Hello and welcome to Let's Chat. Let's Chat is a live podcast where I talk with creators about live streaming and the ways that streamers and their community shape culture yesterday, today, and in the future.
Um I get on the game, have a good time, talk to chat, and just enjoy the moment.
It's what the kids enjoy these days.
You cannot lay the next brick without the one that comes before it.
I mean, it took me so much time. Time is the most valuable resource in the entire world.
And I still want to collaborate with a lot of different communities and sort of be the bridge between them.
Hello and welcome to Let's Chat. I'm Dan Clancy, the CEO of Twitch. Joining me today is the wonderful Emily CC, live from Los Angeles. Welcome, Emily.
Thank you so much for inviting me, Dan.
Well, thank you for having me.
It's a real honor. So, Emily is a very distinctive streamer, if you are unaware of this. And um she she holds a record that is continuing to go and has never been broken. So, Emily, why don't you share with anyone who for whatever reason may not know you, what what what makes you so to stand out?
Uh so, I've been live over Today is 1,711. So, it's basically a continuous 24/7 stream. Like, sometimes I go to the bathroom, so I can't be there all the time. Like, I have to take a shower. I have showered on stream before, though. But, like, clothes on.
Go into those details. Uh huh.
[laughter] Like, so no, I would do a joke where like people give five subs and I would add a lot of clothes on.
So, it was fun. Um but yeah, I just continuously live stream. You know, this
It's the It's the Jim Carrey What's the Jim Carrey movie again? It's Truman Show.
He didn't know. I know. I did it on purpose, so.
It's It's quite distinctive and um uh and so we got a lot to talk about.
All right. And And this is great. I'm very because I feel, um, uh, uh, I've met Emily a few times at the Streamy Awards, you chat reminded me, but we've never done a stream together. And uh, um, I can't believe that. So, I'm excited and we're going to need to be able to do another stream together out in the world after this. So, let's start. As opposed to starting my like when you started streaming for Let's go back to when you started streaming. Okay. So, um, uh, what got you into streaming and just talked about that beginning when you first started streaming?
Yeah, so I started streaming 10 years ago. I was 19 years old. Uh, I was in college. I worked at CVS and I only played World of Warcraft on my little MacBook. Um, and I had a small little setup and someone had told me that I could stream on Twitch and find friends to play World of Warcraft with. I had no one to play World of Warcraft with. And I also was broke. So, they were like, "You could make money and you could also make friends." And I was like, "Perfect, cuz I have neither of those things." And the first month I got really lucky. Uh, someone did send me like a a computer, which I couldn't afford a computer.
Wow. Yeah, I got I genuinely it was It was honestly luck. It was It was within like the
So, then you must have fairly quickly gotten some amount of a, you know, modest audience.
Yeah, within like within the first month, um, it was just kind of life-changing and I realized I could do this like every day. Um, and once I got a computer, I quit my job at CVS and uh, luckily I was still living at home, so I could quit my little job. Um, and I
Were you still in school?
Yeah, I was still in school cuz I wanted also to get an education, but I also wanted to pursue streaming cuz I loved video games. I've been playing video games since I was a toddler and um, I loved talking to people and I loved like making friends through throughout like a community. It was just really cool. I'd never seen anything like that before. Uh so I just started
Did you watch Twitch a lot before you started streaming? No?
No, I didn't know what it was until someone was like, "This is where you can make friends." And then someone gave me a dollar and I was like, "Wow, like
Yeah, I remember my first dollar and I remember their name, but I don't know if I should out them. Um
Are they still Do they still watch you?
Their name was Zach though.
Was Zach, but he gave me a dollar and I was like, "Wow, like I can't believe someone would do that."
Mhm. And um and then I started like making friends to play World of Warcraft with and that's all I loved. Like I loved World of Warcraft so much, so it was just like, "Yeah, I'm doing this as long as I can."
And then and then when did you branch out to World of Warcraft to doing, you know, whatever you were doing?
Um I would say within the first 6 months cuz it took me a while to get my sub button, so I was just kind of doing whatever. I played a lot of Counter-Strike. Um I played like a lot of varieties.
Out where you were gaming.
Yeah, I would only game. Only game cuz I
I thought you were going to get banned if you didn't game.
Then you were close Let's see, that was So that was just when they lifted the the no gaming ban cuz it was 2016 and it was just around 2016 when
Have um something where you could eat food on stream.
Was only allowed to eat food in that section or I'd be banned. Like it was a little different back then. It was It's kind of funny looking back now.
Cuz you can You can eat on stream and stream IRL now and do whatever you want.
Well, also what I often talk about is how it's very strange and I think you are like the epitome of it coming full circle cuz in some way you are Justin.tv's
Initial vision. Right, you are you are the epitome of its initial vision.
I've heard of people on Justin.tv. I didn't get to watch it, but I I people are streaming all day there.
Well, that was that was the main
Yeah, that's all they did was stream all day and I I was like, "Wow, that's so interesting. Like, I can't believe people would do that." And now I'm doing that. So, you know, it
Well, his original idea and that's in the name was, "Well, I'll just stream my life."
Okay, and he built all the technology so he could stream his life and then he realized, "Oh, well, I should let other people do this."
Wow, I didn't know his story. That's amazing.
Then other people started life casting cuz that's what they called it then was life casting not. And and it it sort of it worked. But it didn't like it took off for a while, but then it was kind of, you know, laying flat and it wasn't um going to the next level and that's when Emmett then said, "Oh, he saw gaming was happening." and then he pivoted with Twitch. And I always say that, you know, it's really come full circle because it didn't have enough scale early on. But now it's come full circle where and I think you are the poster child of that because what you were doing was streaming your life.
Yeah. I mean, that's awesome. I didn't know his story, but
I had heard so many people streamed all the time.
Actually, it does occur to me I need to make sure that I need to ping Justin so that he can be on your stream especially now that you're in LA.
That'll be so cool. I would love to talk to him about
I think he would love that. Yeah.
So, afterwards I'll reach out to him. All right. So, now let's get to when in some ways your life changed. So, before you started streaming continuously, how frequently were you streaming before then?
I was always consistent, honestly, cuz I loved streaming and gaming. I thought I only play games so my
Well, you would still it'd be like 40 hours a week.
Yeah, it was I was very consistent. In 2019 I streamed like 200 days in a row, but not 24/7. So, I always loved to just
Right, you're consistent about streaming.
Yeah. But what Okay, and then
You had a you it was a subathon that started this.
Right? And so, tell me that story about the subathon and then when did it flip over?
Yeah, the subathon that I'm doing now, it all started cuz of a sub goal.
Still doing that from the one almost five years to go. Um it was a sub goal and I I had saw like people like Ludwig and there was this girl I follow. She was doing like 36 days and I was like, "Wow, like I want to do something like that." So I just I I basically was like pushing myself to go live as long as I can and I remember I hit 100 days live and I was like the longest one and I was like, "Wait, this is so cool."
And when you hit 100 days you were doing a traditional subathon where your length was based upon the contribution you were getting from your community.
Yeah, there's many times where it almost ended like
You're still officially on a subathon?
Yeah, cuz I I just thought I might as well keep it that way.
And keep it uncapped for whenever, but I'm sure if I capped it one day no one would be mad.
It's been going on so long, so
And and now is it such that you're not even close to hitting the end?
Um well, now you know, I I would say with with Kai, the whole Kai and Benny
Yeah, and all that they found my stream. I actually had to lower the amount of time that it would add because
Cuz you were going to be doing it till you're 85.
Yeah, I didn't know I didn't know that that many people would ever subscribe to me. I I never even hit 10,000 subs before. Like I that was my dream too, like just hit it once. Um and I had to lower the time because I had no idea what was going on, like what Kai was bringing to my life, like a blessing, but um yeah, I I've even had to lower the time before, but
Okay. So so officially you're still on a subathon and if it went to zero then you would
Then then you wouldn't stop streaming.
Off for a little while and you'd you'd
You'd go to go on vacation somewhere.
Yeah, but but but it's it's not I don't think it's going to ever with your community. At some point, you're going to have to It's It's interesting that
Right. At some point and that It It will be interesting. You'll You'll Whenever that time comes,
You're going to want You're going to have to think about how do you make a moment of it?
Yeah, like what should be the ending? I mean, I think either I throw a party or like it could be like the Sopranos ending and just, you know, end and then there's some music and then like it's just a black screen.
Or it could be like a big party or I could do or I could like skydive.
