Hi streamers! You probably don't follow me. That's chill. I'm a baby on the twitch platform and having so much fun. I'm also a former YouTuber who came of age on that platform, viewing it as a second home and a savior for me. Lemme share some wisdom with you.

Twitch is not your friend. Twitch is not your home. Those warm feelings and that passion with which you create your amazing communities is not Twitch. Twitch is a tool that YOU create that with. It's a paintbrush, but YOU are the artist.

You have to assume that Twitch (Amazon) will make business decisions that mainly, and sometimes only benefit their bottom line and please their investors. That's all they care about, from a corporate perspective.

There are plenty of employees at the company who are passionate about what they do and really genuinely care, and that's wonderful, but in the end you have to realize that corporations are not people and their job is to enrich themselves.

I say this so that you don't get your heart broken like I did watching YouTube make decision after decision that harmed its users and creators, as it started to become policy to actively penalize creators for simply existing as queer people in order to appease advertisers.

I got burned out and have all but left that platform. I felt betrayed. But I wasn't betrayed. I was simply codependent and in an unrequited parasocial relationship with a corporate entity.

I didn't adapt to what was happening. I wanted to believe that YouTube cared and that they would look after me, especially after all I'd given to them and how precious that was to me and the trajectory of my life.

I couldn't keep up because, like any one-sided relationship, all give and no take is unsustainable.

My advice: focus on what YOU are doing and the communities that YOU'RE a part of. Speak out when Twitch hecks up and fight for things that will benefit you. But while Twitch is a tool, it is also an obstacle. Use it for what it's worth, but don't let it have all the power.

Anyways, something I'm thinking about as I see history repeat itself as a platform becomes more and more successful. I'm seriously having so much fun learning and creating using Twitch and will continue to do so as long as it's fun for me. <3