, some of them now
21:02
Speaker 1: know me in real life things to twitch con but
21:05
Speaker 1: it's like, you've only known me as this voice and
21:08
Speaker 1: now with face on a channel, and you're sending out
21:11
Speaker 1: this much love and support. How lucky am I? You know?
21:16
Speaker 1: So when I go in and I've got like maybe
21:19
Speaker 1: five people in my chat one day, those five people
21:22
Speaker 1: are important to me because I'm not just doing it
21:26
Speaker 1: for myself. I am doing it to provide something for
21:29
Speaker 1: other people to build, you know, a positive place. You know. Yeah,
21:36
Speaker 1: maybe I'll talk trash during a match. I'm always really
21:39
Speaker 1: nice endgame chat, and I encourage people that I play with, Like,
21:45
Speaker 1: because I'm on Stadia right now, I'm going to be
21:48
Speaker 1: transitioning back to Steam using a service called Boosteroids. Since
21:51
Speaker 1: I stream on a Mac, I'm a unicorn, but I
21:54
Speaker 1: encourage people to um an endgame, to come into my
21:57
Speaker 1: chat and say hi. Whether not they stay is one thing,
22:01
Speaker 1: but it's again for me, part of that is stopping
22:05
Speaker 1: this sort of salty uh negativity in games and try
22:10
Speaker 1: to show hey, we're people, let's just be nice, you know.
22:15
Speaker 1: So that's part of it. That is nice because I
22:17
Speaker 1: my experience with gaming chat has been like I'll never do.
22:24
Speaker 1: So I'm glad to hear that you are building and
22:26
Speaker 1: others are building this space where it's much more supportive
22:30
Speaker 1: and friendly and fun. Like. There's still can be competition,
22:33
Speaker 1: but it's not like what I think most people perceive
22:36
Speaker 1: in what I experience, So I am very happy to
22:39
Speaker 1: hear that. Well. I do also have a slight ulterior
22:42
Speaker 1: motive because my inner aries has to rear her ugly head. Um.
22:46
Speaker 1: If I'm really nice to somebody and they continue to
22:49
Speaker 1: be a butt about it, well they look bad and
22:51
Speaker 1: I look awesome, But that's not why I do it
22:55
Speaker 1: for maybe we'll never know for sure, both yeah, and
23:05
Speaker 1: then I can wish them to be stuck in you know,
23:08
Speaker 1: a windowless, doorless room full of legos, barefoot. Oh yeah,
23:13
Speaker 1: that's my favorite curse. That's a good one. That's a
23:15
Speaker 1: good one. One of the things that we read was
23:22
Speaker 1: for women who are gamers and streamers on Twitch would
23:27
Speaker 1: get a lot of like criticism about their looks, but also, oh,
23:31
Speaker 1: you're not a real gamer. Have you gotten stuff like that?
23:34
Speaker 1: I have for playing dating sims until like the majority
23:38
Speaker 1: though of my uh, I would say, of my male
23:41
Speaker 1: viewership tends to be gay me in um, you know,
23:47
Speaker 1: and and a few uh a few straight guys that
23:51
Speaker 1: are in there watching me. Are they like the same
23:54
Speaker 1: kind of quirky stuff that I do? But I have
23:57
Speaker 1: gotten the oh dating sim as an real game? Or
24:01
Speaker 1: why don't you play a Call of Duty? And I'm like,
24:04
Speaker 1: I don't like Call of Duty. I like that by daylight.
24:08
Speaker 1: I you know, I play what I like in to
24:12
Speaker 1: hell with what anybody else thinks of me playing it.
24:14
Speaker 1: I mean, I I have built a really thick skin
24:19
Speaker 1: over the last you know, twenty years of doing of
24:23
Speaker 1: you know, just being a female on the internet. You know,
24:29
Speaker 1: my own show started twenty years ago. We've been we
24:32
Speaker 1: had our twentieth anniversary this year and My first email
24:36
Speaker 1: feedback was she should stop talking and go make a sandwich. Wow. Original,
24:43
Speaker 1: Why can't they be creative? I was like, well, of course,
24:46
Speaker 1: I'll make a sandwich for me and then I'll come
24:50
Speaker 1: back sandwiches. Sandwiches are awesome. You can't have my sandwich
24:54
Speaker 1: is mine now. But this is the thing, is that
24:57
Speaker 1: I just stopped caring. You know, I don't care. If
25:01
Speaker 1: someone you know wants to criticize it, that's their problem.
25:04
Speaker 1: It's not mine, you know. I I play what I
25:08
Speaker 1: like and if they don't like it, they don't have
25:10
Speaker 1: to stay in my channel, and I will tell them so.
25:12
Speaker 1: And if they remain in my channels saying these things,
25:14
Speaker 1: I will make sure they cannot say them. With the
25:16
Speaker 1: band button, I will slam that band hammer down faster
25:20
Speaker 1: than you can blink do. I do not have to
25:24
Speaker 1: put up with that crap. It's my channel. I'll say
25:26
Speaker 1: what I want. There you go, yeah, well, I guess.
25:30
Speaker 1: Kind of speaking of what are some of the tools
25:34
Speaker 1: you've seen some improvements on Twitch, perhaps when it comes
25:38
Speaker 1: to things like harassment um for instance, And then what
25:43
Speaker 1: in what ways do you think Twitch could improve? I
25:47
Speaker 1: will say that one of the first things that has
25:50
Speaker 1: been positive with them adding in the custom tags where
25:56
Speaker 1: you can tag your own channel as you know, whatever
26:00
Speaker 1: wanted to be, like I use the Jewish tag, I
26:01
Speaker 1: use the a sexual tag, I use the l g
26:04
Speaker 1: B t Q A plus, and those help you bring
26:07
Speaker 1: in more people who are going to be more in
26:11
Speaker 1: your quote group unquote. Um. That helps. Of course, it
26:15
Speaker 1: can make people a target. So they also have in
26:18
Speaker 1: the whole verified user system now where you can set
26:22
Speaker 1: up this security to where um, they have to verify
26:27
Speaker 1: their Twitch account first instead of just making a burner
26:30
Speaker 1: with a button on my stream deck, I can change
26:33
Speaker 1: my chat to follower only, I can change it to
26:37
Speaker 1: subscriber only, I can change it to emote only if
26:41
Speaker 1: I want. You know, and that those tools are really useful.
26:46
Speaker 1: That said, there are a few other things that that
26:51
Speaker 1: can be done, like like what happened with my friend
26:54
Speaker 1: Putting's Now, this was before some of this was implemented,
26:57
Speaker 1: so I will throw that bone out there, but he
27:01
Speaker 1: was banned for a month during Pride Week when he
27:05
Speaker 1: had all this stuff planned because someone came in and
27:09
Speaker 1: dropped the three letter F bomb on him and he
27:12
Speaker 1: said it back because it's a reclamation right and but
27:16
Speaker 1: they still abandoned for it, and the appeal system wasn't
27:22
Speaker 1: conducive to help actual innocent people. So I think their
27:26
Speaker 1: appeal system definitely needs some work. I think that there
27:31
Speaker 1: should also be I'm not going to necessarily say like
27:35
Speaker 1: a three strikes rule, because again, the appeal system is
27:38
Speaker 1: kind of right now that's my description, but I think
27:44
Speaker 1: that they could have better moderation. Better moderation. I think
27:49
Speaker 1: that they also need to realize that people don't just
27:54
Speaker 1: game on PC. We have Macinlyn excusers and have more
27:58
Speaker 1: tools open for people on those platforms. I think that
28:03
Speaker 1: they all show should really put a lot of effort
28:08
Speaker 1: into promoting their female presenting streamers, especially they're streamers of color. UM.
28:14
Speaker 1: I am a big fan of the Sisters of Fog,
28:19
Speaker 1: which is a streaming group of women and female presenting
28:24
Speaker 1: people of color who play Dead by Daylight, wonderful group
28:27
Speaker 1: Team technicolor other persons of color who played Dead by
28:31
Speaker 1: Daylight in other games. I think that they need to
28:35
Speaker 1: to really make sure that they're doing more to promote
28:42
Speaker 1: their marginalized streamers. They are doing a lot of really
28:45
Speaker 1: good things with charity, um, you know, they have uh
28:50
Speaker 1: this whole charity system now built in where you can
28:52
Speaker 1: run a fundraising stream that every bit sub payment, all
28:57
Speaker 1: of that goes to your charity of choice, and Twitch
29:00
Speaker 1: gets nothing out of it, no money. They just help.
29:03
Speaker 1: And I think that making sure that they audit the
29:07
Speaker 1: causes that are allowable on there, make sure that that
29:11
Speaker 1: money is going to go to reputable resources, you know,
29:16
Speaker 1: like they may say, oh, we're women's health organization, but
29:19
Speaker 1: it's really like you know, Christian Coalition. No, they definitely
29:23
Speaker 1: need their audit system to to be top notch for
29:26
Speaker 1: something like that. But those are just like the off
29:29
Speaker 1: of the top of my head things. I mean, I'm
29:33
Speaker 1: sure if I sat down and really matalist, I would
29:36
Speaker 1: have a novel. But I also believe be critical of
29:41
Speaker 1: the things that you love. This year they did a
29:56
Speaker 1: twitch Con. I just heard of the disasters this year
29:58
Speaker 1: also the good things, but the does but like I said,
30:02
Speaker 1: I don't get them big news. Um, but yeah, you
30:04
Speaker 1: went this year, Can you kind of tell us about
30:06
Speaker 1: your experience and all with all that? Oh? Yeah, so
30:08
Speaker 1: this was the first twitch Con back since the pandemic,
30:12
Speaker 1: and it was it was bigger than I thought it
30:15
Speaker 1: would be. And I've done my fair share of conventions,
30:18
Speaker 1: you know, automy XPO, fantome gam Er X when it
30:21
Speaker 1: was a thing. One of these days, dragon Con one
30:24
Speaker 1: of these days that Twitch Con was was pretty amazing. Um,
30:29
Speaker 1: I didn't meet anybody I didn't like. First of all,
30:34
Speaker 1: everyone was pretty supportive of me. There was even some
30:37
Speaker 1: decent costplay, you know we I costplayed. I did too,
30:40
Speaker 1: did By Daylight ones. Um I did uh Julie of
30:45
Speaker 1: the Legion, which my mask broke and I lost my knife,
30:49
Speaker 1: and I did the pig as in the same pig
30:52
Speaker 1: from Saul, but a special cosmetic that used in Dead
30:56
Speaker 1: by Daylight. There was a big daddy. There was a
30:59
Speaker 1: repped are from Regrats. Yeah, there's there's like a scarlet
31:06
Speaker 1: witch cross player around, you know, just just it was.
31:09
Speaker 1: It was fun, but I didn't feel that same sort
31:12
Speaker 1: of let me take your picture. In fifty other people
31:15
Speaker 1: saying let me take your picture, it was like, oh yeah,
31:19
Speaker 1: can I get a snap? And more people wanted like
31:20
Speaker 1: a character selfie. It was kind of fun. I liked it,
31:24
Speaker 1: but they had a drag show and I knew just
31:28
Speaker 1: about all of the queens on their I was regulars
31:31
Speaker 1: in their channels, like Lyndon Bradshaw did a mental health
31:36
Speaker 1: themed UH performance. Marisaw Lords another great one. Um. But
31:42
Speaker 1: the drag show was new and it really was just
31:45
Speaker 1: this major outpouring of positivity and support for the community.
31:51
Speaker 1: Um I that was for me like the highlight of
31:54
Speaker 1: the con next to meeting my friends. They had an
31:57
Speaker 1: artist Ali that I talked to. It actually a couple
32:00
Speaker 1: of the artists and apparently this year they didn't have
32:02
Speaker 1: to pay a fee. Twitch reached out to them to
32:06
Speaker 1: have a booth in the artist sally and so it was.
32:10
Speaker 1: It was really positive that way. Um. The staff was amazing,
32:15
Speaker 1: except for um, some of the vendors there, which we
32:20
Speaker 1: There was the jousting drama this uh one streamer they
32:24
Speaker 1: had like this jousting pad kind of an old American
32:26
Speaker 1: gladiator style, you know, with the big foam bats, and
32:30
Speaker 1: the pit was full of these phone blocks, like the
32:33
Speaker 1: kind that you fall into as a stunt, right. But
32:37
Speaker 1: what they didn't show is that it was quite shallow
32:41
Speaker 1: and I mean and the people had to wade through
32:43
Speaker 1: it to get up on the platforms. But the thing
32:46
Speaker 1: is it's very deceptive and this one streamer and for
32:49
Speaker 1: the life of me, now I can't remember her name
32:51
Speaker 1: off the top of my head, but she's pretty vocal
32:54
Speaker 1: about it on Twitter. She won her match, it was great.
32:57
Speaker 1: She did like a full on cheerleading ump off of
33:02
Speaker 1: the platform and landed in the film, but she landed
33:06
Speaker 1: on her tailbone and she ended up breaking her back
33:10
Speaker 1: in a couple of places and actually had to have surgery.
33:13
Speaker 1: And can I list a trigger warning right now? She miscarried.
33:19
Speaker 1: She didn't know she was pregnant. She ended up miscarrying,
33:22
Speaker 1: And so yeah, screw signing an agreement you know of
33:26
Speaker 1: non liability. They need to be held accountable for it.
33:30
Speaker 1: Um another Streamerum damaged her knee pretty badly doing that.
33:36
Speaker 1: The the amount of oversight on at least those stunts there,
33:42
Speaker 1: they needed a lot more. Definitely didn't seem like if
33:45
Speaker 1: it was up to any code. It was the bare
33:47
Speaker 1: minimum code. And then they had this other little competition
33:51
Speaker 1: where you it's like you would play like with your
33:53
Speaker 1: siblings in the house. She keep the balloon in the
33:55
Speaker 1: air and they tried to recreate it like with furniture
33:59
Speaker 1: and stuff, and people hurt themselves doing that. Although in
34:02
Speaker 1: the positive note, they did have some wheelchair users play
34:08
Speaker 1: the game. Too, so they got to participate. But still,
34:12
Speaker 1: you know, um, there was a lot of corporate presence,
34:17
Speaker 1: not necessarily the Twitch Amazon side of it, but they
34:20
Speaker 1: had a ball pit that was full of those little
34:23
Speaker 1: you know, ballpit balls and Velvina shells and cheese, the
34:27
Speaker 1: individual packets, and they were just giving away that and
34:29
Speaker 1: I was like free food. Okay. Wendy's had a present um.
34:34
Speaker 1: Capital One had a presence, and they had like some
34:36
Speaker 1: deal that if you buy Twitch merch with Capital One
34:40
Speaker 1: then you get a discount. And I was just like,
34:43
Speaker 1: how about like putting a placard on the wall and
34:47
Speaker 1: not giving them their own big booth. Maybe not all
34:51
Speaker 1: streamers are that, I would say, mature with credit. There
34:57
Speaker 1: was a lot of money spent. I spent a lot
34:59
Speaker 1: of money. I'm terrible. But it was long, like that
35:06
Speaker 1: main floor this is the San Diego Convention Center, you
35:10
Speaker 1: know where they do uh Comic Con, And it was long,
35:16
Speaker 1: but you had only two ways upstairs. There was an elevator,
35:21
Speaker 1: but it was kind of out of the way, so
35:23
Speaker 1: you had these two staircases at the very end of
35:27
Speaker 1: one of the bottom hall and the very end of
35:29
Speaker 1: the other. But they're only letting you into the building
35:34
Speaker 1: through late gate. I think it was like C and
35:36
Speaker 1: D in the middle um or kind of in the middle,
35:40
Speaker 1: and to get around the upstairs you had to do
35:43
Speaker 1: a lot of walking to get to some of the
35:44
Speaker 1: convention rooms. And then there was there was like this
35:48
Speaker 1: little cabana area, but they also had like the special
35:52
Speaker 1: area for Twitch partners. I'm only an affiliate one day,
35:58
Speaker 1: but but there was a lot of really preferential treatment
36:03
Speaker 1: to the partners. And becoming a partner is pretty difficult
36:08
Speaker 1: and pretty arduous. Some people have to reapply so many
36:12
Speaker 1: times after they meet the requirements, and I think that
36:15
Speaker 1: there there should have been I mean, affiliates got some swag,
36:20
Speaker 1: I mean, yea a pen and some stickers, but I
36:25
Speaker 1: think that there should have been a little bit more.
36:30
Speaker 1: I agree the partners they should get some extra perks,
36:32
Speaker 1: but I think the affiliates probably could have deserved to
36:36
Speaker 1: get a little bit more as well, because we're I
36:39
Speaker 1: think affiliates are the bulk of the Twitch streamers. So
36:44
Speaker 1: the overall was a fun experience. You know, they had
36:47
Speaker 1: food vendors and I got to eat pretzels and never
36:51
Speaker 1: get anti as pretzels, and they had them and just
36:56
Speaker 1: meeting with friends, but it was pretty pretty crowded the
37:01
Speaker 1: first couple of days. I'm glad you've got such a
37:04
Speaker 1: good time. Yeah, yeah, well I know this. This question
37:09
Speaker 1: is always like, but if you have any like quick
37:12
Speaker 1: advice for any listeners here, like maybe I want to
37:14
Speaker 1: get more into twitch, maybe I want to start streaming,
37:17
Speaker 1: what would you tell them? There's a few things. Number one,
37:19
Speaker 1: be consistent. Have a schedule. Hello. A lot of people
37:23
Speaker 1: don't publish a schedule or just a stream whenever they
37:27
Speaker 1: want to. But having a schedule means that your your
37:32
Speaker 1: community as it grows, will know when you're going to
37:35
Speaker 1: be there, and even if you have to change that schedule,
37:38
Speaker 1: like I have to from my work because we get
37:40
Speaker 1: new schedules every six months. I published my new streaming
37:44
Speaker 1: schedule well in advance. I have a pinned post on
37:47
Speaker 1: my Twitter that says here's what my schedule will be
37:50
Speaker 1: as of this time, and put it out there so
37:53
Speaker 1: people know not just where to find you, but when
37:56
Speaker 1: to find you. Put where you're going to play on
37:58
Speaker 1: that day. If it's going to be random game, to
38:01
Speaker 1: say hey, it's going to be random game, don't be
38:04
Speaker 1: afraid to toot your own horn. Don't go advertising in
38:07
Speaker 1: other people's channels. But and I'm not meaning this to
38:11
Speaker 1: say use the people that you meet to advertise yourself.
38:14
Speaker 1: But build relationships with other streamers. You know, they you
38:19
Speaker 1: promote them, they promote you. It's like the community deal.
38:22
Speaker 1: We all uplift each other, you know. And the biggest
38:27
Speaker 1: thing is like, don't go into another streamer's chat and
38:30
Speaker 1: be a jerk. Never do chat. But um, having a
38:35
Speaker 1: discord is very important because it keeps your community working
38:41
Speaker 1: together while you're not live, and you can use it
38:45
Speaker 1: to announce events and to you know, say like if
38:49
Speaker 1: you say that you have malaria and you have to
38:53
Speaker 1: cancel the stream, that's it. That's extreme. But you can
38:57
Speaker 1: do a post, Hey I'm an hospital with malaria. I
39:01
Speaker 1: can't stream tonight, you know. And you know, and it
39:06
Speaker 1: also you know, just having those those moments where you're
39:10
Speaker 1: real with people. Don't don't build up a persona so
39:14
Speaker 1: much as just be yourself. Talk about real life stuff,
39:18
Speaker 1: get to know people, Ask people in your chat how
39:21
Speaker 1: their days going, you know, be nice, be consistent, that's
39:26
Speaker 1: the that's the biggest things. And don't give up. I've
39:32
Speaker 1: I've been back for a year. I just top the
39:35
Speaker 1: five follower mark, not too terribly long ago. It takes time,
39:40
Speaker 1: it takes effort, and it takes just putting yourself out there.
39:44
Speaker 1: Don't don't be afraid to put out yeah in the
39:49
Speaker 1: right way. And business cards. If you go to twitch
39:55
Speaker 1: corn have a business card. It makes a difference. Okay.
39:58
Speaker 1: Uh And speaking from woting other people, I know you
40:01
Speaker 1: sent some recommendations. Is there are there any streamers you'd
40:04
Speaker 1: like to shout out? Well? Um, I would actually like
40:07
Speaker 1: to to my my podcast horn with you know. UM.
40:12
Speaker 1: I do a show called Orange Lounge Radio. We record
40:15
Speaker 1: live on Twitch at Vogue Network Victor Oscar Golf Network
40:20
Speaker 1: Voice of Geeks along with our friend Bobby black Wolf
40:23
Speaker 1: does a wonderful show and he also streams on his
40:26
Speaker 1: own channel, Bobby black Wolf. Rob Roberts is one channel.
40:29
Speaker 1: Alan Alchemy is Rob's husband. Loki O l R. Is
40:32
Speaker 1: my other co host and he does Minecraft. And then
40:35
Speaker 1: for the Dead by Daylight community, there's Howdy Kelsey, wonderful friend,
40:41
Speaker 1: really fun streamer. There's uh the Ladybird Um a mama
40:46
Speaker 1: streamer also plays Dead by Daylight. Uh, there is Uh,
40:51
Speaker 1: It's me Holly just made partner not long ago. Wonderful
40:55
Speaker 1: Streamers does Scary Games. She's hilarious. Um Miss Barne Australian
40:59
Speaker 1: stream er um what also plays Dead by Daylight, plays
41:03
Speaker 1: the Scary Games, plays that Disney game that everyone's doing
41:08
Speaker 1: art by Kingdom hearts No, like the Disney Magical Adventure
41:13
Speaker 1: or whatever it's called, where it's kind of like like
41:16
Speaker 1: a sim Oh, there you go and do tasks for people.
41:21
Speaker 1: It's okay, it's interesting. Some people are playing VHS, which
41:25
Speaker 1: is sort of like they said it was going to
41:27
Speaker 1: be the Dead by Daylight Killer, but it's so different
41:30
Speaker 1: from Dead by Daylight. But it's still an asymmetrical survival game. UM.
41:34
Speaker 1: And then as far as uh others in the lgbt
41:37
Speaker 1: q i A community, there's a losing color uh nick
41:41
Speaker 1: and prints that's an N in the middle. Put in
41:44
Speaker 1: pu d d n Z lapin online as in lapin
41:48
Speaker 1: like rabbit l A p I N. I feel kind
41:50
Speaker 1: of sad for not mentioning everyone's name. Black sikin O
41:53
Speaker 1: two wonderful streamer Empire TV. Also from where I grew
41:59
Speaker 1: up in Alabama, although I know you and I have
42:03
Speaker 1: had a mutual growing up spot in Alabama have strange enough. Yeah,
42:09
Speaker 1: I know, I thought that was so funny. You know,
42:12
Speaker 1: all those doth in summers, right, yeah summers. Don't get
42:19
Speaker 1: me started on my allergies when I go visit family there.
42:23
Speaker 1: But but yeah, just tons of streamers, you know, any
42:26
Speaker 1: one of those people that I mentioned, people who show
42:29
Speaker 1: up in their chat are also worth visiting. Their wonderful people, intoxicated, uh, dese, nuts,
42:36
Speaker 1: c a, um, fluffy, all kinds of people. They're all
42:42
Speaker 1: just delightful human beings, very supportive and our circle's intersect.
42:46
Speaker 1: So if you go to one, you'll go to another.
42:48
Speaker 1: Um check out my page because I have recommendations right
42:51
Speaker 1: on my Twitch page. It's Dark Sacra Underscore O l
42:55
Speaker 1: R oscar Lima Romeo for Orange Longe Radio. Um but
43:00
Speaker 1: d A r K s a K you are a
43:02
Speaker 1: like Cherry Blossom Underscore O l R. You know, go there.
43:06
Speaker 1: I have all kinds of you know, people that I
43:08
Speaker 1: recommend right on my Twitch page. And you know, if
43:14
Speaker 1: it's anyone wants to hit me up for more recommendations
43:18
Speaker 1: on on Twitter at dark Soccarra. I don't do the
43:20
Speaker 1: Facebook fair enough. Yeah, And if you're a streamer listening
43:25
Speaker 1: to this and you want to network. I'm more than
43:28
Speaker 1: happy to to help other streamers you know that that
43:32
Speaker 1: want a hand up or want a friend. I'm more
43:35
Speaker 1: than happy to be there to do what I can.
43:39
Speaker 1: We have to uplift each other. I love seeing this
43:42
Speaker 1: supportive thing that you were you're talking about, So yes, listeners,
43:47
Speaker 1: go find Jamie Summers. Um, thank you, thank you, thank
43:50
Speaker 1: you so much for coming on and talking with us
43:52
Speaker 1: about this. Thank you for telling me I'm this is
43:57
Speaker 1: the highlight of my day. We can make the day.
44:01
Speaker 1: I love it, um, and I hope the episode does.
44:05
Speaker 1: You're proud, but yes, thank you and thank you for
44:09
Speaker 1: all your your support through these years. We really really
44:12
Speaker 1: appreciate it. If I may, Yes, this is the way
44:15
Speaker 1: I end my streams. Be kind to yourself, be kind
44:20
Speaker 1: to others. Go forth and conquer. You got this? Yes?
44:23
Speaker 1: I love it? Um. Is there any place uh you
44:26
Speaker 1: want to shout out where the listeners can find you
44:28
Speaker 1: other that you haven't already said? Um? I am on
44:32
Speaker 1: Instagram sometimes at Dark Sacra um my TikTok is Dark
44:36
Speaker 1: Sacra Underscore o l R. I mostly do videos of
44:40
Speaker 1: my cat and my pinball collection. My spouse and I
44:44
Speaker 1: are super into actual real pinball, so uh and and
44:48
Speaker 1: sometimes I'll just do myself cavetting about things, and I
44:51
Speaker 1: will sometimes repost clips from me playing a game on there.
44:55
Speaker 1: So yeah, find me on TikTok and be extremely bored. Um.
45:00
Speaker 1: But yeah, the rest of my stuff is actually linked
45:03
Speaker 1: directly through my Twitter channels, so you can also just
45:07
Speaker 1: follow links there. It's easier, yeah, easy, easy, all right, Well,
45:10
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, thank you so much. Thank you, Yes,
45:14
Speaker 1: and go forth and conquer. Yes and listeners. If you
45:18
Speaker 1: don't like to contact us, you can. Our email is
45:21
Speaker 1: stuff of your Mom stuff at ihart me you dot com.
45:22
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter at moms to podcasts,
45:24
Speaker 1: or on Instagram and stuff We'll Never Told You. Thanks
45:26
Speaker 1: as always to our super producer, Christy, thank you and
45:29
Speaker 1: thank you for listening. Stuff I Never Told the production
45:31
Speaker 1: by Heart Radio More podcast for my Heart Radio. You
45:33
Speaker 1: can check out there heart Radio ap Apple podcast wherever
45:35
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows