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.
Xaryu has been on Twitch for over a decade, but this last year, he says, has been his best one ever.
A lot has changed for him in the 11 years since he started streaming. He originally found a passion for Twitch “from probably playing too many video games as a kid” and then getting really, really good at World of Warcraft, he says. He was there when Twitch (then Justin.tv) started taking off, and began watching fellow creators like Reckful and Ducksauce.
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“[S]ome of these guys I really looked up to,” he says. “I thought, ‘Wow, it would be really cool to start my own community in that way.'”
So, he did. And when he hit WoW‘s top PVP rank, his audience began growing significantly.
But while that was great for Xaryu, things overall weren’t awesome. He was streaming every single night from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m., and the grueling schedule was taking a toll on virtually everything in his life. He stopped hanging out with friends and family, wasn’t eating very well, and didn’t get out of the house very often.
He knew he had to reevaluate. He changed his streaming schedule and focused more on his health and fitness–and started talking about those topics with his audience.
These days, he still streams WoW almost every day, but a major motif of his streams, he says, is talking about the importance of keeping up your HP in real life, not just in game. He encourages viewers to “do their dailies” (a catch-all term for the daily tasks players can do to earn XP or otherwise progress in a game) by going outside, talking to friends, eating good food, and drinking water.
His current approach to streaming is clearly working for his audience. He recently crossed 500,000 followers on Twitch, and has an additional 200,000 over on YouTube.
Check out our chat with him below.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tubefilter: Give me a little bit of background about you and where you’re from and how you ended up here.
Xaryu: Oh, man. Yes, my name is Xaryu, and real-life people know me as Josh. I’m from Tucson, Arizona. I was born out of California. I was raised here, but I grew up really on the internet. I became a Twitch streamer from probably playing way too many video games as a kid and got really good at World of Warcraft and started my streaming journey there. When Justin.tv and Twitch.tv started taking off in 2012, I was watching other creators like Reckful and Ducksauce, and some of these guys I really looked up to. I thought, “Wow, it would be really cool to start my own community in that way.”
At the same time, I was getting good at WoW and just started streaming and jumped into it. From there, I got to rank one in World of Warcraft, and a lot of people started tuning into the streams and digging into the content. That was awesome. Having said that, I left all personal responsibility–well, not personal responsibility, but taking care of my physical health, outside. I just didn’t really talk to friends, family. I didn’t take care of my health. I just stayed inside. I streamed actually all night. I streamed from 9:00 PM to 5:00 AM every single day, seven days a week.
Tubefilter: Your poor brain.
Xaryu: Yes, it wasn’t super healthy. It grew my stream and I was doing okay for a while there. Then sometime in, jeez, a few years after that, maybe 2014, 2015, I was like, wait a minute. I have to start taking care of myself and start working out. Then a few years after that, finally starting to get into that rhythm. The stream changed paths to helping people have that awareness of health and fitness, but still gaming, but showing that you can balance those two things, right? I’m still streaming on Twitch five, six days a week. Eight hours a day, most days, six, seven, eight hours a day.
A lot of the motifs of the stream are just to be a bit more mature and focused on, how can we take care of ourselves in real life? I call that “doing your dailies.” If you’re a WoW player, that reference will probably hit home. If not, it basically just means doing the daily things that help your character progress in World of Warcraft, and doing your dailies in real life means to go outside, get some water, eat some food, nutritious food, get some sleep, socialize, talk to loved ones.
Having that is the motto of the stream and sharing my past experiences has really been an exciting thing and fulfilling thing for me to be doing because I know what the alternative means because I’ve been there. Yes, that’s the message of the stream, the motto of the stream, and wraps up these last 10 years just super, super quick on what we’re trying to do here on Twitch.
Tubefilter: Did you find it. When I speak to streamers, especially, if they’ve gotten well-known or they’ve built their audience on one particular thing, it can be difficult to branch out into another niche. Did you find it difficult to expand from that really hardcore stream where you’re doing WoW all the time to this blend that you have now? Did you find there was any resistance or did you find your audience wasn’t really embracing it?
Xaryu: That’s a great question. Just to be clear, I am still streaming WoW and other games for the majority of the stream. It’s a lot of the motifs that we’re talking about during the streams, but you’re totally right. It’s really tricky to shift gears. It’s really tricky for some people to understand that. I think for me, it’s more about just what I want to put out in the world and what I want to present. Yes, some people will call me names or be like, “This is cringe,” or whatever. The reality is, at least for me, is when you tell someone something they’re not ready to hear, they aren’t going to hear it. That’s okay. They’re going to tune it out. That’s totally okay, but I think planting that seed somewhere in someone’s brain, maybe five years down the road, they’ll remember it.
For me, it’s not about necessarily making everyone happy or whatever, but it’s just telling the truth as I see it and telling my past experiences and have people either vibe with that or not. The cool thing is these last few years, this stream has done really well and people are really receptive. I think for a long time I’ve made guides on World of Warcraft or other games that I’ve been playing, and people like that. It’s really cool to have someone message you saying, This is a great guide.
Man, a couple of years ago at BlizzCon or some of these meetups in person, when you have someone come up to you and shake your hand and say, “Hey, man, I was depressed. I was overweight, and I’ve gone outside. I’ve lost 100 pounds, and I got a new job, new girlfriend,” and I’m just like, “Wow,” that hits different. That’s the goal and the motto. Now every day we’re getting messages like that on Instagram and socials and then Twitch. It’s just taken off from there.
I just am shocked with the stories that I’m hearing of people that have been chronic gamers their whole lives, like myself, decide to start balancing out their lives, which doesn’t mean quitting games, but it means balancing out their lives. It’s really cool and exciting to see, and brings me a lot of excitement to be able to share my personal experience and have other people benefit from that in some way.
Tubefilter: Do you have plans for your platform moving forward where you’re going to do more things with fitness? Do you plan to change anything? Do you feel like you’re in a good spot now in terms of what you want to get out there?
Xaryu: Yes, that’s a great question too. In 2019, or when was COVID? Like 2020? 2019?
Tubefilter: Yes.
Xaryu: In 2020, when the shutdowns happened, the gym shut down, and my wife and I–well, my now-wife, we were just dating back then–decided it would be awesome to continue the workouts, obviously at home because we didn’t have the gym. We’re like, You know what? Let’s do this thing where we work out on stream with the viewers and have them join us with just household objects. That was a really cool, fun experience. For about a year, we were doing five to six days a week of these workout streams with the community. That was awesome, and I really liked it.
I love doing it more than anything, but after about one year of doing that, we went to three days a week. After another year or so of doing that…It was like two years-ish of doing these daily-ish workout streams, I started having a bit of a conundrum. I wasn’t feeling like 100% myself. I was like, whenever I’m not feeling 100%, the thing I ask myself is, I audit my lifestyle. Am I eating well? Am I sleeping? Am I drinking enough water? Am I getting outside? Am I taking care of my mental health by talking to other people and processing my emotions and stuff like that? I was like, I’m doing all these things. What’s wrong?
What I found out was I needed that hour a day to myself to hit my workout. For me, that’s therapeutic. I need that hour in the morning to go on a run or hit some weights or whatever I’m going to do for that day. For me, that’s part of staying mentally present for my community. What I found is I need that time to myself to not specifically make content out of my workout. I stopped the workout streams. That was a really hard decision because I love doing them. Just like you’re saying, it’s like, well, if you’re doing all these things, you make a lot of sense to integrate that content into Twitch. For me, I found it’s a lot better to talk about it and for me to have that workout for my own mental health.
Having said that, I’m using Instagram right now to blend those worlds. What I’ll do is Instagram Stories of my daily workout, Instagram Stories of my daily meals, Instagram Stories to give people an insight and a look at what we’re doing in terms of taking care of my physical health, mental health, etcetera. In addition, I also have a website, Xaryu.tv is the website.
On the website, we have a cookbook with a bunch of meals talking about a way that might be enjoyable for one to eat. That also still keeps micro- and macronutrients in mind. We have a fitness program to get people to understand how fat loss and fat gain work, and muscle loss, muscle gain works. It goes into the science of that. Then we have a third program that goes into it. It has videos of me performing every exercise at every level for people that are wanting to start workouts with their body weight at home. We have those three products available on my website as well for people who want to dig into it a bit more.
Tubefilter: Perfect. I feel we still don’t quite talk about mental health enough. I really commend you for talking about the fact that you cut your workout streams because it wasn’t good for you.
Xaryu: Yes, it was a tough one because I loved doing it and a lot of people were inspired by doing those streams. I think for me, I didn’t realize this, but I needed that hour a day to fight my demons, so to speak. To just be in my own head, think through things, process my own emotions, and just be quiet for an hour. Even put some headphones on and just blast some music. I needed that hour because the alternative was to wake up, hit a workout stream, turn the stream off, take a shower, turn the stream back on, play games all day, turn the stream off, go to bed, wake up, and do it again. It was like Wait, where is the time for me to have that?
Now it’s like, the difference is I just have my morning to go on a walk or hit the workout, whatever it is, and instantly it was a game-changer. I’m like, I don’t know if I can cuss or not. No crap. Yes, obviously that’s what I talk about all the time. Is like this is really good for these reasons and if you make a job out of absolutely everything and try to make content out of absolutely everything, it’s going to be really draining. Having said that, I have done some pop-up workout streams here and there of like “Oh, that sounds like something fun to do, let me just pop up and do that.
I do think there’s potential for more of those, but just nothing scheduled of week on a weekly or monthly basis. It would more be like just for fun here and there.
Tubefilter: Yes. What does the average day look like for you now?
Xaryu: Yes, we’ll get up around 6:30. Usually first thing for me, I’ll go outside, get some sunlight onto my face, wake up a little bit, just do some house stuff, whether it’s dishes or making the bed, whatever. Then I’ll maybe answer some emails and socials and stuff like that. Then I’ll have my espresso and then I’ll get outside and I’ll either go on a walk or I’ll hit a workout. I don’t like to do a workout every day by any means, but sometimes it’ll just be a walk or some jumprope or whatever that day might hold. Then from there, we’ll come back and make some breakfast, take a shower, go live.
My streams will usually last from 9:30 AM. I’ll turn the stream off around four, five, or 6:00 PM depending on what’s going on that day. Anywhere from 6, 7, 8-hour stream. Then, yes, I really am grateful. I’ve had a lot of different stream schedules over the years where I would stream over the night. I was talking about towards the start of the interview. I’m really grateful to have dinners and be off at night. Yes, five or six, I try to turn my computer off and that’s sometimes a shocker to gamers. It’s a lot of the time it’s the opposite for a gamer. You’re working all day and at night you turn your computer on.
For me, I try to turn my computer off at five and just completely unplug it from the computer. From there, we’ll make dinner. My wife and I’ll just, we’ll make dinner together and eat dinner and maybe we’ll watch a show after. Right now we’re watching Yellowstone. It’s pretty good. We’ll just talk and hang out. Sometimes we’ll go for an after-dinner walk and then the next morning it starts all over, get back into the work and the workout and the stream, and that’s pretty much how the day’s looking right now.
Tubefilter: Twitch is your main platform. You’re also on Instagram. Are there any other platforms where you’re really maintaining your presence?
Xaryu: YouTube. We have two YouTube channels, just Xaryu and then Xaryu Clips. Xaryu is uploading daily, Xaryu Clips is uploading daily. We have managers for both of those that are keeping things rolling. The best clips go on the Clips channel, and the main YouTube channel creates storylines from the stream content and uploads daily there. Instagram is mainly Stories just to keep people in the loop with the workouts and the food. I just started working with a TikTok editor as well, where he’s doing nearly daily content this past month or two as well with Xaryu Clips on TikTok. That’s pretty much the content sphere right now.
Tubefilter: One of the things that everyone I’ve spoken to for this particular column has said is that it’s very difficult to grow on Twitch without maintaining presences on outside platforms. Have you seen a significant driver of audience members from TikTok and YouTube and these other platforms? Do you feel that’s essential to your growth?
Xaryu: Yes, I think cross-platform growth is really good. It’s really critical. I think having a YouTube channel and the TikTok channel of the best moments and getting them on those other platforms is huge. Having said that, I will say for me personally, I’ve always found growth on Twitch the easiest.
Tubefilter: Really?
Xaryu: I have the most followers on Twitch compared to YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter. I’ve found growth on Twitter and Instagram and TikTok and YouTube generally harder. If I’m streaming on Twitch, I will almost always gain followers and traction and whatever. To be honest, if I want to gain followers on other platforms, I find it really easy to shout myself out, shout out my Instagram on Twitch, and get my Instagram followers. However, getting Instagram followers and bringing them to Twitch is a lot harder. That might be unique to me, for sure. Ever since 2012 when I started streaming, it’s actually been 11 years as of three days ago.
Tubefilter: Oh, congratulations!
Xaryu: Yes, just hit my 11-year anniversary. It’s wild. I’ve always found it easier to grow on Twitch and then spread out these other platforms. Having said that, I think the number one synergistic platform with Twitch is YouTube. A lot of people will come from Twitch and watch YouTube. A lot of people will come from YouTube to watch Twitch. There’s a lot of crossover there. The second one is probably TikTok. The third one might be Instagram or Twitter. I think Twitch and YouTube seem very synergistic and then TikTok after that.
Tubefilter: You’re the first person who has told me that Twitch is the easiest to grow on. What do you feel has played into that for you?
Xaryu: Yes, I’ve thought about that a lot myself, and a lot of it might just be that I have been streaming on the platform for 11 years. I’m grateful to be in the position I’m in, that there might be some– I’m grandfathered in, so to speak. I’ve been streaming since the start of the website. People might not follow the stream, but they might’ve heard the name or seen a clip of mine at some point.
There might just be residual compounding effects that maybe not everyone can be aware of or not everyone can take advantage of. Maybe that’s unique to my position. That’s why when I answered I was, well, I don’t know, this is this for everyone. This has been my experience. It seems just every time I go live on Twitch there are going to be new people following and finding the stream. I think a lot of that is from the directory, the World of Warcraft directory, or whatever. I think with YouTube it’s taken a lot of trial and error to get YouTube channels there.
I think we’re doing our best year ever by far this year. I think we’re really getting a rhythm on the YouTube channel. For the first time ever, I have seen a lot of influx of like, hello from YouTube, I’ve found you on YouTube. I think there are a lot of cross-synergies with YouTube. I do see a lot of creators give Twitch flack for not having the discoverability.
Tubefilter: It’s the feedback I get a lot.
Xaryu: Yes, I don’t know if I totally agree with it.
Tubefilter: I’d love to hear your perspective. You are genuinely the first person I’ve ever spoken to who says this.
Xaryu: I definitely have a perspective of personal responsibility a lot. I think good content rises to the top period and it might just take some time. If you’re a good streamer, I think you look at someone who had zero Twitch presence like Asmongold a few years ago, but he watched one of Asmongold’s streams and he’s fantastic. He’s a great orator. He has a great vocabulary. He has all of his thoughts out and like, there’s like no wonder he rises to the top or a lot of these people. I think a lot of it is like just like networking and getting in these in the right groups and stuff like that.
I don’t know. I don’t know if the discoverability is like as terrible. I think what’s hard is if you have one or like zero or one viewers, you’re going to be at the bottom of the list. Bumping yourself up to 10 or 15 is like really important. A lot of my advice is, once again, maybe catered more to my experience because I think if I was starting Twitch in 2023, it would be maybe a different story. I think a lot of the things you’re hearing might also be true if people are starting today versus having this platform where that residual growth is happening over a decade.
Tubefilter: Absolutely. Very interesting. Any sort of cool plans or goals you want to talk about for the next year or so?
Xaryu: My wife is 38 weeks pregnant.
Tubefilter: Wow, so that’s all the plan you need!
Xaryu: We’re expecting. Yes. The number one thing in my life I’m looking forward to is, we’re having our baby in the next few weeks. I’m really, really excited about that. That’s where my head is at, getting everything ready, getting the house ready and everything. Another big thing is in five days or I guess it’s only like three or four days, three or four days away, we’re doing a $100,000 tournament hosted by StarForge and OTK. We’re doing a mock tournament in World of Warcraft. I’m going to be hosting that on my channel with Sodapoppin, couldn’t be more excited about that either.
Tubefilter: That’s very cool.
Xaryu: Yes. In the past I’ve been more of like the competitor and for me to be able to host this and cast it and give my insights is something that I’m really looking forward to, especially as I get older and mature and just being able to take a step back, but still watch my favorite game is, it’s a pretty cool place to be in. Yes, I’d say between this like big tournament and hosting that and, then the baby coming in a few weeks and like, that’s pretty much where my head’s at.
Tubefilter: You’ve got a lot happening.
Xaryu: Yes.
Tubefilter: Is there anything else you wanted to talk about? Anything you want people to know about you?
Xaryu: Let me think about that. I don’t know. This last year, in terms of analytics, has been just our best year ever. I’m just really excited that after 11 years, people are enjoying the content, and I’m really flattered that more and more people seem to be finding this dream and wanting to tune in and join in on the community. I’m trying to just put my best foot forward and put out the best content possible that people can tune into after work or if they’re working from home, it’s like a little radio show. I’m just really happy that people are finding some type of enjoyment or inspiration from the stream. I’m excited to see where it goes over this next decade.
