Get to know GubbaTV — A Streamlabs Streamer Spotlight

GubbaTV makes music, wrote a book about her experiences on Twitch, and once got evacuated by search and rescue on a river. We sat down with her to talk about what inspires her in our latest Streamer Spotlight.

Streamlabs: First, can you please introduce yourself and how long you’ve been streaming for?

Hello. My name is Gubba. You can find me streaming at twitch.tv/GubbaTV. I’m a variety streamer. We have a lot of shenanigans on my channel. We have a librarian that stops in, we have wheels that we spin, and sometimes we have gameplay. I have been streaming for almost five years. I started streaming in May of 2015, so like about four and a half, five years. It’s crazy cause it feels like just yesterday, but at the same time, it feels like forever.

Streamlabs: How did being a waitress at Buffalo Wild Wings prepare you to become a full-time live streamer?

GubbaTV: Being a waitress at buffalo wild wings definitely helped me become a streamer by being able to multitask. And talk to lots of different people and also babysitting because when things get rowdy at buffalo wild wings, your waitress kind of turns into a babysitter and sometimes when things get rowdy in Twitch chat, I sort of turned into a babysitter as well.

Streamlabs: What was your experience like writing your own book and what inspired you to write it?

GubbaTV: My experience writing my own book specifically for my Twitch experience, was absolutely amazing. It was a lot of hard work because anytime you write you have to go back and reread it and edit and it’s a huge process, and I was inspired because writing is one of my favorite hobbies and I have been writing since I was little. Me and my dad, he also wrote a lot, so that was something that we would like bond over and we would write stories and I still actually write stories outside of streaming for whenever I have free time. I have a second book that I’m going to be launching here soon that I’m also really inspired and excited about, and I guess my inspiration for my second book is my journey on twitch that I can share with you guys.

Streamlabs: What game has had the biggest impact on your life

GubbaTV: The game that has had the biggest impact on my life and Zelda, Ocarina of time. I feel like it’s such a once in a lifetime experience to play especially when you’re younger and the game had just come out and you’re playing on your Nintendo 64 you just went on this adventure in high rule with link. It was so cool. I think about it, and it was definitely one of the most magical games I’ve played in such a magical time in my life playing that game. I loved all the different temples they had. I loved riding around my horse, and it was just so cool. I feel like I’m right there playing that game. I love, love, love that.

Streamlabs: You recently released a really awesome song. Is music something you plan on pursuing further? What inspired you to make it?

GubbaTV: Music is definitely something I plan on pursuing further. I have songs that are actually ready to launch, and once we hit certain goals on my stream, we’re going to launch some new songs. My inspiration for my first song, I guess, is life experiences. I can listen to beats, and it makes me think of something in my mind, and then I can start putting words to it. And so everything I have written has been from personal experience.

Streamlabs: Can you tell us a little more about your experience on the river in the summer of 2013. How long did it take for search and rescue to find you?

GubbaTV: So in 2013 my best friend and I thought it would be a good idea to go floating on this river into tubes, so you just get in your swimsuits, uh, your life jackets and you go floating down the river. And my friend was like, yeah, like a boot floating on this, on this river before. And I had never been. And I ended up being a really dangerous river, and the current was really strong. It was super deep, and the banks were like caved in. So in some parts, even if you wanted to get out of the river, you couldn’t get out of the river. And, um, we were coming up on this log jam, a huge log jam. They later had to blow it up because it was so huge. And I was like, hey, we should probably paddle out or this, we’re going right for it.

And she was like, no, we’ll be fine. The current will take us out. And I was like, no, like, oh. And so we’re getting closer in the current sped up and um, people die on log jams because what happens is you hit a log jam, and you go under, and you can’t find your way out, and you drowned. And so we’re approaching this log jam, and I looked over my friend, and we didn’t have our life jackets on. They were like buckled together. So our tubes of Sioux together, but they weren’t on. So I was like, Hey, put this on, put this on like freaking out. And uh, cause I thought we were going to die, like drowned at least or something. I still remember my friend was like, and so she phoned her life jacket, and I watched my friend go under the log jam and I was like pooping my pants or pooping my swimsuit literally.

And I was able to grab onto a log and, um, I honestly don’t even know how I was able to like, uh, push myself up cause the current was ripping. Like she and the tube both backflipped and went under the Frickin log jam, and I somehow like grabbed onto a log and was able to perch myself up and have another lock for me to hold onto. And I couldn’t jump off either way. And I was like waiting for my friend to come up and she finally popped up, and there’s an island a little ways off, so she swam off and then, um, we’re like screaming at each other trying to figure out what to do. And there ended up being a campsite sync goodness little ways down the river. And we were just like screaming and waving our hands cause she was stuck on an island, and now I was on a log jam, and I could not jump off, or I love gone right under.

Oh my gosh. Super scary to think about. And so we flagged someone down from the campsite, and then we were like screaming, they can’t hear us. But then they ended up calling the cops, and the cops pulled up later. Like I was out there probably two or three hours standing on the slog hoping you do break. So the cops show up, and they realize like they can’t get to us. They had to get the search and rescue team, and by now the whole campsite, everybody, the whole campsite is out like watching us watching this. I was mortified. And so they, the search and rescue came up the river, and there was like another island by this log jam, and they like tried swimming across to me. They couldn’t get to me. Um, they had to like use, I remember one dude had like on scuba gear and he was like trying to scuba over to me and he kind of get it so they had to use a smaller boats to get to where I was climbing across this log jam and then whole like hold onto me like have me sit down a log and like scooch across.

And then we got into the sheriff’s boat. We drove by the campsite and there all these people and so me and my friend were embarrassed, but we started waving, and so everybody’s waving, and people were like snapping pictures and stuff, and I’m probably in somebody 2013 summer scrapbook because of that. But yeah, that’s a little bit of my experience.

Streamlabs: What’s the craziest thing that has ever happened to you because of live streaming.

GubbaTV: The craziest thing that has ever happened from streaming is when I was going to go to TwitchCon in 2016, and somebody came into my chat and threatened that they were going to stab me when they saw me at TwitchCon 2016. Yeah, it was really creepy. Twitch took care of it right away from me. That person definitely got like banned, it’s super creepy. So that was the scariest thing I’ve ever had happened, like a physical threat.

Streamlabs: Was streaming full-time, always the end goal?

GubbaTV: Streaming full time was always my goal. Even when I first started, I wanted to be a streamer full time. So that’s what I went into it with and did I think I could ever do this for a living? There was at one point when I was streaming, I was still working in buffalo wild wings, I had like an inkling of hope and my stream was growing really fast and I was getting a lot of support from amazing people and I thought I might be able to do this full time, I might be able to do this full time and I might be able to make a living out of this. So then I just quit buffalo wild wings and streamed full time and it was definitely not sunshine and roses and super easy. It was some of the most difficult times of my life in 2015 doing that. Do I regret that? No, but was it super difficult? It was so difficult. One of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. Actually, the most difficult thing I’ve ever done.

Streamlabs: Were there any significant difficulties or challenges on your journey?

GubbaTV: There were a lot of difficulties and challenges on my journey of being a streamer. I had a lot going on my personal life too. Other challenges would just be building a community. It’s definitely difficult starting that out and how to interact and how to manage your community. Those were some of the most difficult things that I learned early on. I mean I still have difficulties to this day.

Streamlabs: Do you have any advice for new people just starting out?

GubbaTV: My advice would honestly just find what makes you unique and go for it and don’t dive in expecting to have a community all at once or to be able to do this full time because if you dive in with that mentality, you’ll be really sad because it’s super difficult. It’s not easy and go into it knowing that it’s not going to be easy and have expectations that you are going to run into difficulties.

Streamlabs: What are some goals or aspirations you’d like to achieve in 2019 and beyond

GubbaTV: My goals and aspirations for 2019 in the streaming world are I want to take over twitch, I want to grow and show the streaming world what I have to offer, which is a lot. I feel like we have a lot of awesome stuff on our stream and I love the community so much, and I just want to grow, and together I just want to take it all over. But thank you so much for watching and getting to know me and my struggles of starting out streaming and the time I almost died, and all the other things.

You can catch me live on Twitch.tv/gubbatv. So thank you so much for watching.

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