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.
Krystalogy has been making videos on the internet since she was 13, but she never expected it to become a full-time thing.
Way, way back in 2012, she joined YouTube. It was the let’s play heyday, and she loved popular games like The Sims and Minecraft. After finding other creators’ videos chronicling their adventures, she wanted to try making her own.
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“I just had a lot of fun doing it, playing pretend, telling stories is something that I love to do,” she says. “I ended up uploading every single day. There was a time period where I uploaded twice a day, which is insane because I couldn’t imagine doing that today. I was on something else. I was on something else when I was younger. She was built different back then.”
That enthusiasm carried her for years, and as she got older, her tastes in games changed. Some of her audience had aged with her, but new members were still coming in, and they were pretty young. She felt like she’d “outgrown” her platform a bit. So, she rebraned, going from her original username to Krystalogy and launching a Twitch channel.
On Twitch,” I would be able to play more games,” she says. “It didn’t require editing. I started to realize I really liked streaming on Twitch because I talk a lot and it’s fun to have people to talk to.”
At the same time as Krysta was building her Twitch following, she was in college, majoring in public relations. The more she attended, though, the more she realized she didn’t really want to be there. She wanted to be streaming.
She decided to take a one-year break from school–right as COVID hit.
Twitch’s 2020 boom, combined with Krysta focusing her energy full-time on her channel, helped her grow to nearly 120,000 followers. She also started a content group, SomeBros, with her friends and fellow creators Berleezy, ImDontai, Physical Gamerz, Joeiaco, JoJothaMofo, and RicoTheGiant, and together they’re now approaching 230,000 subscribers on YouTube.
Krysta hoped, when she took that one-year break, that it would go well. But she didn’t realize just how well it would go.
Check out our chat with her below.
@krystalogytv human bill squad #fortnite #twitch #twitchclips #somebros ♬ original sound – Krystalogy
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tubefilter: Pretend somebody’s reading this and they don’t know anything about you. Give me a little bit of background about you and where you’re from and your journey up to joining Twitch.
Krystalogy: Well, I have a long history. I’ve been making content for about almost 11 years now. I started in 2012, I think I was like 13 or 14. I personally was enjoying the prime of YouTube let’s plays, Sims, and Minecraft, and it looked really fun and I wanted to start it myself, so I did. My grandfather got me a laptop for school and I used that as my opportunity to start making Sims videos. At first, it was all just a hobby. I just had a lot of fun doing it, playing pretend, telling stories is something that I love to do. I ended up uploading every single day. There was a time period where I uploaded twice a day, which is insane because I couldn’t imagine doing that today. I was on something else. I was on something else when I was younger. She was built different back then.
Tubefilter: When you’re young, you have that energy.
Krystalogy: Yes, exactly. I was going to school, grades were still good, and I was uploading two videos a day. Like…
Tubefilter: Wild.
Krystalogy: Yes, insane. I actually started to gain a following. I think around then, I had 30,000, which is nothing to sneeze at when you’re that young. It was really cool because I was making money off it too, and that was something I never expected to happen. It was really still just a thing for fun. I never expected it to become a job at that time. I ended up going to college and I took a one-year break while I was in college, but I ended up not liking that year. I realized that I enjoy what I do and I want to keep doing it.
That’s when I started Twitch, because I felt at that time when I got into college, I felt that I was outgrowing my audience in terms of, I was playing The Sims and Minecraft, but I wanted to play more mature games and my audience was really young. I decided to give myself a rebrand because my original name was Kissabunny but then I rebranded it to Krystalogy and I started streaming on Twitch where I would be able to play more games. It didn’t require editing. I started to realize I really liked streaming on Twitch because I talk a lot and it’s fun to have people to talk to.
I’d started to develop a little community and I was really lucky because a lot of people usually start off Twitch like a dead zero, but since I had people from my community who’s been with me for years, they’re still with me sometimes. I’m like, “Whoa, that’s crazy that you’ve been here for 11 years.” I’ve had at least like five or 10 people there, and it was just a nice fun thing to do after classes. I did that for a couple of years and then 2019, around 2019, 2018, I think, is when Twitch really started to blow up. I know you can see a career with gaming and just content creation in general. I graduated school at the end of 2019 right before COVID and it’s funny.
Tubefilter: Oh, great timing.
Krystalogy: Right, right. Right before COVID and before we knew COVID was happening, I was thinking, I’m like, “Okay, well, we’ll try to give this content creation thing a try for a year and see what happens.” Well, that year was COVID year, so I ended up, I needed to do it either way. I did have an internship at the same time and I did it for six months, but then I got picked up by my ex-org, Gen.G, and I went full-time content creation and streaming and I’ve been ever since, and it’s been really cool. I’ve done a lot of cool things during my years as a full-time, really cool sponsors, really cool events.
Worked with Gen.G and now I’m with my content group, SomeBros, that we just started and I’ve been getting off the ground. Yes, for my content, I just play everything and anything under the sun. I’m a variety streamer. I love playing games. Any game with a great story, I’m there. I also have tapped into the reactions as well. Love anything comic books, superheroes, nerd pop culture is just my thing. Having people to talk about it with is the reason why I do content creation, for real.
Tubefilter: Perfect. What was your specialization in college?
Krystalogy: Public relations.
Tubefilter: Oh, that actually ties really well into this.
Krystalogy: Yes. Before, I was going to do criminal justice and then I realized I did not like that and I was like, “What is a degree that if I can’t do YouTube all of my life, what is close to it?” Public relations is what I found.
Tubefilter: Man, how the timing worked out for you. Twitch had such a huge year in 2020.
Krystalogy: Yes, yes. It was horrible. COVID sucked, but it worked out for me because I stayed home, I had things to do. I feel like a lot of people’s careers really took off with that timing.
Tubefilter: What was it like for you to be able to go full-time? What did your schedule start to look like?
Krystalogy: Now, I feel like every day is different. Every day it’s something new. I don’t know because it really depends on what sponsors I have going on or what my group, SomeBros, needs me to do or making my own content, making sure I still have time for that. Then also making sure I have time for myself. I’ve learned over the years, I’m a big workaholic. I can be. When it came to school, when it comes to this, I often didn’t take time for myself. Now I’ve learned. I take time off and away from the computers. Honestly, once I’m done gaming for Stream or videos, I tend to just go read a book or get away from screens for a little bit. I don’t spend as much time on social media as I used to. I like to go outside to restaurants or touch grass, some may say. Yes, but honestly, full eight-hour days, for sure, mostly every day.
Tubefilter: Yes, that sounds about right. I know you upload to TikTok. Do you still upload to YouTube as well? How active are you across multiple channels?
Krystalogy: Yes, I upload to TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter– Well, Twitter not so much. I don’t want to be tweeting like that no more. I do have video content all across the board. I think I have three YouTube channels. Then we have our SomeBros channel, which is two channels because we have a gaming one of that one as well. Then Twitch, I still stream consistently. I’ve got two TikToks, actually. One TikTok is my gaming TikTok. The other one is just a haha hehe TikTok where I just do girly stuff.
Tubefilter: Tell me about SomeBros and how that came about.
Krystalogy: Yes, so SomeBros is a content channel with me and my six friends. During COVID actually, we gamed a lot together and it consists of Berleezy, ImDontai, Physical Gamerz, Joeiaco, JoJothaMofo, and RicoTheGiant. And we played a lot of games together during COVID. Eventually, I don’t know, they actually started at first without me being involved, which was fine. I was like, “Oh, cool. They’re starting to get the little thing going.” Then randomly, I just get added to the group chat and I’m like, “Hey, what’s going on here? How’s it going?”
I don’t think then they started doing videos or anything but once I got in, I’m like, “Okay, what’s the plan? What are we doing? Where are we going? When we can start making videos?” I help push us to start actually recording things. That’s when we recorded our Hell’s Kitchen video, which has a million views right now. It’s great. Yes, and now, we just make a bunch of IRL videos. We’re all gaming content creators, so it gives us a break from the norm and allow us to be a little bit more creative with what we do. We all bring something different to the table. Like my friend, he’s like a director, horror, connoisseur. He brings the cool video elements and story elements and, I don’t know, everyone just has their niche that when we bring it together, it creates something really awesome.
Tubefilter: What kind of projects are you focusing on together?
Krystalogy: Just IRL videos. We recently did IRL Mario Kart which was really fun. One that we coming up with soon is just doing a field day, like how you did in school. Just whatever, just having fun with your friends and trying to do just unique video concepts.
Tubefilter: I was also curious, you’re the first person I’ve spoken to for this column, I think, who’s also a Twitch ambassador. How did you become an ambassador, and what is that whole role like?
Krystalogy: I applied for it. Through their website, you’re able to apply to be a Twitch ambassador, and it’s pretty chill, honestly. We get exclusive insight into some of the things that Twitch is doing, and we have the ability to voice our concerns or if we see something happening, we have a channel where we can give feedback and talk to people directly at Twitch, so that’s been really nice.
Tubefilter: We have a lot of creators who read these columns, and so I like to ask for that clarification just so people get an idea of what they can do or what platforms do for them, that kind of thing.
Krystalogy: Yes. I definitely recommend if you’re interested in it, to apply through the website. Hopefully, fingers crossed, you get chosen. It was really cool when I did. For my year, they gave us a really cool gift which I wasn’t expecting. It was for Christmas. I think before they let people go to TwitchCon, and they do a big TwitchCon thing with the ambassadors of that year, but we didn’t have TwitchCon because COVID. We just got a really cool gift and that was really awesome.
Tubefilter: I know you mentioned earlier on that when you started Twitch you already had a base of viewers from YouTube, but obviously you’ve had to grow on Twitch anyway, which is, you know, everybody who’s spoken to me for this column has basically been like, ”Yes, it’s really difficult to grow on Twitch.”
Krystalogy: Yes.
Tubefilter: How you have grown your audience over the years?
Krystalogy: Diversification is my biggest, I feel, driver to people coming to my Twitch. I know it’s hard to diversify because it takes time. To upload videos on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, wherever you use additionally, it takes a lot of time and effort to do that, but it does help with your personal discoverability. I had people come in my chat all the time saying, ”Oh, I watch your YouTube videos,” or, ”Oh, I found you on TikTok.” Even through Twitter, I’ve had people come to my chat for those reasons. Putting yourself on multiple platforms really helps expand your reach a tonne.
Another thing that helped me is gaming with my friends, collaborations is good. I feel I don’t really like suggesting that one too much because then some people only then collaborate to grow, which I do not recommend at all. Genuine friendships and genuinely playing friends, playing with people who have communities, eventually, they also filter into yours as well. That one’s just always so hard to– what’s the word? Advise, when you don’t want people just like becoming friends just to grow, that sucks.
Tubefilter: Do you have any current projects or goals you’re working on?
Krystalogy: As terms of goals, I’m trying to upload more frequently on YouTube myself. Like I said, it’s a hard thing to do, especially when there’s six million other things going on. I’m trying to upload to YouTube frequently myself again. Then also just, I want to get into more of my creative side again. Trying to plan different types of streams where, I don’t know, it’s not just playing video games, there’s a cool theme or something different than I’m doing. I actually want to start IRL streaming a lot more. I did it once, and it was really fun and I might do it again, actually, this upcoming weekend when I’m in Louisiana, so that will be cool.
Yes, just trying to do different things than just gaming. Don’t get me wrong, I love gaming but, I feel like as a creative, you want to do so many things, and I’m trying to keep up with my ideas pretty much.
Tubefilter: I hear IRL streaming is more difficult in terms of tech and setup.
Krystalogy: Oh yes, trust me, it is. It definitely is. I just bought some backpack off a website that I saw, and I didn’t set it up for it. I had it sitting in a box for months because I’m like, I don’t want to deal with this, but I finally got it set up, and I know how to use it now, but it took a lot of research, it took a lot of patience. And honestly, I’ve actually thought about making a video tutorial explaining it all because I feel like there wasn’t enough. I’m like, “Once I figure this out, I’m going to help the people, because this sucks.”
Tubefilter: Is there anything else you want readers to know about you?
Krystalogy: About me, not too much, but I always like to tell people whenever I do interviews, my number one advice when it comes to people is to protect your peace when you’re going into content creation, and just like being an internet personality. I feel, personally, when I first started, especially on Twitch, I would let trolls or people who annoyed me or made me feel uncomfortable stay in my chat for way too long than they needed to be because I felt what they were doing wasn’t bannable enough, but it still ruined my experience while I was on stream.
I felt I was a little too lenient because I want it to grow, or I wanted to, I don’t know, not be seen as a hardass, to be honest, but honestly, man, ban those people if they’re annoying you. You want to have fun, you want to enjoy your stream. You don’t want to be like dreading coming to stream because, ”Oh my god, this person’s going to show up to stream, and they’re going to be annoying.” Oh my god, just ban them. It’s not that big of a deal. They’ll be all right. I actually self-mod pretty well if I need to. Just a quick little button press and someone’s out of there.
