Ultra.
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Can you provide some background on your channel, how long you’ve been streaming and what you typically like to stream?
I run what’s called the Twitch Wine Cellar, and the channel started as kind of an ‘escape’ from a boring workday and transformed into an inclusive, activism-driven community that I love. We do a combination of speedrunning, challenge runs, and chill/cozy RPGs. We started 3.5 years ago just hanging out, and these days, we cover a lot with game design, activism in gaming, and honestly just have a chaotic gay time!
What was it about streaming that initially interested you and inspired you to give it a try?
Again, I actually started streaming to get away and out of a HYPER toxic work environment. Once I switched jobs, I kept streaming and committed to a schedule, and it’s been uphill ever since! I love gaming, and I love talking about game design, music, mechanics, and dissecting what makes a game tick. Being able to do so with an audience makes the conversations that much more intriguing, and we’ve caught the attention of a few game devs and designers in the process!
What goals or aspirations would you like to achieve this year and in the future?
I want to get my podcast up and running, called Work in Progress-where I interview and chat with game industry devs and pros about their journey to make games more inclusive, more engaging, and help make gaming for everyone and SHOW IT. Like, I want to interview MaddyThorson about their frame changes and how they kept accessibility at the forefront, or HalfCoordinated’s journey from accessibility and speedrunning to PM of Accessibility at Ubisoft. I’d love to interview devs of Control to talk about their decision and process of giving early keys to only non-men and the response they got-I want to talk about A LOT! I’d also love to host a show at some point-looking at you FanByte, Polygon, Launcher, etc.
What is the most important thing to you about being an LGBTQIA+ streamer?
Being loud and visible. Especially being asexual, we deal with a lot of erasure or explaining down about how we’re ‘not really ace,’ but we also deal with people who assume that being ace means we’re ‘just like plants then.’ I want to kind of light a beacon for other Black queer streamers to alert them that yes, we’re here, and if people don’t like that, too bad. :)
Do you have any tips for new streamers entering the space?
YOU BELONG HERE! Don’t let anyone convince you that you don’t.
Likewise: establish what you want to stream and what kind of space you want to make first. Worrying about having a top-tier setup and all of that can come with time-I say that as someone who started with no camera and was using her Logitech G430 as a mic almost 4 years ago, and my setup grew alongside my channel.
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