Hello and welcome to Let's Chat. Woah, let's redo that. We're going to have to redo that. Hold on. I've got an echo in here. Sorry about that stream. I had the I had the Twitch channel up. So, we're going to get this going again, okay? 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. So, I'm Dan Clancy, the CEO of Twitch, and I'm happy to speak today with KreekCraft. He has millions of followers. He's one of the most recognizable creators in the Roblox community and the ecosystem with high energy live streams, community driven gameplay, and commentary on platform news and culture. Welcome. Let's see some of that energy, Creek.
I'm doing very well, Creek, and I think we'll have to have an an energy off today. How about that? We'll see which one of us can bring more energy to the stream. You know, as I've gotten older, it's actually gotten lower. I've had to start drinking coffee to keep that up. [laughter] Yeah, I'm normally not a coffee drinker, but I you know, before a big stream, I might I might have a couple of coffees.
I myself am not a coffee drinker, either, interestingly. Although, I do drink caffeine and Coke, unfortunately. I I but but that caffeine sometimes comes in All right. Well, we're going to start pre-Roblox, Creek. Okay?
Yeah. Uh so, go back in time. And now, I know you're getting a bit older. Okay, so it might be hard for you to remember way back when. Um but, talk to me about when you started as a content creator.
Yeah, so I just graduated high school, and I was looking for like like a job. And every place I applied to, they said I didn't have enough experience. Which like, how am I supposed to get experience without experience? Like, how's that even make sense?
I know, exactly, right. So, up until that point, I was just making Minecraft videos on YouTube. And I had a video kind of pop off, and someone YouTube I got like a partner manager, and they're like, you should try streaming. We just launched streaming. And I was like, okay. And at first, it was actually funny, cuz I thought I was going to hate it. Cuz the idea of it being live, and like, what if I mess up, you know? It's scary. And then, I started streaming. Loved it. People started loving it. Audience loved it, and it just kind of like immediately blew up. And then, I got like the first paycheck. And I was like, Mom, I got more than $5 this month. Like, I might be able to like do this. And yeah, it just kind of grew from there.
And so and so were your parents like did you did you think about college or was college always something that I think no, I don't want that?
So yeah, I was originally going to college for um computer science. Uh I I actually went to an online high school before before COVID, before it was cool to do that. Um just so that I could take programming classes that weren't available in my in my like local area. Um and I was whenever I started streaming I was I think like 1 year away from getting um not the bachelor's. What's the other one called? The first one you get? Not the bachelor's. Uh it's the two-year the two-year degree I'm doing.
Yeah, an associate's degree.
Yeah, associate's. I was I was like I was a few credits away from that.
And I was thinking of the bachelor, you know, that I was like what does that have to do with [laughter]
Yeah. Yeah, and uh it was it was kind of like do I keep balancing both or do I put all my energy into one and give it the best shot? And it was like this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I can always come back to this. I'm going to take the opportunity and risk. And uh you know, like family was pretty supportive. So um Oh well, that's good. It worked out. Yeah. It it's interesting cuz like I come from like a I guess like a older family. So like a lot of my family didn't really understand the concept of you can play video games and make money. Yeah. They're like he's just staying inside all day wasting his time, you know? Um my mom got it though cuz she was you know, she lived with me so she kind of get it got it a little bit. Um but yeah, once I got my first paycheck that was when the rest of the family was like okay, he was cool then. It was cool.
Finally finally finally we don't have to worry about him, you know, he's going to be able to do something with himself.
Yeah, exactly exactly. And now like you know, my cousins go to school, they're like, "Hey, you know, Creek Craft does my cousin. It's my cousin." And I'm cool with them.
Yeah, yeah. They're bragging about you. All right, so let's get to the um the persona, okay, the character. Okay? And before you talk to me about the character, I have a little surprise for you here. Okay? This is all that I had in my closet, okay? But I felt like for the show, I should have a little something. Amazing. Okay? So, I've decided I'm going to wear this for um the podcast. It is some type of furry furry monster. But so, tell me about the character and when did the character The
Yeah. So, I would wake up really early. So, when I started streaming, it was it was December. I'd wake up really early, be really, really cold, and I would always take a shower in the morning just to kind of wake up. And so, I would be freezing. And so, I would I would just grab it was a Deadmau5 hat, like the music artist Deadmau5. It was a random hat my mom got me from like a Kohl's back in like 2013 or something. And she's like, "Oh, this looks cool. I bet he'll like it." So, I had it in my closet. And so, every morning when I started streaming, I just put it on to keep my head warm. And then I started noticing that people would draw me with the hat. And also the red flannel, which I'm not wearing the red flannel right now. But um my grandpa would always give me like his red flannel hand-me-downs. And so, I'd always wear like red flannels. And people started drawing me with that. That was the fan art. And I was like, "Oh, okay. So, this is this is my thing. This this is it." And then, 10 years later, um my Deadmau5 hat started ripping cuz wearing it every single day for 10 years is uh you know, that's a lot of work on a hat. And so, I had to come up with my own thing. Uh number one, so Deadmau5 wouldn't hopefully not sue me. But then also, number two cuz he didn't sell those hats anymore. So I
Well, and has your hair has your hair always been sticking out or the the long hair sticking out? Did that only come over time?
So it I've always had longer hair. I've always liked having longer hair mostly because like whenever I was a kid um a lot of the like growing up a lot of the the dudes had like the short hair with the bangs like sticking up, you know, in school and I always wanted to be like the the outlaw, I guess. I'm like, well, I'm going to have longer hair. Um and cuz like when the wind blows, it like flows. You feel cool, right? You feel like the Maybelline commercial or something. Um and so like I always had like longer hair and uh it just kind of it it just kind of stuck. It's actually funny. I'll tell you a funny story. Um I dyed my hair a uh blue for a sub goal like a long time ago. And I actually got backlash. Like, don't you touch the hair. Leave the hair alone. The hair is an iconic part. like, I can't touch it now, you know?
You have that great red color. So So you may not realize this from my hair now, but I'm a redhead or was a redhead. And um uh I always remember this story that once I told someone I was like 40-something. I I said, "Oh, I'm a tall redhead." And they met me and they said, "You're not a redhead." And it's cuz by then all my hair had turned blonde um and kind of faded out. So enjoy the redness, you know, while you have it.
You know what's funny? I I don't know if you know this, but this is actually a wig that's attached to the hat. Well, it's not attached to the hat. I just put the hat know that. The reason why I have brown hair. My hair is brown. It's underneath this. The reason why is I shaved my head bald for um a sub goal. And what happened is the click-through rate on my thumbnails went down because I guess kids don't like clicking on videos of bald people. So I'm like, I'm going to get a wig off of Amazon that's like $5 that just looks similar to my hair. And I did, and it's kind of it became a running joke that Kreek wears a wig. So now
But you got But you got a wig that was red, not brown.
Yeah, it it's It looks a little bit reddish on camera. It's It's a little bit brown. Yeah, it's like blondish. Um I don't know. I like I like the blondish kind of orangey red look. It looks good on camera, so I keep it.
It looks good. I like it. I like it. All right. Um so let's get to Roblox then. Okay. Um talk to me about when Roblox clicked for you. And were you already playing Roblox personally before you started streaming it?
No. So it was like 2016. I I was doing like Minecraft PvP of Minecraft mods. And Minecraft kind of dipped a little bit like in terms of interest and viewer interest. This was before the Dream era and all that. And so I was kind of like, okay, well what what now? And Roblox was kind of on the rise, and my chat was always like play Roblox. And I was with the stigma and everyone had this back then. This is a dumb Minecraft rip-off kids game. I'm never going to play this. And one day I decided to play it cuz someone said there's a game on there called Phantom Forces, which is similar to Call of Duty. And I'm like, I'll check it out. I played it. I was like, okay, this is actually kind of fun. And over time it just kind of shifted completely into Roblox. Wow. And I started playing in 2016, so this will be 10 years.
And have you ever have you ever thought about cuz it's one of those things that, you know, we make these decisions, we have no idea where they're going. Cuz suppose you didn't make that switch, and then what happened with Minecraft? Just like how different your world would be if you had never made that switch back then.
There was a part of me that was so I guess burned out of Roblox back when Fortnite came out that there was a part of me that was like, "You know what? I'm going to I'm going to become a Fortnite streamer." And like I never did. I don't I I I almost did. I made the switch almost, but like I did it. And it's like, man, if I would have done that, my life would also be completely different. But yeah, I just stuck with Roblox.
It seemed like the nice thing about Roblox, though, is that I'm sure has kept you there is just it's not one game. And so you have this endless supply of games that you can play.
Exactly. So like there's always something new, something that's coming out that's interesting and exciting that kind of changes it up. It's not It's not the same thing.
Well, so so how much do you think of yourself now as a um uh as a trendsetter with Roblox or as a follower in terms of what you know, what game you decide to play?
Um I think it's kind of a mix of both cuz like as streamers, I feel like we we do have the ability to kind of set trends, but also at the end of the day, it's a matter of like what does your audience want to watch? Cuz like if I if I could do anything I wanted, I'd be streaming like Halo and World of Warcraft all day, but like that like most Roblox players are like, "What is that? I've never even heard of that." Yeah. But like obviously, you can't do that cuz that's not where like the audience is these days. So um you you're kind of beholden to your audience a little bit, but it is a matter of you know, you do you do get to pick and choose a little bit. Roblox does have a little bit of variety in terms of like what you can do.
Right. Right. And um uh so what are you playing now?
Oh, we're not talking about it. You know, still a brain riot, you know, stuff like that. Uh you know, it's not the it's it's not my proudest uh era, I guess, but um it's what the it's what the kids enjoy these days, you know.
Well, explain do this. Do this cuz I think, you know, for some of the for some people watching this Yeah. um uh cuz part of the objective of this is to expose all that's going on to folks that may not live it. Um talk about Roblox some. Explain Roblox to the person who hasn't played Roblox and what why is it so big?
So, like you got to think of it like a platform. It's like Steam, except most of the games are made by like either or their kids or older teenagers or like really young adults. And um it's got a very large like kid teenage audience. So, and all the games are like free to play kind of. So, you can kind of get the idea of like where that platform where where it sits and stuff. Um and then over the years the platform kind of moves along with the general trend. So, like back when GTA V came out and the few years after, there were a bunch of like kind of like rip-off GTA phones cuz like kids, you know, they're not going to play GTA. So, what are they going to do? They're going to play the best version they can on Roblox that's free to play. Um and then like there was other trends that pet games were really big. And then like asymmetrical horror games were really big. Um and now the big thing right now is like brain rot and tongue tongue tongue stuffer and and all of those characters and stuff.
Right. Yeah. And so and so it seems like obviously what you're trying to do is figure out what your audience is going to enjoy. Yeah. As opposed to trying and you sort of respond to whatever is popular on Roblox now as opposed to shaping it part of what you're doing because you probably do you explore new games very often? How often are you just wandering around Roblox playing games that you haven't played or don't already know are pretty good.
Quite a bit. I like to think I have my finger on the pulse of like the Roblox community. Like somebody breathes and I know about it kind of thing. So like part of like my job is also what comes next. And this is this is probably true for any streamer no matter what game you play, but like if you're known for one game and then that game stops being popular, ends, or whatever, then you kind of go down with that ship. And so you have to be able to pivot to new stuff. Um and so like part of Roblox is like, "Okay, well what's going to be the next big game? What's the next big trend?" Because like in in 2020 I played this game called Piggy and I made videos on it and streamed it every single day.
I know Piggy is wasn't that one of the the moments where you sort of broke out?
Yeah, I got like I think it was like 5 million subs in like a few months from Piggy cuz the pandemic happened and Piggy happened and it it just lined up perfectly. Stars aligned. And then like a year later the game ended. It was like, "This is the last update. This is the last chapter." And I was like, "Oh crap, what do I do now?" [laughter] Um and uh and yeah, I was able to pivot. Um so, you know, I was lucky with that, but you know, that's something that's always in the back of your mind.
Now, one of the you know, I know one thing that I've, you know, learned about Roblox for those who don't use it is, you know, part of it is just hanging out with your friends. Um because a lot of people that are playing Roblox are playing Roblox with their friends. Um so, who do you mostly play Roblox with?
I um I have like a So, it's interesting because there's so many different Roblox games, there's so many different demographics. So, like just because you're a Roblox streamer or creator doesn't necessarily mean that our audience will audiences will mesh together. Yeah. Um like if you play Dress to Impress, you probably have like a uh larger female audience. Um if you play Rivals, you probably have a a male-dominated audience. Um so like right now I kind of stick to like people that's, you know, that I know personally, you know, shout out to State, Kaylas, all those guys. Um but I I I don't know. Um
You said you have a group of friends and were you Were any of those folks were you already friends with or did you did like cuz many of the ones let's take sake as an example many of the ones are also streamers. You all met that you met them all in your streaming life as opposed to them being real world friends that, you know,
Yeah. Yeah. I I met them through streaming. It's actually one one sad thing about being a streamer and content creator is like a lot of times you're up working really late. So like people with like normal jobs I guess you would say um all those normies all those normies all the normies like a lot of my friends pre-streaming I don't get to talk to them as much because they're online at like, you know, midnight after work before work in the morning and it's like well, I'm up editing. So it's like, you know, it's it's it's tough. It's one of the tough things about the job. Yeah.
Do you still Do you still stay in touch with like your cuz you I don't know is it public where you live or not?
Uh it is. Yeah. Okay. grew up in Florida. Um by Jacksonville. Uh I I didn't really have that many friends growing up. It was probably like a little close-knit group of like four to five and like I try and stay in touch as as much as possible.
Of your friends now most of your real world friends now come from your professional which is the way most people are. Most of your real world friends are all come from your professional life.
Yeah, I would say so. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, I know from Brandon it seems like one of the things they're always trying to do is get you out of the house.
Dude, I Look, man, I My goal people always ask me like what's your goal from streaming? I want to make enough money to where I can retire and just play video games for the rest of my life. Like get like some remote house somewhere. A lot of people like, I want this super fancy car, a super fancy house. Like, I don't care about any of that. I just want to be able to like retire and just play video games, and I'm good.
But then you don't need to retire if all you're doing is playing video games.
That's true. That's true. I I guess like
Actually, talk about this. I always think one of the reasons that streaming I think took off is of course playing video games is social. Yeah. Um cuz you're playing with other people, and then you're just like, "Oh, and someone's going to watch me?" So like like like it seems to me like if you're playing a video game, like why wouldn't you stream? How much do you play video games where you're not streaming?
Quite a bit. I I actually this is something I struggled with for a while. It's kind of like how much of my life is KreekCraft, and how much of my life is just the normal dude, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And um So like what I've done over the years is like I have like a set line. Like I I I don't play Roblox in my off time. That is a that is a YouTube thing. That's a streaming thing. Um and when it comes like personal time, like that's me, that's you know, lights out, big monitor, Red Dead Redemption 2, Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate, you know?
You're a conditional gamer. In other basically
Yeah, yeah. 100% 100%. Name a game I probably like I I literally just play video games. For my job out of my job.
But it doesn't fit your your online character, so you just do that on your own.
Yeah. I've I've thought about like having a more mature channel where I stream games like Red Dead Redemption or Elden Ring or whatever it may be, but like part of it's also like I don't want to constantly be in streamer mode. Sometimes I want to just like stare blankly at the screen and play video games, you know?
Yes. Like like when you're streaming, there's like this this you know, there's some degree of commitment to your community. And then when you talk about the feeling when you stop streaming. It's um when you hit stop stream, you know, is it like an exhale?
I think it was at first. I've got it's become so like just muscle memory to me. Like you put a camera on me and I can just like switch into YouTube mode. I I guess the thing to say too is like I wouldn't really say that Creek Craft is like a character. It's more just like an exaggerated version of myself, I guess. Right. Um So like it's not necessarily like it's not hard to get into that or I'm not like, you know, it's not stressful or anything like that, but there is an element especially after a long stream it's like I can go and like relax now. But the other thing about being a content creator is just like well, you're back live again tomorrow. You don't get days off, so start planning.
Well, the way I decided it it's almost like it's a caricature of yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Right? It's who you are, but everything turned up a little bit. Yeah. You know? And so well, um uh have you created a a animated V2 version of yourself?
I [laughter] have not. No. I I've thought about it cuz it's like it's funny. Um it'd be funny if I was like a V Tuber one day, but I think so much of how people like recognize me and I guess like my brand if you'd say that is me. And so it's like if you take that away you kind of lose that element, I guess.
Yeah. I will say one thing to think about is well, actually before I'll say this, I'll ask um uh uh cuz first of all, uh I guess I it was recently your birthday. Yeah. And and I guess we should have sent you a cane because you're 30 years old now. Do I have Do I have almost pushing 30.
I thought you just turned 30. Okay, you just turned 29. You're not 30 yet, so next year we can send you a cane.
Yeah, th- this is the first year cuz like up until now I've I've been like it I I I don't feel any diff- any different. Like I I could feel like I feel the same as I did in high school, you know? right? Yeah, sure. And then this year it's like this is the first year where like someone will say something online and I'm like, "What in the world does that mean? Let me look that up." And it's like I'm starting I feel old now. Um people unironically say skibidi Ohio rizz and I'm like, "You guys aren't joking when you say that." Like you're dead serious and they're serious and it's like, "Okay, I I feel old now. I'm getting there."
Yeah. Yeah. No, well, you still look very young. I think that helps. Yeah, you know. You still look very young and have a very um you know, a very, you know, young energy to you. So, talk about what do you think is the most rewarding part of kind of building that brand and the the live meetups, membership communities, chat interaction. What you know, how what does that kind of drive for you?
You know, it's it's weird cuz like growing up I would always come home from school and like there'd always be streamers or or creators that I would look forward to watching at the end of the day and that would be kind of like the reward for getting through the school day. And like now I'm that reward for other kids coming home from the school and doing stuff or coming home from work or whatever it may be. And so it does feel like um sort of like a responsibility to kind of like pay that forward or give that back, you know? Um it it's a it's a weird feeling but like it it's I I think the most rewarding part of the job is knowing that like people have something to look forward to and enjoy watching.
All right. So, so um chat wants to know who were your influences. Who who helped shape you?
My favorite YouTubers growing up was probably the Yogscast. Um They had a series on Minecraft called Shadow of Israphel and they never finished that and I'll never forgive them for that. But um But I love the Yogscast, uh Markiplier, um SeaNanners, that's probably an an an old one there. Um
Now, is Yogscast the one that does the Christmas special?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They do the Christmas special. Yeah. Yeah, I was I was on that one year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I watched them growing up. Um it's interesting cuz like a lot of people are like they assume I started YouTube because of one specific person. Like I started YouTube cuz I thought it'd look good on a resume. I just kind of fell in love with the process, right? But like um in terms of like inspirations, like those were definitely like the ones that I kind of looked to and it's like I want to be like those guys, you know?
All right. Well, well, I heard one quote that from a from a an interview you did that I thought was interesting. This idea that you wanted to be the moist critical of Roblox.
Yeah. [laughter] So, after Piggy ended, there was an element of what do I do now? And something had happened on Roblox and I was just randomly like, I got to make a video talking about this. So, I made a video talking about it and it did really, really good and it's like, oh crap, like people just sat there and watched me talk about something for 8 minutes. I'll do this again. And I did it again and then over time, it just became like here's an 8-minute video of me talking about something. And I forget who it was, but someone was like, dude, you're basically the moist critical of Roblox. Like you you wear the white shirt every day. Um this is a pajama shirt cuz I just never change out of
You do have a you do have have color and some jackets on there. It's not, you know.
Yeah. Yeah. I don't look at you and think Moist Critical, okay? I don't. [laughter] Um but I guess like the video format and stuff is very very Even the thumbnails, like Moist Critical, I'll do a thumbnail where it's just him staring at the camera and like those perform the best for me, too. It's crazy. Like I've tried all kinds of different thumbnails. The ones that do the best are the ones where I'm just staring at the camera. Um
Well, and do you I mean, do you do you do you try to vary your thumbnails or you now realize it's just you staring at the camera and you just stare slightly differently?
I have AB tested for all thumbnails, um thumbnail like Everything imaginable. Everything imaginable. The ones that perform the best are me in front of the doing this. That's it. And and every now and then I'll change my face a little bit, but I I don't know why cuz like everyone is like, "That's not supposed Like you you can't do it like that. That's that That's breaking the YouTube rules." But like it works, and so it's like, "Okay, I'm going to keep doing it then."
Now, you're a bit of a tech person, in terms of how you do things, right? I mean, you've done a lot of sort of analysis of what it takes.
Yeah, I'm like a huge tech nerd. I don't spend a lot of money on things unless it's video games or tech. That's my thing. So I like to think I know a little bit about everything when it comes to technology, computers, streaming, that sort of thing.
But part of it, too, is my understanding that you also think a lot about like when you were first streaming, did you do a lot of testing on when you would use your stream or who you're streaming for?
Yeah, so that's something you slowly learn over time. So like with Roblox, weekends, you can really just stream whenever you want because everyone's home from school and work, but when it comes to weekdays, obviously Roblox has a younger audience, so streaming in the middle of the day when most people are at school or something, probably not the best idea. You kind of have to get analytical with a lot of stuff like that. It's funny because I hate looking at analytics. Like I'll upload a new video and I'll just be like, I don't want to see how good it's doing. I'll look tomorrow. But to a degree you have to be, because that's how you learn, right? It's like why did this stream not do as good as that one or why did that video not do as good as that one? You have to look at it.
Talk about why you think live is for you, and I know I have various thoughts about why live is really good for someone. So talk about, because you talked about not wanting to just look at those numbers, and talk about live and what that does for you.
The thing I like about live streaming is it feels very authentic and real and just kind of raw, I guess. There's a lot of people these days that have very sophisticated live streaming setups, but if you boil it down at the end of the day it's just a live stream of someone talking or playing a game or doing whatever. And it feels very real and authentic. And whenever you watch a video, no matter how good that video is, it's a production. It is edited and there's probably different takes of this and that, but with live streaming it just feels like you're watching something authentic. And I feel like in today's world there's so many things that are just not authentic and that are just fake. And so whenever you're watching a stream it feels like you're actually watching another human being as opposed to some character that someone's playing, I guess.
So do you still do your own editing for your YouTube videos or does the team do that now?
So everything on my main channel I do, minus a few things here and there. All the other channels I have a team that handles everything. I just record. Mainly because something I've tried to get better at, especially over the past year, is just having more free time. I'd love to start going to the gym and eating better and stuff, but I don't have time. And so how I can relegate that and give me more free time is something I'm playing around with.
When do you do, because you stream and then it sounds like you often do your editing after you stream at night.
Yeah, so once you stream on YouTube at least, what a lot of people do is they'll cut down the stream to a video just using the YouTube editor. So that takes time, that's a process.
But you usually do it as opposed to waiting till the next morning? Are you like, I got to get it done tonight, if I wait till the next morning...
Yeah. There's sometimes where it's like I'm just too tired, I'm going to sleep or something, but most of the time I don't like procrastinating on stuff. It's like if something needs to be done, let's just do it, you know? And so I try to do it immediately.
