I got an email from Tiltify. It was a thank you email saying I'm one the top fundraisers for 2020. So they gave me a gift certificate for dinner and a movie. That was really nice of them. Big RPG Twitter (with one exception) didn't notice me at all. But I'm used to that.

When you are used to not being noticed...while also being very visible...it is a strange thing. When it happens for a long time, it is easy to internalize. And I certainly have internalized the idea that I am small and not at the same level as the Big RPG Twitter peeps.

I partly get this feeling because Big RPG Twitter doesn't acknowledge my existence or interact with me in any way. Which, why should they? They are Big, and I am Small. I've got my community and we have a good time with ourselves. Someone called me small and niche once.

And I agreed. Yeah I'm small, and yeah, I'm niche...I'm running a FATE French Resistance campaign that is all historical! That won't get you Big. But I have a great community, and wonderful fellow streamers who are similarly small and we just do our small time things.

I don't usually feel important or seen or valued or one of the cool kids in this Big RPG Stream space. I'm not a partner and no where near it. I don't get asked to be on the "big channel" streams. I have no sponsorships. I just sort of do what I do.

But...looking that full SullyGnome 2020 breakdowns...actually...I'm not small. A while ago I crunched SullyGnome stats for the month of September to figure out averages, etc in our RPG streaming field.

I did it for an article I'm writing for @cartweel's mag #Knucklebones. Doing that data crunching, I was happy to be able to say I am above average for RPG streamers. But I just sort of left it at that in my head. I was mostly focusing on my thesis for the article:

That our perspective of what is big or small is really skewed by outliers...this causes us to basically judge success off of people/games/channels...we really should not be comparing ourselves to at all. This article is coming by the way...and it is not just about Streaming.

What I'm saying applies to sales, company size, Popularity...all sorts of things. Anyway, I decided, why just do analysis on the month of September, when I can do that analysis on the entire year of 2020. So I did. Interesting stuff in there. I continue to be above average. Yay!

But then a random comment made me ponder...I know I'm small and niche and not important, but I wonder where I fall? And I learned I'm not small. I'm in the top 1% Most Watched TTRPG streams of 2020. Top 4% for Average Viewers. I don't just have value because I'm a hard worker.

I don't just have value because I'm a team player. In our TTRPG Streaming world...I'm in the top 1%. And a lot of my streaming buddies who are also not seen are also up there in the top 5% at least. But you'd never know it. Why? Many things, I guess.

But at the moment I'm thinking about a culture of celebrity that plays itself out on Twitter in certain circles, as well as really skewed expectations of what big is because of outliers.

But just because someone is Celebrity Big in this Twitter circle, doesn't mean everyone else is small. There was a Tweet out here that said: Streamers, don't call yourself small! Think, "I'm just not big yet, but I'm on my way." Which was really nice advice and it took it in.

But I now realize. Actually I am not small...I'm big--I'm just not sitting at the cool kids table. Perception of popularity and actual popularity are two different things. Do you all know that the three most popular channels in the category Tabletop RPGs are all in Portuguese?

And that top channel, Cellbit, as three times as many followers as Critical Role? Amidst all our RPG celebrity...it is interesting the disconnect between who we talk about as being the Big Ones and who are the actual Top 25 streamers...out of about 35k streamers in our category.

Re-evaluating our size and realizing we actually aren't small, allows us to reevalutate the size of who we think of as big. And I think that is an important thing to do. The article is going to come out after I finish some academic work. But here is a thing to think on for now:

If you have more than 3 average viewers for your TTRPG stream, you are above the median for average viewers in the Tabletop RPGs and Dungeons & Dragons categories combined.