To write “The Story,” I thought it was just a linear progression through writing “Novel 01” then “Novel 02” and beyond, but as I’ve learned through my livestreaming experiences, that’s not exactly the case. It involves learning myriad skills both related and unrelated to “the primary goal.” As a writer, I have to get involved with many situations, and as I learned, be able to tell those stories effectively. Telling them live, on-stream, can enhance my writing.

Spoilers?: None [storytelling through talking]

Livestreaming is a great chance to meet new people.

If I can make a decisive statement: success is a matter of giving and taking success. No one cares about the person that is up on the stage unless there is a reason to care. When I think of all the bands I’ve ever seen live, there’s one word that kept me there or forced me to leave early: value. Did the band provide more value to me than going home to sleep? Did the band provide value in the form of interest, social interaction by cultivating an environment for me to meet like-minded people, or otherwise put on an enjoyable show?

I do this dangerous sport that will no doubt get me in trouble.

I write it here as part of a sort of obscured-through-length approach to thinking through ideas. If I tweeted this out, people might get mad, but here in a 1000-word essay, people will have the time to read the thought in its full context. The bad streamers don’t consider the value they’re giving to the audience and the good streamers do. In two examples, I watch Cody’s streams because he shows how he operates Pink Gorilla, a business I respect. While I’m writing this sentence, he’s showing 2000+ people the behind-the-scenes of his office where he has packages to send out to customers and boxes to process. From a business perspective, I have never seen this level of transparency, so it’s cool to see. I can vicariously feel how it’s like to co-run a successful business by watching these streams. This is valuable information, plus, I met Cody enough times over the years to know that this isn’t some chicanery pulled by a charlatan trickster.

Value is also friendship.

Friend-of-the-website/stream mindscan was an early supporter of my streams, hanging out in the chat and always up for a conversation when I was broadcasting out. There is something valuable here that people can learn, whether they are authentic or otherwise – if someone stops by my streams and provides honest-to-goodness conversation, I’m going to be curious about them in exchange. If they stop by to say “hi” and then leave, I won’t remember them. It’s not out of any sort of rude inclination, it’s more of an objective statement that if you give something to someone, chances are they’ll want to return the favor.

I’ve been giving large chunks of myself away for free.

What will happen, then, is that if people hear me talk about something then they’ll get value out of it and they’ll want to hang out more. That is the clinical way of writing about the formation of friendships, the sort of give-and-take, but the reason why I say that this is dangerous is that I watch many more streams than I announce, especially those that seem to be languishing in obscurity. mindscan recently achieved the Affiliate status on Twitch, which means that he gained a sufficient following and viewership for Twitch to consider him worthy of the “status” of people that can get money from Twitch.

mindscan did it because he’s got a good personality and is entertaining.

The ones that fail, typically, fail because they don’t have a good personality, aren’t entertaining, and most importantly, don’t network with others. By good personality, I mean someone that you feel like you can relate to on some level. By entertaining, this is the most subjective of all, but the ones that I’ve seen that have failed are silent protagonists to the game. Why would I watch them play through a game when I could watch it on YouTube or performed by a more skilled/entertaining player? The last piece is the most unfortunate side of the equation. If you know a bunch of people in a Twitch community, you’re more likely to advance – like me in the Retro community.

So how do you network with people?

Well, if I am giving advice – don’t objectify people. Don’t consider interactions as capitalistic exchanges of resources for your personal gain. You’re dealing with people. People come and go, but the ones that stick around are the friends that you make earnest connections with, and more often than not, not during the stream itself. The one-to-many approach of parasocially communicating with people via a livestream or an essay only go so far to understanding someone. You can know a lot about me by what I write and say, but, the one-to-one interactions in multiple environments are really how you get to know someone.

One joke I enjoy saying is “long time!”

It’s funniest when I see a person in multiple streams over the course of a day. It’s a cheeky way of saying admitting that we’ve crossed paths a few times before, but it’s also effective if I haven’t seen them in a while. These are the ways to develop friendships and to reinforce them, since, really, that’s what this is all about. Building a community means bringing together friends from various parts of your life that all enjoy your content for what you bring to the table.

Zombiepaper Theater, then, is uniquely me.

I’m able to spitball ideas and recall scenarios so quickly that I can talk endlessly about various stories that happened to me or things that I’ve read. In this situation, I can engage a wide audience and as the cat in the lower-left shows, I can maintain a level of peace while I talk about sensitive topics.

If the cat leaves, I’ve probably failed my job.