I haven't been able to come due to scheduling problems on my end. I can understand your dilemma though, working for ages and then coming home only to put yourself to work entertaining can be a bitch.

Frankly, I don't mind being the background noise to someone else's life, I try to chat with my viewers, but it's hard coming up with things to say all the time.

This is the sole reason I really prefer multistreams. When you're on a voice or have friends in a Discord call with you it can be pretty chill. In fact, group calls are the biggest reason I do stream. It's one of the closest ways you can get a convention-like experience of just hanging out with a bunch of artist friends, draw, and just talk about the really dumb shit you're into.

Awhile back I used to stream, and wish I still could.

- I did sketch streams for people to get in on
- Most times it was just a 'watch what I draw', whilst playing music I liked. I would keep an eye on the chat to make sure things weren't getting offside or answer the occasional question. For the most part though it was a way for me to provide something for people if they were interested, if not? No biggie, no difference to me.
- I would stream commissions, since that's what I primarily work on
- Sometimes I would stream FPS games, but rarely (due to my self-conscious anxiety from being a female gamer and trying to do gud)
- All in all, it's a good way to interact with people who like your work, even if you don't engage with them directly. Sometimes I sit in on streams because wow, i'm watching this person work live! I find it's really cool and inspiring just to be in the same room as artists I idolize.
- Don't make it a chore or scheduled thing, if people are online to catch it, great, if not? It doesn't make a difference to you, you're still working and doing what you love.

Mhm mhm. Sounds like I'm making too big a deal out of it like I always do. Maybe I just need to take it easy and stop expecting anything out of it.

Yeh, see how it goes! I mean if you don't like it that's totally cool too, to each their own.

Streams, especially with active voice chats, are kind of cool. It's like sitting in on a conversation or a podcast and just listening to friends talk. It can be a relaxing way to spend time, especially if the streamers are openly engaging with the audience.

I stream, but in different ways. I don't like streaming art on some platforms because I can get anxiety, and when I that happens, I have issues drawing and delivering. But I do stream with friends on my private Discord server, however. It's fun to do on a personal level. Or if I'm doing a commission I'll stream the sketch with the person who did it on an individual level.

One of the best parts about streaming is just... I dunno, you have company while you draw? Even if it's for a handful of people, getting a reaction of "Oh, I love how that's turning out!" can be a really positive vibe. Or even if people get excited by the music you're playing in the background.

But it's not for everyone. If you feel like streaming... stream. If you don't it's totally legit to just focus on you.

Everybody's got different needs. That said, I almost NEVER stream by myself. But multi-streams? And with a group chat? Sure, all day.

That's a good way of looking at it. Hmm.

In all honestly it is your mindset.

You don't like to watch people stream things you can do yourself. That right there says a lot. There huge difference in what streaming is and isn't to you. Personally, I love coming to your streams but there no schedule for what you do it because its when you feel like, which always comes off as this chill vibe to come and hang out. But yeah I am guilty of having multiple windows open because heck I got to work on this and handle that, I don't think I have ever seen a main time streamer say this "If you're going to watch and hangout then do it. If you're doing other things then just do other things." It it sounds like is you don't really want to stream but you want to hang out and doodle and talk. What I would recommend what others do is open up an art discord and allow people you trust or sync with to come in and chat with you via voice or keep it private with a discord stream to make the focus a bit more onto you.

A lot of streaming is going to be consistency. People love your art but life doesn't allow them to always be available when you are and honestly I know you don't want to set a schedule because this isn't work for you its pastime. Just think ease up on the expectation of what supposed to happen because there a big expectation over what should be fun.


Also when it comes to hanging out in a stream there got to be interaction and well its hard to do well and master. Its a back and forth, I understand that well. If you don't have a chat it can feel pretty dead so people retreat to the working. If you spend to much time with chat or voice then you lose focus of the work. I think the thing you need to figure out is ...

What the heck is a stream to you
what do you want out of it
what are your expectation of watchers.

Yeah I think you might be right about that. I need to re-evaluate this whole thing.

I watch streams sometimes to see technique and process.

There are different reasons one can have for streaming depending on the content they're showing.

When I'm streaming writing, I don't really expect that much. I'm aware that writing isn't really an engaging thing for people to watch most of the time. Sometimes people will remark upon some of the words I put down, sometimes people will react to the music that's playing, sometimes there's just other casual conversation going on, but often it's just quiet. That doesn't really bother me that much though because writing streams are just supposed to be about getting work done. I stream myself because the perception that someone is watching me gives me some motivation to stay on task.

Streaming art is similar, something to keep me pushing forward, but generally the real draw with art is supposed to be whatever movie or show or video I'm playing on the side. I really want to share things with people and have discussions about the things that interest me. Same goes for when I want to play games. That's when it really gets frustrating if the stream chat is dead silent because I'm just talking into the void and no one seems to be paying attention.

A lot of people do just leave streams on as background noise while they're focusing on something else. I can't pretend that I don't do that myself more often than not. I try to multitask but I can only do so much, the more of my acquaintances stream the harder it is for me to divvy up my attention. Also doesn't help that I'm often doing my own streams--because, again, I need that motivation to work--so that's further distraction (and it extra doesn't help that my new computer will decide at random that it doesn't want me to have too many things open at once and starts lagging to oblivion).

Multistreaming does help with that splitting of attention somewhat though it can get chaotic, and in my experience it tends to be very rare that anyone will actually be watching every stream involved. All too often when I was in a multi I would remark on something I was doing only for someone to react with confusion because they clearly had my side of the stream closed, or no one would notice when I stopped broadcasting.

I try to prioritize streams based on the content they're doing, if it's something that seems to be actively seeking out engagement I'll do my best to be involved, if it's just general work or if there are already a lot of people talking I may be more likely to put it on the side.

All of this is really rambly ultimately.

I guess it's all just a matter of figuring out what you want to get from streaming and then trying to be as consistent with it as you can. People are more likely to show up if they have reason to expect you're going to do a stream than if you just announce it out of the blue. Results are also unfortunately going to be far from instant, it'll take a while to really build up to anything.

Bruh I cannot even discord chat with friends without getting tired soon enough, I have absolutely no clue how people stream to strangers.