Ep. 15: Live-Streaming Coding with Prince Wilson

Episode Guests

Prince Wilson is a person who cares about making better communities one step at a time, whether it is through giving talks at meetups/conferences, or building and securing technology to make people's lives better. Prince is a Software Engineer on the Developer Experience team for Netlify. Be sure to subscribe to Prince on Twitch.

Transcript#

Claire:

Welcome back to Word Wrap with Claire...

Steph:

and Steph! You can find the transcript for today's show on wordwrap.dev.

Claire:

Today we are talking with Prince Wilson who likes to live stream on Twitch at prince.dev/twitch I believe is what it is. And he also makes a living at Netlify.

And we're not here to talk about that. We're here to talk about live streaming code. Without further ado Prince, what, how do you go about starting to, to livestream code? Like, I, I haven't really been able to figure it out and all I do is stutter and talk about how I'm not ready for this instead of actually coding.

How do you, how do you overcome that and how did you start.

Prince:

I love that question. Very much was nervous about live-streaming the very first time I did it very much was like, oh, I can't do this. Like, I'm not a popular a celebrity or anything like that. Why would anyone come in and show up, show up to my stream also, I don't know how to talk live, but what I learned is from the very first stream, as soon as you press the record button, as soon as you press the be like, go live.

It happened. You didn't, you completed your first stream. You're starting it. You're in it. You just have fun, make it a little casual time, be inviting, bring some people in and there you have it. Done.

And I think that the thing that really excited me about streaming is once you complete the very first one, it's the worst one that you'll have.

So everything is just, we go up there from like, it's good.

Claire:

As we found out what the first episode of this podcast, which we keep bringing up, but it's just, it's just too funny now that we've kind of done this a few times. So when you, after that first hump, you know, after like just doing it, like, did you find that your community grew organically or like you mentioned that you had people you know, like come on or whatever. Did you like ask some folks to come on and like, I don't know, stream code with you or, or even just be hanging out in the chat. I know that chat is a very engaging part of Twitch specifically in that, you know, I, I dealt with that on Friday when we live streamed, talking about adding seasons to our Word Wrap website. And how, you know, I was trying to help Steph with whatever was going on, but I was also monitoring chat and trying to figure out what was going on there.

And it was just a lot, a lot to work with. So like, how does that, what does that look like for you?

Prince:

Yeah, there's a lot of elements to like live streaming. One of the biggest things I think is when you like earlier asked about it's like, how do you grow that community? I think that's like one dimension that people really think about with Twitch.

I personally don't do a lot of work directly to growing a community. I really try to create a welcoming, welcoming space that allows people to be in whether or not they do the same code that I do, whether they like watching my code. Surprisingly, there are a few people who would come into my stream every time, they don't know what I'm doing. They just enjoy being there and seeing my energy, which I thought was really surprising.

Cause like, I was, wouldn't expect people to just want to hang out, especially people who don't program. Yeah. But I think the things that I care the most about is creating a space where people can understand what's going on, or at least enough to hear somebody explaining it.

Because I think it makes it less, if it makes it feel less daunting and more inviting to be a participant, because I think that's where people could show up again.

Once they feel like they are part of that journey, they are excited to be there, whether or not they are doing that exact thing.

On my stream I do a variety of different things, but recently I've been doing a lot of Rust. And most of the people who show up don't know how to do any Rust programming and that thing that speaks to the, the reason like people are there for the person, not just the things that they do.

Claire:

Sure. Yeah. It's kind of an act of, I don't know necessarily if I'd call it performing, but it's like, you, I guess, create a certain, like you said, it's, it's more of an inclusive kind of like, you know, just welcoming kind of thing.

And yeah, I've learned that Twitch is a very interactive community and I'm starting, I'm trying to figure that out. Cause like I've had certain ideas of streaming myself. I just haven't ever done it, so yeah. That's that's an interesting perspective. I, I always just get stuck by like that, that first hump just getting it done and over with. I know Steph has a Twitch channel as well. She does a lot of just, just jumps on is like, oh, I'm going to code, you know?

And it's like, okay. You know, at an, I don't know how she does it either. Maybe eventually I will do that. Steph, do you have any specific questions coming, like from the perspective of being a creator that also codes and live streams?

Steph:

Yeah. I mean, what I've been thinking about is like, for myself getting started one of the most daunting things, besides like the idea of in some capacity performing was I mean, how do you even get started? And that was quite a hurdle to get past, actually.

I ended up watching well I watched Jason Lengstorf's he did a solo episode covering how he does scenes. And the developer in me was just as excited about making scenes as anything. So I probably took it too far right out the gate. Like I know there's lower level base to get started.

But, so my question though, to you Prince is: how did, what did you do initially? Like how did you figure out how to do that initial setup? What's like the lowest level way someone, maybe could get started or some resources to do that.

Prince:

I think to your initial point of like watching somebody else going through that experience, like with Jason having done that, that was a similar experience of like, what are the things that I need to think about with live streaming?

Yeah. For the most part, really my very first stream. I don't have it saved anywhere, so I don't know what it actually looks like any- any more, but I remembered I needed some software to make sure going live, like something OBS studio, Streamlabs OBS. And then I just made sure that I had at least a camera.

It didn't really have to have a camera. But I did have a microphone. And just a way to show my screen. That's really all I did is I was just like writing some code and I was like, cool, let me make that happen.

I think for the most part, there's a variety of different things on Twitch. So even if you're like, oh, I want to do something else. Not even coding. That there is a space, there is a community of people who want to see that. There's people who are doing like their emote art stream. So like people who are creating emotes for Twitch, they'll do it directly live streaming on Twitch, which I think is very cool. Some people do sewing, some people doing pottery.

One, one of my friends, she does pottery live on Twitch. And I am like, I love just watching them be who they are. Yeah, I dunno. That's really where I think it goes is you can do whatever you'd like, and people will come. But you have to enjoy doing the thing. I think that's the most critical part of Twitch that I first learned is I don't want to do things that other people want to see. I want to do things that I want to do, and if they like it, that's great. If they don't, also great. I'm not for everyone.

Claire:

That's a great point.

Steph:

Yeah. I I definitely, I was, so I really wanted to do it. I started doing it to get practice for delivering my live workshop, which turned out to be a really a good idea. Made me way more comfortable in that environment.

But with that in mind, I also got really anxious that about like making mistakes. And so I spent way too much prep time. I basically was treating it like a mini conference talk for my first few streams, which was way too much work. Like I don't do that anymore.

I might have a loose agenda. I might have a repo created, you know, and some loose notes, maybe some browser tabs open, but I I've definitely dropped being so keyed up about it.

Cause I think another aspect I've learned is folks come, not literally to watch your every move, but to, you know, maybe sometimes if you're, you know, are showing something step-by-step, but also just to hang out and co-work and stuff.

But I'm curious, when you go into a stream, you know, do you have set up processes or how do you kind of approach that each time.

Prince:

You all ask the most lovely questions! I just sound so happy. I think one thing that I specifically for my stream is I don't have any kind of goal in mind. Or maybe I have like a top level goal, but I have nothing that I really prepped for a stream.

The reason why I do that is I tend to find myself enjoying wandering around. I like enjoy. Doing that live. It's very exhausting and I do not recommend that for everybody because it. One thing, my experience is I was a teacher. So like I had to take people's feedback in real time to act and like answer their questions.

So I think that's the reason why I enjoy just letting myself wander, because it allows me to explore things I wasn't prepared for. And I, most of the time I am enough, enough guardrails to be like, oh, I don't know. I don't want to do this part. Like if we were like doing databases and all of a sudden I'm like trying to deploy that database, I'm like, I don't know how to do any of that. I'm not going to do that, but messing around with the database, I can enjoy doing that.

As far as like the, the software setup the things that I have, like on my checklist, it's making sure that my microphone and my camera is working. Then also I have recently downloaded a new plugin for OBS studio that allows me to have my closed captioning.

So now I have that directly in there, which I really appreciate as it, before I used to have to like, worry about setting that up directly. And I think having that now integrated each time I press start stream it makes my life a lot easier, so I don't have to forget and make sure everyone has the access to the information.

Steph:

Awesome. And do you tend to - so for those that aren't familiar with Twitch, as a streamer, you can opt into having your videos recorded or not, but even if you do have them recorded that VOD video on demand only persist for two weeks. There's a part of it called highlights. So if you go in and basically make clips out of your stream, those are seem to be forever.

And so which, which kind of style do you prefer? Do you take them somewhere else? I know some folks re upload to YouTube, you know, what's kind of your thoughts on that.

Prince:

Honestly, I've been trying to answer that question for myself. I think, I think I'm I'm an interesting person where I don't want to be a creator. I don't like, I don't want that label. I don't, I just do things to enjoy things. And that isn't to say that other people can't do those things, but I I've been trying to figure out like, what's the purpose of my stream. Is it meant to be accessed after the, after the stream that's not aired? Is that unfiltered thought helpful for somebody to see?

And I think that's where I don't know. I started at first try and upload them into like a private listing. So at least I had them. And some people really are like, oh, I would like to see this because I was there. I didn't get to catch all of it when, once the VOD - I didn't even know that it stood for something! Once the VOD has dissipated, once that 14, 14 days has gone away. Like where does it go? I think for the most part, if I were to catalog them and have them for later on, that's fine. But for the most part I'm I don't think I want to take them anywhere because I'm not doing anything that I feel is refined enough for another space like YouTube, where I think that has more, like, I want clear cuts of what's going on. At least that's my, what I think that expectation is.

Steph:

Sure.

Claire:

Yeah. I kind of wonder if there's like a cringe factor after like, you know, 30 days or something like that where it's like, oh gosh, I can't believe I said that on air. Or like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I did that. You know? I mean, that, that would be my personal thought at least. It just be like you know, I can't, I can barely watch myself do anything anyway. So like listening to myself on podcasts.

So you mentioned tooling and OBS. Have you worked with any other tools? Like was OBS, like your first thing that you used when you first started with Twitch or does Twitch provide like things that like, kind of get you out of the gate? Or like, or is OBS like just the natural progression that like most streamers use when, when they start streaming,

Prince:

My very first software that I used was called Streamlabs OBS, which is kind of like a, imagine like a predefined settings for the software OBS studio. They basically, they have certain options that they have already pre-configure and the UI slightly different as opposed to using OBS studio, which is very much like guess like professional is with the word, I would use like a professional tool that is used, not just for like live streaming, but all sorts of things. I say, I think to me, at least that OBS Studio was my natural progression because at some point Streamlabs OBS stopped working properly. It would crash randomly for me.

I, not everyone has that experience, but that was my experience. And so I kind of ended up going that route. I've used a few other things. Twitch now has started actually providing these tools for live streamers. I think one of them is called Twitch studio. And so they've been learning a lot about how to help streamers go out and do the things. Like, for instance, a lot of people like listening to music while they're on stream, or like having music as a background element.

And so Twitch now supports a new feature called Twitch soundtrack, which is basically music that now pipes directly into the live stream. And won't be like for your VOD, but during the live stream, you can actually hear it.

Claire:

Yeah. I wondered if they, that was also a way to like counteract, like copyright claims and stuff, because I know that like striking and stuff on, like, you know, getting a strike on your account or whatever is like not a great thing. But anyway, that's what I'd be afraid of. Cause like I listen to music all the time when I'm coding. So like, I don't know, I'd be like bopping here or whatever, and then no one would see me.

Anyway. I'm just getting nervous about the thought of streaming. Just talking about streaming, even though I'm recording a podcast. So yeah, irony's not lost on me, but Steph, do you have another question?

Steph:

Yeah, it's also interesting. I think what threw me off guard too, when I first like, started to fire it up is like, yeah, there's sort of an overwhelming amount of settings that you need to do. Not just at first, but each time you go on. So and it's almost like you have to become.

Well, it depends on your goals, right? If you're just going on casually, you don't have to do anything specific. But you'd generally set a title and then generally some sort of description that gets pushed out for folks that have notifications turned on. So it kind of becomes a mini marketing message, like, you know, basically why should you come join my stream?

And you know, so just being aware that that's like a piece of it. And I don't know. So you think like you've got your OBS or whatever, all set up and then you still have to make decisions like that every time. But I know a lot of folks also pick you know, like yours is kind of learning in public and you're kind of have a topic that you've been going for a while.

Other folks do longer-term projects, similarly, where, you know, you just kind of come back and watch them progress. Yeah. In fact, before we came on today, I got distracted. I was watching Kevin Powell work on something on their stream. And but I think just like the breadth of what exactly you can go hop on and view is, is pretty awesome.

I think another concept again, for those unfamiliar with Twitch is the idea of raiding other channels. So once you, as a streamer end your channel, you can optionally send your viewers to someone else, which is really cool. It's fun to be raided. It's always a nice surprise to have that drop in.

But yeah. Is there like, what other features do you enjoy of just this streaming experience.

Prince:

Definitely love raiding. I think it goes back to like the sense of community where one, like, I think a lot about this in terms of Twitter, where like people have like their own kind of silo community. But like getting to interact with other people out there is like an important dimension of like growing and learning and experiencing what other people do.

So like a lot of the time when I tried to in my stream, I tried to raid somebody because I want to make sure that people are able to one get to experience what having viewers like feels like. And especially when like, because there are many streams that may only get like one or two viewer at a time.

And I think it's really important because it shows like you care about people in a way that you want to know what they're doing.

And like, you get to also expand out like there's people who I had as my viewers. And now they get to know who I care about as well. And I think I've had like many conversations along the way where people were like, I'm really happy you did this because I got to meet this person. I got to like learn this thing. And I think that is an element that I think it's really helpful to overall just showing what internet culture can really become.

Another nice feature that I really like is the emotes. So every channel has their own emotes they can have. And so I really like the concept that I can just customly have these different things that, you know, show my personality and people can have that and share that across different channels.

And I get to see what other channels have, and I think that's like an element of like personality where it's like, oh, I really love seeing like these almost like mini experiences, in my opinion.

Claire:

It's kind of interesting that you say that because every time I go to a Twitch stream, I'm always like, sometimes it'll make you want to like, pay for more or like subscribe for more or whatever, but.

Even with Steph's stream on Friday and I was participating in the chat. I noticed that there was like a Lexi sticker which it's not a sticker and emoji, but you know, and for any of the listeners out there, Lexi is Steph's dog. But like, it's, it's one of those moments where it's like, kind of this inside joke kind of thing.

And so like, it just perpetuates that community feeling. Yeah. And so, I dunno if I'm sure you've been on a, on a Twitch stream that like has like a thousand viewers or something like that at one point in time. But like chat can be slowed down, which I think is kind of cool. So that it's still like evens the playing field for folks that, you know. Like, cause sometimes if they don't slow down the chat going bonkers, like the entire time. So I just think that that's really interesting that all those things are kind of built in. It's very purposeful of like creating this community. And as you were describing the raiding experience, I kept thinking about it, like like a retweet that you like get redirected to it.

And you know how some folks say that like retweets are not endorsements and you know, that's neither here nor there. I'm not debating that. But I feel like raiding is kind of an, an endorsement because it's like, it's like, Hey, go enjoy this person's content that I like. So I thought that was just a very interesting kind of correlation. Because like, for example, I don't have a lot of Twitch experience. I've mostly just consumed. But hearing it from creators, it's just very cool. And it's motivating.

Prince:

I think very intentionally, right? Like the same, this is kind of my similar experience with using another social media platform.

I really want to be intentional with how I use it and how I show up on it, because I think that those things impact how people will use that platform, how they will be interacting with other people. For me at least very much like I want to make sure wherever I go, I'm putting myself in the best way as possible. I don't want people to think that they can do any sort of type of thing. For instance, I'm very aggressive to people who come into my chat where they're going to be like, oh, this is actually how you should be doing this. I don't like that. That's not, that's not why we're here.

Because I think a lot of times people think that I should be on stream being perfect. And like, that's not why we come. That's not what I want to create my space as, is I'm not here to be perfect. I think it's an illusion of that. And I want to make sure to show that it is an illusion and that's why I like making mistakes because that's like shows that's what's the job, but that's what people's experiences are.

And it allows us to have fun, which is the reason why I'm on Twitch. It's the reason why I program is to have fun..

Claire:

You're like actively combating imposter syndrome.

Prince:

That's literally it, yes!

Claire:

Like imposter syndrome fighter or something like that, you know waging the war on imposter syndrome and or whatever, any analogy you want to use.

But I think that's really cool because social media does have that moment of like, Oh, well, this person has a lot of followers. Like they must be really good at what they do or whatever. And sometimes it's just, they made a meme once and they got 3000 followers off of it, which by the way, I did that once thanks to Steph. She ghost wrote one of my tweets. I will not tell you which one it is. It was very bonkers, how it worked out. And I'm still amazed to this day, how it worked out. The point is that follower counts don't mean anything really. And I think one of those things about Twitter in particular, and I guess it kind of moves the Twitch as well, is like viewer counts are like, or follower accounts don't matter. They don't really matter.

Like, I couldn't believe that 20 people were looking at our stream on Friday, just combating our old code for example. That was very fascinating to me. So but at the same time, I was like super interested in the fact that 20 people wanted to watch. It was just very interesting to me.

I can imagine what it's like on Tuesdays when you're battling Rust and trying to figure out which by the way, I've been meaning to play with, but I haven't dealt with it because I just hate its terseness, which is it's not necessarily a problem. I'm just, you know, expressing my opinions. But it's really cool and it's all the rage, but Yeah props to you for learning in public. Cause that's amazing, so.

Prince:

Thank you.

Steph:

Yeah, you, you, when you're talking about viewer counts and all that, I just, it made me think to kind of what about what I've gotten out of Twitch. Which has nothing to do with, you know, trying to be the best streamer. But just like a significant amount of us are remote or at least have not been able to do things for a long time outside of our homes.

And to me, that's an element of it as much as anything is just, you know, you feel a little bit less like you're just yelling into the void. You know, like just, that's sort of like inviting people into your space and, and just kind of, you know, yeah. Being able to kick back and work on something that everybody's interested in, which adds just an extra element of enjoyability to the experience. But, you know, is that something that drew you to it? Or like when did you start streaming, I guess would be the question and, you know, how did that evolve for you?

Prince:

Yes. So I was just like, thinking back to, like, I did start streaming last year actually surprisingly around March.

And so that was something that was already on my mind of, I would like to do this thing. And I think. To exactly that point of like being remote, kind of screaming into the void of how to write code as like, I think people would enjoy watching me just scream into the void. Now I'm not, it's not so much a void. It's just is it's the code experience?

Very much started with, I wanted to tell the people I trusted like, Hey, I'm going to do this thing. So I knew there were people watching. I do this also when I like record conference talks is I need somebody to actually to be there, to see me do the conference talk.

Otherwise I start panicking and being like, oh my God, like I'm just rambling. But when I see somebody it's like really helpful. And I'm that person to other people where I'm like, I'm very emotive. Like, I'm like nodding my head and shaking. Like you both can see that I'm very much a nod-head, smile person.

And I try to always be that for other people. Because I know how scary it is to like go up on a stage. And I think that's kind of what Twitch becomes. Right? It's like you not necessarily stage, but like you are in front of people. And so you're like nervous, like, am I doing this right thing? But yeah, that's kind of where I got nervous with it, but I always, like, I don't want to have a group of people who'd come along with me. And then from there I just kept telling people like on Twitter, Hey, I'm doing this. You're welcome to come along and hang out with me. So that's just where it grew.

Claire:

Yeah, that's really cool. I think I had that same thought around that same time and I didn't do it.

So it's interesting to see the difference that, you know, cause I was thinking about, you know, coronavirus and the new normal and I think this is one of those things that's like kind of more of the new normal kind of thing. Cause like, which isn't a bad thing. It's, it's more of a, you know, like a community sharing kind of thing.

Cause Twitch before the pandemic, I feel like was gaming and you know, whatever, I don't know. I guess it's still is gaming. Like that's, that's how it got its start. But you know for a lot of 2020, like every weekend, I watched some, some DJs that I like a lot do a set every weekend/ and it's called club quarantine and they still do it. Like they don't have to have any more. They can, they can go and do shows now. But they still do it because they think that they, you know, they realize that that's part of, kind of that community building too. Which I think is really cool. So Yeah, I, I kudos to you for, you know, just doing that.

Like, especially in that really hard time where it's just like, is the world ending? I don't know. I'm going to go stream on Twitch instead, you know, I thought, I think that's really cool. So yeah, I, I don't really have any other questions. I, I admittedly I haven't watched a stream of yours, but I also, haven't watched a lot of streams, like, so I need to watch more.

And I think you've, you've inspired me to do that because admittedly I've been, you know, lacking motivation lately. And just in general, I feel like it's winter, you know, whatever, it's getting all gray outside, but you know, maybe, maybe Twitch's one of those streams of motivation or it's like, oh, that person's hacking on that thing. Maybe I'll do that thing.

Prince:

That's exactly where I see it is like, I, I really enjoy, it's gone almost like a coworking feel for me, at least. That's how I my space and time, it's very much like here, I'm going to be doing this. I'm gonna talk to y'all, we're we're hanging out. You can bring your thing. I'm gonna do my thing. We get to have fun.

I like watching other streamers also doing it. So like there's two people that come to mind besides you, Steph, I love watching this CSS stuff happening very much. One of my new things where I'm like, oh, I get to like learn new things that I don't know. Two people that have been watching a lot is a ChaelCodes, who they do a whole like Ruby on Rails, Rust stuff. And they have like a lovely, vibrant community and you can see their energy with their community. They beam this energy, like all throughout. And AishaCodes as well. I think that they both have, they have both lovely, like setups, where they get to speak with people who are doing live streaming or educational content.

Those are the things that I've really see and seeing that on Twitch, I'm like, oh, perfect. I get to real time ask questions to them as well as it real questions to their guests. So I get to learn from it. That's just kind of where I think that's why, like it's so much is most of the time it's a video where, you know, it's prepared. We have access to the questions that we're having. We're having a dialogue in this podcast, but I get to be a participant into that dialogue. And I think that's why Twitch is a very popular experience because in the same way, in video games, you could do experience in real time joy with other people and ask questions to the streamer.

Steph:

That real-time aspect. That's a really unique side of it. Even compared to most virtual conferences that I've gone to. They may be real time, but you don't, as opposed to a Twitch stream, the chat gets to have the chance at influencing the direction of the stream. Or if nothing else, like there's a dopamine burst when you chat and it ends up in their scene, you know, even just something as minor as that.

You know, and then of course, streamers individually may opt to either create or their own or add different plugins that do different responses based on chat. And, you know, just can really provide this very cool, interactive two way experience.

Even though it feels like it should, like, when I first joined the stream, I was like, what is, I didn't really understand. And then I then got to learn about that vibe and it made it really, really fun. And even just to see repeat, you know, people in chat and, you know, it's just, you've got also a lot of different sides of community that you don't think about before you start doing that.

Prince:

And one aspect of Twitch I actually want to talk about. I think it's really important and it's sometimes not spoken about is there are people who don't talk in chat and they're just there. Some people call these lurkers.

And I personally think that that those types of people are very valuable to a community as well. Partially because they are people who are showing up and just want to hang out.

Sometimes they don't want to talk. And like that is totally normal, and acceptable. One of the, in my opinion, I think that it's also scary to talk in chat. And I think that sometimes people will just like really love just being there. After a while they're like, oh my gosh, I actually really like this and they just want to hang out.

And it's important to recognize that you're like your chat moving, and like the amount of people coming there may not be the same amount happening. And you're like, you might think like, oh, you know, you have 20 people and you expect all 20 of them chatting or like you have 40 people, but you only see like five people chatting.

I think it's really important to acknowledge that like the space, whether it feels silent or not that's like people are around you right now and acknowledging that. I feel like sometimes people would see it as, oh, I'm not hearing everyone chatting, but like that's okay. Like it's, it's, it's almost like a knee-jerk reaction of oh, why isn't the same number of people chatting in the chat. Like it's okay that that's happening. So if you were going to go into streaming, that's like, one thing to watch out for yourself is to not look at the viewer count. In fact, an OBS, you can actually hide that. In my personal feed I don't try to to very much not look at it because it can make you, self-conscious almost like why aren't I seeing all these people talking.

Claire:

Yeah, definitely.

I think of the viewer account is like, you know, people are willingly there. Like willfully there you know. They might not be talking, but they're willfully there. Like, which I think in and of itself is a message that which can go both ways. It could be either. I'm watching this, and this is bad, or I'm watching this and this is good. That you that's where that, you know, comes in.

Yeah, exactly. But at the same time, it's one of those things where it's like, you have to remember that. Hopefully all of those people are real or at least, you know, there's connect, there's a connected on the other side and there's someone watching it. And that in and of itself as a message.

Steph:

I join from my phone a lot. And in that reduced screen size, I, I definitely participate in chat list just because of the functionality. And also if I'm joining from my phone that it's usually because I'm, I mean, my intent in that moment is just to be there to support, have it on just kind of in the background, but I'm probably still working or making a meal or something.

So, I mean, there's all sorts of reasons folks may not choose to participate.

Prince:

Exactly.

Claire:

Yeah. Well, Steph, do you want to close it out unless you have any other questions or anything? Or Prince, do you want to say anything more before we wrap it up? Word wrap it up.

I had to,

Prince:

I love it.

I think there's like two things I want to talk about. One is if you're interested in streaming, let me know. You can find me on the Twitter sphere and I will happily be your one viewer. That at least one is what I should say. You're more than likely going to have more, because guess what? You're going to have other people who are going to hype you up too.

I think relying on like talking to them, to the people that you care about. Like, Hey, I'm going to try and do this. They're going to be the people to hype you up. They're going to show up for you, more than likely they already have a Twitch account anyway. So like, they are more than welcome to hang out.

My partner's friend just started doing streaming. They just decided to do Animal Crossing. And they told my partner and like they showed up and like they had a conversation. Like that's exactly how it starts. It's as long as you start doing the thing and you have people, you're hanging out. And it's just happens to be now on Twitch. So everyone sees it. So watch out for saying random things.

And then secondly, I want to say, if you are not interested in livestreaming, totally fine. But hang out with the people in chat, maybe you get to at least learn more about what people's interests are.

I think that's really important space for people. Like I get to learn a lot more about people's personal lives, which I think is really valuable because I get to know them and they get to, like, we get to talk about it later on.

They may have a Discord, we get to chat later on, then become closer that way. So that's just my, my thoughts on that.

Claire:

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely all good points and all that community building. Yeah. You know, in many different ways.

Steph:

Awesome. Well, I know that another thing that you do cause it's how you entered my sphere originally, I think. Although I definitely would have, we would have crossed paths at some point, but I think the original point was because we were both egghead instructors. And I think possibly even in the first cohort or you helped with my cohort, one of the two. But anyway you know, just, you clearly have enjoyment of instructing and learning in public and that take on many forms. And definitely can vouch for you being extremely motivating in the chat and in person and then various ways or a virtual person. So just a joy to have you in our network and, and it was great learning from you today and your perspective of the particular topic of streaming. But folks, we will definitely be putting Prince's Twitter and Twitch links in the show notes and be sure to give them a follow. You will not regret it!

Prince:

You're so kind, thank you.

Claire:

Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe and keep in touch on Twitter by following us @WordWrapShow. If you're able to cover show costs, join us at Patreon.com/WordWrap. We'll see you next episode!