Streamers on the Rise: Sylvee takes her chat to Disney World with a streamer’s dream “IRL backpack”

Welcome to Streamers on the Rise, where we find streamers who are growing their channels, content, and audiences in extraordinary ways. Each week we’ll talk with a creator about what goes into livestreaming–both on and off camera.

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For Sylvee, interactivity is the lifeblood of streaming.

And look, we know it’s fair to say interactivity is the lifeblood of most streaming, but for Sylvee, it’s especially important. Her entire Twitch career has been about collaboration, both with other creators and with her viewers. She first took off on Twitch thanks to her participation in SMPEarth, a shared Minecraft server. Then, when her community started growing, she found that a lot of her viewers would post clips of her streams to TikTok, bringing in even more viewers. (Syvlee’s also on TikTok, but attributes much of her growth there and the overall growth of her community to her fans’ enthusiasm for sharing her content themselves.)

But her favorite type of interaction is her IRL livestreams.

To do those, she straps on what she calls her “IRL backpack,” which has a full camera rig, an internet modem, a connection to a dedicated server, and a screen where she can read her chat while she’s out and about.

Getting the backpack together–an expensive and arduous process–was a “500% improvement,” Sylvee says, and with it, she’s able to take her viewers out with her to visit cities like San Francisco and to experience rides in real-time at the many theme parks in Sylvee’s home state of Florida.

Sylvee sometimes struggles with social anxiety, but taking her community out with her puts her in a whole different mindset.

“I don’t know how to explain this, but if I was talking out loud even on my phone in public, I would be horrified,” she says. “[It’s] less intimidating because I feel like I’m in a different world. I’m talking to them and that’s my little zone and everyone else is NPCs.”

Check out our chat with her below.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

@sylveey Sul sul! Oh feebee lay! Whippna choba dog! #sims #sylvee #sylveey ♬ Game Over

Tubefilter: Pretend somebody is reading this and they don’t know you, have never seen your stuff. Give me a little introduction about you.

Sylvee: I’m Sylvee. I’m a variety streamer and I play a variety of games and I do a variety of things on my stream. I like to have a bunch of different hobbies and just trying new things is something I really like to do. I do like cooking streams. I do IRL streams where I go out in public and stream. Then I play a bunch of games. I do play a lot of Minecraft, but I also play Valorant and things like Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, and CS:GO, a lot of stuff.

Tubefilter: How did you get originally started with Twitch? Did you start on Twitch as a viewer?

Sylvee: I was a Twitch viewer for a while. I started getting into gaming and I would stream a little bit whenever I would play Overwatch. Then I started making friends who were streamers and started streaming with them. Then I got invited to Minecraft stuff and started streaming Minecraft events.

Tubefilter: Was there a specific moment where you were like, “This is going to be a full-time thing,” or how did that evolve for you?

Sylvee: I would say that for a while I was just doing it and then it started being a pretty consistent thing where I was getting a little bit more than my minimum wage job. That’s when I started full-time streaming, but I’m still a student, but I would consider myself more full-time than not.

Tubefilter: What are you going to college for?

Sylvee: Digital media.

Tubefilter: Oh, a good fit.

Sylvee: Honestly, college is very much a side quest and streaming is my main focus.

Tubefilter: And digital media is really applicable to what you’re doing.

Sylvee: It is. Actually, I had a class, it was a video game developing class where I learned to use Unity. I actually did a few streams where I made a game in Unity and I put all my friends in it. That was really fun and that was a use of my degree for streaming. Not that I have the degree yet, but…

Tubefilter: No, but that’s really cool. When you graduate, do you plan on sticking with streaming full-time?

Sylvee: Yes. Ideally. That’s why I’m doing digital media, because I feel like I can apply it to streaming pretty well.

Tubefilter: What’s your current streaming schedule like?

Sylvee: I’m a little bit inconsistent. Sometimes I’ll stream 10 hours a day and then sometimes I’ll stream once a week. I don’t have much of a schedule. It just depends on what games I’m enjoying at the time.

Tubefilter: I did want to ask a little bit about how you grew your audience. I know that you’re in SMPEarth and that probably helps. Audience growth is something that a lot of streamers really struggle with because it’s not easy to find followers on Twitch like it is on other platforms like YouTube or TikTok. I wanted to ask if there’s anything specific that you think played into you being able to grow an audience and a fanbase on Twitch.

Sylvee: Well, I do think that TikTok helped a lot. For a while I was posting TikToks. Then also, thankfully, a lot of my viewers post clips from my streams and that actually really helped, so thanks to them.

Tubefilter: So you feel like you’re seeing people from TikTok coming over to Twitch?

Sylvee: Yes, for sure.

Tubefilter: Do you have a strategy for TikTok?

Sylvee: I probably should be, but… [laughs] I’m thankful that a lot of my viewers do post clips and that’s a lot of where the TikTok viewers come from, but I probably should be posting more there.

@sylveeyThis is a cute trend♬ ive got a big egoooo – grey loves dillon😈

Tubefilter: That’s really interesting. I’ve talked to a couple of other people who use TikTok to funnel to Twitch, but you’re the first person I’ve spoken to who said that your audience posting clips is really helping. Would you describe your community as tight-knit? Are they supportive of you?

Sylvee: Yes. It’s a very friendly community and there’s a lot of girls in it. It’s kind of a little girls’ club where we all hang out and it’s always fun.

Tubefilter: What’s your favorite part of streaming?

Sylvee: I guess probably interacting with chat is always my favorite part.

Tubefilter: Tell me a little bit about how you handle IRL streams.

Sylvee: I think the most difficult part to IRL streaming is the equipment to set it up. It’s very confusing and a little expensive. It’s bulky and it’s inconsistent.

Tubefilter: What do you have to use?

Sylvee: I built my own. I just got all the parts together. It’s like a LiveView and it’s internet modems with a camera and a battery pack.

Tubefilter: Oh, that is a lot.

Sylvee: Then you have to buy an RMTP server or something so that you stream to that server so that it doesn’t cut out, which, that’s the confusing part. I think IRL streaming is so much fun. I would probably leave my house once a month if I didn’t have my IRL backpack, but now I leave five times a month and that’s incredible. 500% improvement with an IRL backpack.

Tubefilter: Are you able to interact with chat as much during IRL streams?

Sylvee: It’s pretty interactive. Since I do them alone a lot of the time, and talking to strangers in public is a little scary, I do talk to chat most of the time. Since I live in Florida and there’s a lot of theme parks, a lot of my streams have been showing chat around the theme parks. We go on a couple of rides together and it’s fun to have them experience the park in first-person. I have my chat always underneath my camera so I can talk to them.

Tubefilter: Was handling social anxiety difficult at first to be on stream? Have you adjusted over time, or is it just also less pressure when you’re streaming?

Sylvee: When I first started streaming I didn’t have a camera, so that already wasn’t a lot of pressure, but I do feel like, for me, I’ve been doing it for a long time. It just feels like a different mindset. I don’t know how to explain this, but if I was talking out loud even on my phone in public, I would be horrified. But if I had a camera, which is weird to think about because I’m having a camera and I’m like, “Oh, blah, blah, blah,” but it’s less intimidating because I feel like I’m in a different world. I’m talking to them and that’s my little zone and everyone else is NPCs. They’re not, but it feels like it in my head so I’m tricking myself.

Tubefilter: When it comes to handling variety streaming, how do you choose what you’re going to stream on which day? Do you respond to audience requests? Is it just what you’re feeling?

Sylvee: I do. Sometimes my audience has really good ideas. There’s one streaming idea that I’m really excited about where I’m going to go to do–You know how TikTokers talk to college students and make them do little quizzes? I’m going to do that, but it’s summer, so all the colleges are closed, so I have to wait for that one, but I’m really excited to do that. A lot of times I look at TikTok videos and YouTube videos of people doing vlogs and I try to incorporate those into IRL Streams.

Tubefilter: Have you thought about doing vlog content on YouTube or are you pretty firm on streaming?

Sylvee: I think that I’m much better at streaming than I am at vlogging. I’ve tried a vlog before and it does not feel like NPCs when you’re vlogging. It’s a different mindset for me. It’s harder for me to talk to a camera if I’m not streaming. I don’t know how to explain it. I just can’t vlog, so that’s why I do IRL streams. They are vlogs, but I’m streaming, so it’s like a streaming vlog.

Tubefilter: I get you. Aside from doing the quiz project, are there any projects or anything you’re working on right now? Any goals you have over the next year or so?

Sylvee: More IRL streams. I have a lot of really fun ideas that are time-sensitive for events that I want to do. I want to do some IRL streams at VidCon. TwitchCon Paris is going to be really fun.

Tubefilter: I gotta admit, I’m really intrigued by the theme park livestreams. Where else have you taken your chat before? Anyplace else that’s notable?

Sylvee: Oh, I took them to San Francisco. I went to San Francisco, and I took them with me. My friend showed me around some of the places that she lives there and that was really fun. I hope to do more traveling streams. I really want to go to New York because I love New York and I think it’d be really fun to IRL stream there.

Tubefilter: One last quesiton. You mentioned taking this video game course where you learned Unity. Are you interested in continuing to do video game development?

Sylvee: Yes! My goal is to make a really simple game I can share with my viewers that’s a complete game. I think that that’s really fun. I like being creative, and I think it’s a really unique form of creativity. I didn’t really think about until I started learning Unity. I do want to. My goal is to make a game that’s fun and playable.