AUBREY
Born 1999 / Seamstress and Fashion Designer
I sat down with Aubrey to talk about her Twitch streaming, and how it’s benefited her life both on and off the internet.
DVW: Could you explain to me what Twitch streaming is and how you got into it?
AUBREY: Twitch is a platform to do live streams on. It’s like social media, or YouTube, but specifically for live streams. People grow communities, accrue viewership and followers on there. There's a large variety of streams on Twitch, but I found my niche is video game streaming. I got into streaming over the pandemic. Being on Twitch and watching Twitch streams made my day-to-day life feel a little less lonely. During quarantine, I got really involved in some of the Twitch communities, and I got back into playing video games. It was something I did as a child, but had stopped [because of adulthood]. I noticed when I would play video games I would talk to myself a lot anyway, so I was like hey, streaming is something that I could probably do. Plus I could talk to people and make friends. But it took a long time to really learn the [ins and outs of Twitch]. It took several years to finally get consistent views. I still have a lot to learn.
DVW: What games do you like to play on Twitch?
AUBREY: I mainly play Final Fantasy XIV and Genshin Impact, but I also play other sort of RPG games, and other things like Sims, Minecraft, and recently Overwatch.
DVW: What’s your username on there?
AUBREY: [LAUGHS] Numberonesoupfan.
DVW: When you’re streaming, do you also stream footage of yourself playing?
AUBREY: Yeah, I have my Facecam as my webcam that I use.
DVW: Do you dress a specific way or act differently when you're doing the Twitch streams?
AUBREY: I really try and be authentically myself. I definitely like, you know, dress up a little bit more during streams where I’m doing something big and I know lots of people will be watching. Or if there’s a special event I'm hosting, I'll dress up even further, and I always do my makeup for sure. But yeah, I feel like to me, it's really important to be authentic. I know I personally am not into streamers that try to put on a character online. When I’m thinking about growing my audience, I don’t see people that are into that being a part of my following.
DVW: So you would argue, then, that you’re not putting on an alternate persona, but rather a heightened version of yourself when you stream.
AUBREY: Yeah, I think so. It also just feels like a safe space for me where I have more control [over how I am perceived]. I can choose how to represent myself. But also, you know, it's an opportunity for me to talk about whatever I want, or some of my interests that are very specific to this [internet] community.
DVW: Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. This section of my project is really centered around the concept of l usernames, and the dichotomy between IRL and online identity. It was inspired by this manifesto by Legacy Russell called Glitch Feminism. It's much more nuanced than this, but the gist I took away from [the manifesto] is that having a digital identity and username can be really liberating; it allows you to talk about things that you can't talk about in your normal social circles, or explore parts of yourself that you don't feel comfortable displaying outside of the digital realm. A digital identity is just as important as an IRL identity, and is even maybe a truer representation of who we really are than how our IRL form is perceived. Would you say your streaming [as numberonesoupfan] has overall bettered your life?
AUBREY: Definitely. I’ve met people who I would consider some of my closest friends. I think it's also just made me more comfortable in who I am. At the beginning, I was really embarrassed to tell people I knew IRL that I was into Twitch. But now I just feel a lot more confident in it, I feel less embarrassed about my interests in general.
DVW: Do you think that there's a reason why Gen Z specifically is attracted to these communities, and attracted to watching people play video games online?
AUBREY: Probably how new video games are. I think a lot of Gen Z watched their older brother or sister play video games [because of their newfound prevalence]. And that translates now into watching other people on Twitch play games. But also, I think Twitch makes video games more accessible to people. YouTube and Twitch, they’re free with ads. And video games can be up to $70 for one video game plus consoles or a PC that you can play games on. So I think Twitch is a newer way for people who are interested in video games to consume that media without having to spend as much time and money.
DVW: And you would say, from your experience, that on Twitch, it’s mostly people from our generation?
AUBREY: Yeah, Gen Z or younger millennials.
DVW: Would you say your experience with streaming and the internet as a mode of escapism influenced things that you made in real life that are physical? Like your clothing collection, for example.
AUBREY: Oh, I mean, for sure. I feel like my whole thesis collection was inspired by internet escapism… I haven't made my own art in a while. But when I get back into it, I think those inspirations will always stick with me as I continue to make new work.
[TAPE CUT]
