#but i need a second cat. tally needs the company during the day & another cat to play with

[orcelito]

Gonna be visiting the animal shelter on Saturday to get a new cat, which means I have to Prep for a new cat.... which means cleaning my bathroom for Cat Containment Purposes........ ughhh

[imperium-romanum]

Welcome to 2019, everyone!

I spent the last week and a half at my family’s shack, enjoying the company of close family and friends, and Kali the #ClassicsCat, of course! I’m excited about the fresh start the New Year brings. 2018 was a difficult year for me personally. I haven’t talked about it on the blog because I prefer to focus on positives but as I prepare to face this New Year head on, I would like to reflect on some of the major hurdles that I had to overcome in 2018.

In January, my partner and I were forced to get a restraint order against my neighbour of six and a half years who became aggressive and threatening due to severe (suspected) drug-induced paranoia. We moved in with my parents while we went through the process to have the temporary restraint order confirmed. The restraint order was confirmed in February – a win – but we were not able to return to our unit. The local council, after 11 years of my parents owning the property, decided that our unit was not a legal dwelling. Bureaucracy at its finest.

During March and April, we fought the council for an explanation and started to try and resolve the problem. It seemed we were much more willing to work with them than they were to work with us, though. Shortly before the Easter break commenced my parents received a threatening letter from the council claiming that we were still living in the unit and that we would be fined approximately $20,000 AUD for the violation. This claim was blatantly false, but we still had to go through the process of overturning the impending fine.

We continued to try and solve the problem with our unit in May, but this was soon put on the back-burner when our cat, Kali, developed ketoacidosis due to undiagnosed diabetes. Within the space of 12 hours, she went from being her bright happy self to knocking on death’s door. She spent four days in constant care. I am forever grateful to my parents who paid for her care, which quickly tallied in the thousands. Without their compassion and love for her, we would have been forced to put her to sleep. I recieved many well-wishes during this time from followers, and I am thankful for the support and kindess you showed.

Left: Kali at AHVEC, weighing just 2.7kg. Right: Kali snuggling me and my fiance at a much healthier 4kg.

Kali's struggles weren't over, in June. She again visited the emergency vet hospital after getting into the bin, pulling out a wedged in chicken container, and eating the silicone absorbent pad while we were out for a half-hour at most. We still don’t know how she managed to do it! Thankfully it wasn’t serious in the end; she brought it all back up and suffered no consequences apart from all the dirty looks that my family gave her because of the panic she caused.

After a couple relatively quiet months, my fiancé’s family dog, Jess, also developed diabetes. She was not as lucky as Kali, however, and did not respond to treatment. Within weeks she went completely blind, among other problems. At only 9 years old, my fiancé’s parents were forced to make the difficult decision to put her to sleep. While I do not regret being there for them, it was the first time I had to deal with death in such a confronting way and it was a terrible reminder of how lucky Kali was to survive.

I hit perhaps my lowest ever point mental health-wise around this time. Although the semester was very rewarding, after such an intense period of balancing my personal life and commitments, PhD research, studying a language, and tutoring both academically and privately, I felt emotionally and mentally used up. The best way to describe how I functioned during this period is that I was on auto-pilot.

 Although 2018 was undeniably the most difficult year of my almost 26 years of life, there were plenty of positives too. In January I completed my Confirmation of Candidature, which involved presenting a 20-minute paper on my research topic. Then, in February, I was very lucky to upgrade my car by 12 years. Again, I am very grateful to my parents and very aware of how fortunate I am that they are willing and able to assist me financially, with work flexible enough to fit in with a PhD being so hard to come by.

I entered my second year of candidature in late February. It was a reasonably uneventful couple of months until, over two days, I gave two more presentations in May – one at Pint of History titled ‘Catastrophic Crassus: Parthia, #EpicFails, and the Death of Rome’s Richest Man’ and one at the Humanities Showcase at my university, titled ‘It Speaks! The Voice of the Door in the Roman Paraclausithyron’. 

I also secured a casual job at UConnect, UTAS’s student services. I had four weeks of nearly full-time work at the start of both semesters which allowed me to save enough money to get me through each semester.

In June, Kali’s glucose curve stabilised, much to ours and the vet’s relief; she has settled into diabetes life well ever since.

July was a month of firsts. I went to New Zealand for the first time and attended my first conference, Amphorae XII. At Amphorae XII, I presented my first conference paper, ‘Pompey’s Eastern Settlements: Considerations and Consequences’. I met some wonderful people, including some mutual followers! I also visited some of the sights, including the Auckland War Memorial Museum, Auckland Art Gallery, Hobbiton, and Hamilton Gardens.

When I returned from New Zealand, I enjoyed another four-week stint working for UConnect and, through the semester, I was also lucky to tutor the first years for HTC104: Introduction to Ancient Rome. This was my first time tutoring in an official capacity and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

When September came around, I received the good news that my abstract had been accepted for ASCS40. My fiancé and I were also finally able to move out of my parents’ house and back into a place of our own. The situation with our unit is still up in the air, unfortunately, but it is moving slowly forward. Still, it’s important to appreciate the small milestones, so to celebrate our return to relative independence we established a small succulent garden in the back area and grew far too many tomato plants.

In November, I reached a major milestone in my PhD journey by completing the necessary coursework element (what UTAS calls a Graduate Certificate in Research) of my degree. As a result, I now have the equivalent of a minor in Latin on top of the Certificate itself. Imperium Romanum also reached its first anniversary!

Finally, in December, my fiancé and I spent many weekends at the family shack enjoying the blessedly warm weather that usually skips Tasmania. Over the Christmas-New Year break, I went to the beach a record three days in a row. Sometimes, you just need to enjoy the simple things.

And so I must turn my attention to 2019. This, like the years before, will be another big one. I’m venturing into the third year of my PhD candidature in late February and, with the GCR finished, I’m looking forward to devoting my time to research. I’ll be attending not one but (hopefully) two conferences this year. The first is ASCS40, 4 to 7 February, at the University of New England in Armidale. It’s now only 33 days away – my funding was approved in December and I’ve booked my flights, accommodation, and hire car. As with Amphorae XII, I’ll be live tweeting the conference and blogging about my adventures in Armidale, which I have not visited before. I’m also hoping to attend Roman Memory: Pacific Rim Roman Literature Seminar 33 in July at the University of Newcastle – I’ll keep you posted on that one.

To finish up, I have a few New Year’s Goals that I would like to share with you. I won’t call them resolutions as I find that term comes with a lot of negative connotations; I’m not solving problems nor do I need to ‘better’ myself. Instead, I want to focus on enjoying all aspects of my life, from the private sphere to the academic. 

 1. Read more fiction. 

I love reading, yet, over the last few years, I’ve noticed that I do very little reading simply for the pleasure of it. Because the last six years of my life have been so academically focused – having gone straight from a Bachelor to Honours to a PhD – I’ve spent so much time reading for university subjects and research that the thought of doing more reading, even fiction, is exhausting. I could probably count the number of new books I’ve read (that haven’t been set for a class) on my fingers. I’ve set myself the goal of reading two to three new fiction books every month – if I can read more, great!

 2. Do more activities.

Last year, I went on a fantastic one-day road trip with two friends to Freycinet National Park on Tasmania’s east coast. Then, through December, I enjoyed many more small adventures with my fiancé. Even though I’ve never been particularly fit, I’ve always enjoyed the outdoors. Now that I’m equipped with some top quality hiking boots, I want to get out more – do more bushwalking, walk more rugged and rocky coastlines, and explore more of Tasmania’s wilderness.

I also want to spend less time playing computer games (much as I enjoy them), and more time making things. I’m no artist, but I still love to create things. I’m going to start off by making a pom pom rug in my Harry Potter house colours – Ravenclaw – to go under my desk. I won’t be posting my creations of Imperium Romanum, but I will be posting about them on Instagram and Twitter for those who are interested.

 3. Participate in a ‘100 Days of Productivity’ challenge.

While I have a reputation for being a productive student with good grades, the truth is that I am a chronic procrastinator who happens to be very good at whipping up strong assignments last minute. Even outside of the academic sphere, I’m somewhat of a procrastinator, thanks in part to anxiety. So, while I will continue to bring you the latest Classics news, there will be some changes coming to Imperium Romanum as I turn more attention to the everyday realities of studying Classics and my experiences as a student. Life can often be overwhelming, and acknowledging this and finding a better way to tackle the day-to-day burdens before the month-to-month or the year-to-year is going to be a major focus for me. I think that a productivity challenge is an excellent way to do this. Starting January 3, I’ll be documenting my productive efforts via Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr. While I expect most of my days will be related to research, I have no doubt that the challenge will have a positive impact on my life outside of university.

  And with that, I’ll wrap up. To all my followers, old and new, I wish you a very happy and prosperous 2019. I hope you’ll share your adventures with me too, and I encourage you to share your New Years Goals – my ask box and submissions are always open!

~ Admin @sassy-cicero-says

[alexpricewrit1133porfolio-blog]

Research Essay

Introduction:

Online entertainment is becoming a huge part of leisure time for a great deal of people. Whether it’s people relaxing and watching netflix, hanging out and chatting online, browsing social media, or watching cat videos a ton of people spend most or even all of their free time on the internet. Of this time spent, two rapidly growing pastimes are Youtube videos and for some, livestreaming. Almost everybody knows Youtube. How could you not? It’s the second most visited site on the internet behind google. Recently content creators have taken video making to the next level. Live Streaming is becoming a massive online phenomenon. Essentially instead having people record things and post them for you to watch afterwards, you can watch them do it live. You can also hang out and chat with other people watching the same thing, and interact with the person livestreaming. It’s crazy how popular this is becoming. There are a lot (not just a few) people livestreaming full time as a career. Some of these people make millions of dollars every year doing nothing but livestream.

Livestreaming is primarily focused on two websites. Twitch.tv and Youtube.

Interestingly enough, even though Youtube has much more traffic than Twitch, Twitch has much more livestreaming related traffic. This is because Twitch did it first, and Twitch is focused purely on livestreaming, while youtube is primarily a video watching website. So knowing all this and spending a lot of time on these websites, there was only one thing I didn’t really know. What are these people’s (videomakers and livestreamers) lives like off camera? How much work goes into what they do and how does it affect their lives beyond the job? Obviously, this is a big question. So I decided to look into it. Do you know what I found? Nothing. Nothing at all. There was a lot of research about how to make content, how to monetize your content, the different ways to get payed for your content, and almost everything there was to have on the content, but practically nothing on the people behind the content. Needless to say I was pretty shocked. Something this popular, and nothing on the people who do it? This was a golden opportunity.  During my personal research, I focused on all the things that weren’t a part of my lit review and my secondary research.

 Lit Review:

As it stands there is a very small amount of research on content creation as a whole, and an even small amount on Youtube video makers and Twitch Livestreamers. This does not mean research on these topics does not exist, simply that it’s scarce. However, amongst the already scarce research done on Youtubers and Livestreamers, research about the people behind the content is practically nonexistent. There is a lot of research about the companies and their business models, research working to understand why these models are successful, analysis on different parts of these models and explanations of how the sites function. But there is almost nothing on the people behind the content. How do these people make a living, is content creation their full time job? If so, how is it possible for them to run a successful career doing something that seems so simple? What goes into becoming and maintaining success? How do they acquire their income? How does much work is there off camera? How does the job in general affect their day to day lives off camera? How is the job different on different platforms? Is it easier to get started on one platform if you have a following on another? If so, how much easier? There a million questions one could ask about the people working in content to creation. This proposal will explain what we already know, and offer questions I would like to answer.

To ensure my task is appropriately completable and maintain a proper attention to detail, I will be focusing primarily on two of the biggest content creation websites: Youtube.com and Twitch.tv. You may or may not have heard of Twitch.tv. If you haven’t,  it is a website where people can quickly and easily create and watch livestreams. Anyone can livestream themselves doing anything they want, and though the site primarily focuses on streaming video games, there is something for everyone. Twitch is the 50th most trafficked site on the internet (Alexa.com) and has even reached 4th most during peak hours (Egger). Twitch has over 34 million unique viewers a month (Hamilton 1) Twitch is already one of the biggest content creation websites and continues to grow rapidly, but is also unique because livestreaming is obviously different than video making and other forms of video content. Because livestreams are much longer than Youtube videos and other things (a livestream will easily span many hours while a Youtube video is almost exclusively less than one) Twitch functions a lot differently than many other content creation websites, making it particularly interesting to research. Finally, Twitch is a very new website with very little research, making it a great research opportunity.

Theme 1: Understanding Twitch

First and foremost, we need to understand what a Twitch stream is. Twitch streams combine a live video interface with a text based chat channel (Internet Relay Channel). Viewers watch the video and participate in the chatroom, talking with other people that are also watching the video. The livestreamer can also read and respond to the chat as he or she streams. In fact, much of stream content isn’t just gameplay, many streamers spend a significant time interacting with their viewers both in and out of game.

In my research, I will look at things primarily through a video game lens as it makes things easier to compare. Even though Twitch has a variety of content is remains gaming focused, and it is easier to examine through that lens. Youtube branches out more but still has a huge gaming section that functions very similarly to the rest of the website, while Twitch’s other sections function differently. First, we need to know what about gaming attracts people to media. This is a complicated question with many different possible answers, but most researchers seem to agree that these sites succeed because humans tend to be social creatures and on sites like twitch, William Hamilton said “people engage in live streaming for two reasons: they are drawn to the unique content of a particular stream, and they like being interacted with and participating in that stream’s community.” Thomas Smith provides a list of the nine most common personas of people who watch live streams, covering both of the above reasons for watching. This is fascinating because it’s a huge part of understanding livestreaming and livestreamers and covers a big part of potential research on the subject)   Here is a list of them:

“1. The Bystander – There are two forms of Bystander, the uninformed and uninvested. The uninformed lacks knowledge of the meaning of in-game acts. The uninvested have a basic understanding of the game but they are spectating by accident, they have “stumbled” into being a spectator. 2. The Curious – This persona is interested in filling knowledge gaps they have with the game. 3. The Inspired – This persona is keen to play the game after watching a match, perhaps attempting strategies they saw or purely because they are interested in the game. 4. The Pupil – The Pupil is very similar to The Curious persona but they are focused on turning what they have learnt into practice and develop their skills. 5. The Unsatisfied – This persona sees spectating as a weaker form of playing but watches because it is still more interesting than not consuming the content at all. 6. The Entertained – The Entertained is more or less the opposite of The Unsatisfied; they find watching entertaining in itself, not as a weaker form of playing. 7. The Assistant – The Assistant impacts the game by helping a player, for example this could be in the form of pointing out information the player may have missed. 8. The Commentator – This persona is a spectator who is also a performer to a larger group of spectators, much like a traditional sports broadcast. 9. The Crowd – The Crowd persona details the delight in spectating as a group.” (Smith 4)

Beyond this, there is a 10th persona. The lurker. The lurker is essentially a viewer that views the stream just for the content, often as background entertainment (similar to how many people leave the TV on while doing other things) and has little or no interest in the community aspect of Twitch. (Georgen)

Theme 2: Understanding Income

Both Youtubes and Twitch streamers can and do make full time jobs and careers using these websites. In fact, some Youtubers and Twitch streamers make over a million dollars a year doing nothing besides creating content. (Kachroo-Levine) However, creating content is not as easy as some people make it out to be. Many Youtubers spend hours creating videos shower than 10 minutes long, and most full time livestreamers stream more than 40 hours per week. Creating and maintaining a schedule is a huge part of a content creator’s life, and deviating from this schedule can have harsh repercussions if done repeatedly. It is also important to remember that most content creators income is wildy inconsistent, but tends to reflect the amount of work they put in. This is especially true on Twitch because most of livestreamer’s income is based off viewer generosity, and one extremely generous viewer can double a livestreamer’s income in an instant. (Egger)

Let’s examine each site separately. Profiting from Youtube is simpler and more consistent than Twitch because the bulk of your income comes from advertisements the beginning of your videos. Usually viewers are willing to watch a 30 second advertisement before a video begins. Assuming the viewer of your video isn’t using an adblock program, this will make the creator money. Youtube tallies up the total revenue, then splits the money with the video maker. This is where the bulk of revenue comes from for most youtubers, and is calculated on a per video and per view basis. The going rate for this type of ad is about $1.50 per 1000 views. (Kachroo-Levine) As you can imagine, when youtubers like pewdiepie have over 15 billion views on their videos, this adds up pretty quick. Interestingly enough, the revenue from these adverts tends to vary significantly depending on what type of videos the youtuber makes, because the viewerbases of different genres tend to use adblock at different rates.

Next up is sponsorships or sponsored advertisements. This is where a company pays a youtuber to make a video or videos advertising or at least endorsing their product. Because Youtube doesn’t take a cut of the revenue, the youtuber tends to get a much better margin than standard adverts.  (Positgo)

Finally, some youtubers create a patreon or a gofundme page. Essentially these are simply options for viewers that enjoy their content to donate a little extra money to the Youtuber. Unlike Twitch, these sites generally make up a very small portion of a youtubers income. In order, Youtubers usually make the majority of their income from the pre-video advertisements, the second most money sponsorships, and just a little bit of extra income from generous viewers donating money.

Twitch is a much more complicated in terms of income for the livestreamer. First and foremost, it is important to understand that a huge portion of a twitch livestreamers income comes from viewer generosity. If one is not well versed in live streaming and live streaming culture this may seem weird. However, it is very common for viewers to donate (sometimes also referred to as tip) money to the streamer. In exchange, the streamer will usually read out the donators message on stream (almost all the donation platforms have a feature that allows this) and respond to it live. Often the donator will request a song to be played on stream in exchange for the donation, which most streamers are happy to oblige. In general, a livestreams income can be broken down into 4 different parts: Subscriptions, Advertisements, Bits, Donations, and Sponsorships. To gain access to most of these things a livestreamer has to first be a twitch partner. Becoming a partner is fairly difficult task to accomplish. Nobody really knows what Twitch’s requirements for partnership are, but many speculate they are based off the following: Concurrent viewers, total views, follower count, amount of donations, potential for growth, most commonly played game or streamed section, popularity on other sites (Youtube and other social media) and much more. Becoming a twitch partner gives you access to three major things, and a variety of other smaller perks. These things are sharing revenue with Twitch advertisements, access to subscriptions, and access to bits. A twitch partner also had a higher chance of landing sponsorships. Let me break each of these things down one by one.

Let’s begin with advertisements. Compared to Youtube, a very small part of a twitch streamers revenue comes from advertisements. Twitch streamers have a lot of control over what type and how many advertisements are run during their live stream, but most run very few advertisements and many none at all. Every time a user opens a new stream on Twitch an advertisement is played. Beyond this, advertisements are completely in control of the livestreamer. A livestreamer can play an advert whenever he or she wants, and can chose the length of the ad as well. A livestreamer can play as many advertisements as they like, but risks alienating some of their viewers of they play too many. Beyond this, there are many ways for viewers to get around watching adverts. The most common of these is an adblock program, it is estimated that 75-80% of twitch viewers have an adblocker. (Egger) Beyond this, subscribing to a streamer’s channel prevents users from getting ads on that channel, and access to Amazon Prime prevents viewers from watching ads site wide (Twitch is owned by amazon). Even though a streamers viewcount may be quite high, odds are most of these viewers won’t see the advertisements even they are played. Overall, advertisements represent a very small part of most livestreamers income, and pale in comparison to other forms of revenue.

Next up is subscriptions, a subscription is a monthly $4.99 payment a viewer can opt into to support a livestreamer. According to the twitch website the benefits of subscribing are as follows: Directly supporting the broadcaster (50% or 60% of the subscription fee goes directly to the livestreamer depending on their contract with Twitch), no adverts on that streamers channel, a chat badge letting other people in that channels chat know you are subscribed to the streamer and for how long, access to emoticons unique to the streamer that can be used in any chat on Twitch, ability to chat during subscriber only mode (a togglable chat mode a streamer can turn on where only subscribers are able to chat, most commonly used in big streams to reduce spam.), and an immunity to other chat restrictions such as slow mode (a mode where users can only send a certain number of messages per minute). Subscriptions make up a huge part of a livestreamer’s income. Even though most viewers have less than 1000 subscriptions, some of the biggest livestreamers on twitch have an enormous. amount of subscribers. Currently one of the biggest streamers on Twitch, Jared Lazar (more commonly known by his twitch username Summit1G) has over 24,000 subscribers. At $3 a subscriber, he makes over $500,000 a year off subscriptions alone. Subscribing is a very popular method of supporting livestreamers on Twitch, and is a huge part of what makes it possible for twitch streamers to make a living and stream as much as they do. Subscribing is popular because it is extremely easy to set up, has benefits visible to other users, and is not very expensive. (Walker)

For a long time Twitch did not have a donation feature built into their website. Eventually they realized how much money they were missing out on and added bits, an onsite donation feature. In addition to subscribing, almost every livestreamer of note has a donation link under their stream. If viewers are enjoying the stream, or simply feeling generous, they can send money directly to the streamer. The viewer usually has an option to add a message to their donation, which the streamer will usually read out on stream. As mentioned previously, often viewers will link a song they would like the streamer to play, which since the streamer is getting payed to do so, usually happens on all but the biggest streams. Donating to streamers to support them is another very common practice. Most big streamers stream more than 40 hours a week without receiving any direct compensation, it is only fair for them to get something in return. Beyond this, many viewers are motivated by the increased respect they get in chat. Everyone wants the streamer to succeed but not everyone wants it badly enough to part with their hard earned money to make it happen. Recently Twitch came out with bits, which are a virtual currency on twitch. Bits can be used to donate to livestreamers directly through twitch, and have the advantage of being quick and easy to purchase and use. Viewers also receive a permanent chat badge when donating to a streamer using bits, letting other viewers know what they did. The main disadvantage of bits is the fact that Twitch takes a much bigger cut than third party donation sites do, meaning a viewer has to spend more money to benefit the streamer the same amount. Standard donations and bits are used in fairly similar quantity, and both are common forms of income for the streamer. (Walker)

Finally, there are sponsorships. Twitch sponsorships function very differently to youtube sponsorships, and are significantly harder to obtain. However, sponsorships can be very lucrative. Twitch sponsorships are similar to sports sponsorships. In NASCAR the driver’s jerseys are covered with sponsors logos and advertisements. On twitch sponsorships work in the same way, a passive advertisement on the broadcast or in the broadcasters room letting viewers know they support that organization or company. (Addiktz) A couple other examples include a livestreamer being payed to drink certain energy drinks on stream, or payed to wear a watch on stream. To obtain a sponsorship you usually have to be quite a big streamer, but obtaining one is a substantial boost to his or her income. Another popular streamer, Adam Lyne (more commonly known by his twitch name B0aty) averages about 5000 viewers a stream, and publicizes details about his sponsorships. He has two different sponsorships, and each pay him out about $3000 a month. While this may seem like a very large amount, it is important to remember that one must be a very popular streamer before they start receiving sponsorship offers, so even though the numbers seem quite big, sponsorships usually do not represent as big a piece of streamer income as it may appear. (Addiktz)

Theme 3: Understanding the life of a content creator

As it currently stands, there is very little information on what the life of a livestreamer is like on a day to day basis, and what goes into the life of a livestreamer behind the scenes. In fact, I could not find a single scholarly article on this topic at all. As described throughout the rest of the this review, there is a great deal of information on livestreamers, how they make their money, and how their streams affect their viewers, but nothing on the livestreamer him or herself. The information on the lives of Youtubers is similarly limited, though not quite as barren as when searching for Twitch. Due to the barrenness of research and information currently available but the interest in the topic not only personally but also publically this is the topic I would like to research. As likely seen throughout this essay I would like to focus primarily on livestreamers with a secondary look at Youtubers as well. I plan to make my research applicable to other websites too, but due to the differing nature of various websites out there and what goes into them this may be limited in scope. I personally find this topic fascinating and know many other people do too making this a great research topic.There is a lot of knowledge to be gained here.

 Methods:

Now we come to my own research. To conduct my research I did three different things. I will divide these up into separate parts but they include a survey, an interview, and personal observations. Let’s start with the survey. My survey was taken XXX times, giving me a decent amount of data. I used my survey mostly as a tool to get some information about how much people know about Twitch and Youtube. I had questions like have you heard of these websites? How much time do you spend on these sites a month? After a few preliminary questions I asked a bit about what people know about the people behind the content. When asked if they surprised that some these people made 7 figures a year, most people were very surprised.

Next up are the observations. When observing I looked into a few different things, including how streamers interact with their viewers and how they respond to donations and subscriptions on twitch, as well as Youtubers responding to comments on their videos and on other videos. Even though it may seem as if it would be extremely easy to find things that could help you out, due to my focus on the people behind the content it was harder. That isn’t much out there that you can see and draw tangible provable conclusions from, so some of it was a bit of a reach. However, as long as you don’t take my observations as gospel, they should still stand you in good stead.

Finally, my interview. This was by far the best part of my research, as I had access to someone who could give me information I couldn’t get anywhere else. I interviewed a full time livestreamer Jon Wilson, more commonly known by his Twitch.tv “Zulu”. Interviewing someone professionally I could get his point of view on what he does, instead of just what he produces. This ended up being very beneficial, as he had insight I couldn’t get anywhere else. With him I focused more on more personal questions, but kept them mostly related to his job.

 Results/Discussion:

Let’s start with the survey. I found that everyone who took my survey had heard of Youtube, but only one third of people had heard of twitch. This isn’t surprisingly as not only is Twitch a relatively new website (4 years old) it also focuses primarily (but not exclusively) on video games and related content. Recently it has started to branch out but for a long time now that's all they offered. Recently Twitch has branched out by adding new categories to livestream under, including things like “IRL” and “Social Eating”. While these have become popular pretty quickly, a lot of the growth seems to come from Asia. However, ⅓ of the people I surveyed knowing Twitch is still quite a lot. If I had to guess two years ago that number would have probably been under 10%. Twitch is growing very quickly, and more and more people are learning about it in the western world.

Of these people, 71% said they were curious about how much money Youtubers make. I know a lot of people that have wanted to of have made youtube videos in the past, and a natural part of that is wondering if you can make money for doing so. Also, if you are one of the 36% of people that spends more than 4 hours a month on Youtube or twitch, it is natural that you’ll be curious about something you spend a lot time doing.

However, for most people this curiosity does not translate into research of education. Even though 71% of people said they curious, less than half of these people actually knew anything about the money behind youtube and twitch. When asked if they knew that there were a fair number of Youtubers and livestreamers that made over a million dollars a year, most people were very surprised. That’s a ton of money, and it’s crazy to think that people can do this sitting in their basement for a few hours a day.

However, the truth of the matter is, very few of the people who do it full time sit in their basement for a few hours a day then move on with their lives. After interviewing Jon, I learned that there is a ton of work that goes into being a content creator for a living, even beyond Twitch and Youtube. To begin, I asked him how hard he thought it was to break into Twitch and become a livestreamer. He told me to break into Twitch (and Youtube to a lesser extent) you needed something to bring in viewers even before you started. For example, you needed to be a extremely good at a game, or do something nobody else has done before. If you just went out and started making videos or livestreaming with the hope of being entertaining, you would almost certainly fail, regardless of the quality of your content. Beyond that, becoming a Youtuber or a livestreamer has a lot to do with advertising and getting yourself out there, especially when you just start. You have to ask your friends or other youtubers to shout you out, and you need to be creative when you get your name out there. Sadly, becoming a content creator has very little to do with your content, that's just what will keep people coming back. You either need to get very lucky, or you have to work really hard to get started. After that it becomes a lot easier he said, all you really have to do is continue making content and do it consistently and on a schedule. A schedule is a huge part of Youtube and an even bigger part of livestreaming. If you miss a few days people will stop coming back. To succeed, content creators have to stick to their schedules like glue.

Next I asked him where most of his revenue comes from on Twitch. He told me almost all of his revenue comes from donations. He has a consistent revenue from subscriptions which is enough to rely on (based on the number of his subscriptions this is probably about $1500 a month) but he said that about ¾ of his income comes from donations. So day in and day out he goes live, and makes a completely different amount of money every day. He also told me that he has one huge donor that has donated him almost half of his total income from livestreaming in the past 4 months. It’s crazy to think that if this one person hadn’t found his livestream, that he may not have quit his job and gone full time. He says it’s really weird at first relying on other people’s generosity to succeed in life, but that you slowly get more and more used to it. It’s a very weird way to live, but he wouldn't change it for the world.

So next I asked him what his day to day life was like, and what he had to do for his livestream when not live. He told me that there was a lot of work that goes into it, but not so much that it compares to the time he spends live (Jon is live about 6 hours a day for 6 days a week). The biggest part of it is setting up the things that he will do when he goes live. He has to make sure that when he goes live he has content ready to make sure everyone who tunes in is entertained for the entire livestream. A lot of the time, depending on what he’s doing, this takes preparation. He says it’s not unusual for him to spend an hour or two before each stream making sure he has enough to do while he is live. Also, he tries to make sure he gets at least one Youtube video out a week, and makes sure that in every video advertises his livestream. He says for a 15-20 minute video it usually takes him about two hours to put together, but he knows that some people put a lot more time into it than that. It varies hugely depending on what your videos are like. He also noted that even though it wasn’t consistent he spends a lot of time working with Twitch on various things relating to his livestream and things twitch does. As twitch is constantly evolving, he has to do a lot to keep up. Finally, he added somewhat humorously, that doing his taxes was a nightmare. The government obviously doesn't have a ton of experience working with professional livestreamers and Jon has to jump through a lot of hoops to satisfy both him and them in relation to how and how much of his money he hands over.

Finally I asked him if he ever has trouble balancing streaming with his real life. He told me that though he personally doesn’t (he works about the same as a normal full time job) he knows some streamers that do. Some streamers spend 60-70 hours a week live and this really affects their ability to do other things. He also said he thinks it’s easier for him because he streamers in a later time zone and doesn’t go live until the late afternoon that it is probably easier for him, as he still has a lot of the day to get things done before he goes live.

Conclusion:

During this research I faced a few limitations. These include: extensive background knowledge potentially leading me to form opinions without enough evidence proving them. A limited sample size (64 survey responses and 1 interviewee). In regards to the interview specifically, while extremely informative, life as a content creator changes significantly based on how big your following is. Having interviewed a livestreamer of only one size may have colored my results. Finally, it is important for anyone reading this to realize that the content creation on the internet, in particular Twitch.tv, is an ever changing landscape. If you read this essay some time in the future, it may no longer be 100% accurate.

In conclusion, being a content creator is not an easy job. It requires a lot more time and effort than one might expect. This research was just the a foot in the door. With proper time and funding it would be possible for a much more comprehensive look at these people the academic community knows so little about. This is an ever growing industry that a great number of people are interested in. Understanding it would benefit us all.

           Works Cited

From Lurking to Participatory Spectatorship: Understanding Affordances of the Dota 2 Noob Stream. From Lurking to Participatory Spectatorship: Understanding Affordances of the Dota 2 Noob Stream. Indiana University.

Egger, Jay. “How Exactly Do Twitch Streamers Make a Living? Destiny Breaks It down.” Dot Esports. Dot Esports, 16 Mar. 2017. 04 May 2017.

Hamilton, William A., Oliver Garretson, and Andruid Kerne. “Streaming on Twitch.” Proceedings of the 32nd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI ‘14 (2014).

“How to Get Started Making Money by Streaming on Twitch.” ADDIKTZ. 04 May 2017.

Kachroo-Levine, Maya. “How Do YouTubers Make Money?” Bustle. Bustle, 02 Feb. 2016. 04 May 2017.

Postigo, Hector. “The Socio-technical Architecture of Digital Labor: Converting Play into YouTube Money.” New Media & Society 18.2 (2016): 332-49.

Smith, Thomas, Marianna Obrist, and Peter Wright. “Live-streaming Changes the (video) Game.” Proceedings of the 11th European Conference on Interactive TV and Video - EuroITV ‘13 (2013).

“The Top 500 Sites on the Web ” Alexa Top 500 Global Sites.04 May 2017.

Walker, Austin. “Watching Us Play: Postures and Platforms of Live Streaming.” Watching Us Play: Postures and Platforms of Live Streaming (2014). ProQuest.

 Appendix A

Survey:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RMQF6TK

Have you ever heard of Youtube? How about Twitch.tv?

I have heard of neither

Youtube Only

Twitch Only

Youtube and Twitch

2.    How much time do you spend on these websites per month?

Less than an hour

1-2 hours

2-4 hours

4-10

10 or more hours

3.   Have you ever been curious about how much money Youtubers make?

Yes

No

4. Did you know that some Youtubers and Twitch livestreamers make over a million dollars each year?

Yes

No

No, but it doesn't surprise me

5. On a scale of 1-10, how much does this surprise you?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Appendix B

Interview Questions:

How hard do you think it is to break into livestreaming? Do you think most people would enjoy it?

On Twitch where does most of your revenue come from?

Do you think this is a normal spread for a livestreamer? How much does it vary between bigger streamers and smaller streamers?

You are a full time livestreamer, can you describe to me what your day is like each day?

What do you have to before and after every livestream to make sure everything goes smoothly?

I know you stream a lot of hours a week, do you ever find it hard to balance livestreaming with your personal life?