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.
Jalon knew her parents wanted her to go into STEM.
So, she did. She started college as a neuroscience major, hoping to make them proud, but by her sophomore year, she realized it wasn’t for her.
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“I was like, ‘Wait, though. I don’t want to graduate and regret anything,'” she says. “I wasn’t really passionate about psychology.”
What she was passionate about was entertainment and film. She’d done theater in high school and spent many summers doing plays. She decided she’d double up: do both a film & TV degree along with psychology. But eventually she realized htat wasn’t going to work for her, either. The more she worked in entertainment, the more enamored she became. She dropped psychology, picked up marketing as a double major instead, and after graduating, moved to LA, hoping to work in the industries she loved.
Then COVID hit.
Like many other people, she lost her job. “At a certain point, I was like, ‘I need to go home,'” she says. “Financially, staying in LA just didn’t make sense.”
She moved back in with her parents in Arizona, and for the first time since she graduated high school, found herself without something to do. She ended up returning to a childhood pastime: video games.
“Gaming has been a part of my life since I was a kid. My dad and I used to play Animal Crossing together,” she says. “I would be addicted on The Sims to the point where I just would not go to sleep.”
She used her unemployment checks to buy a gaming PC and–with the entertainer’s spirit still alive–started making YouTube videos about Animal Crossing. She never intended to make content a full-time pursuit, much less turn Twitch into her new job. She originally started streaming on Twitch solely to make her YouTube videos. She’d stream, use Twitch’s VOD feature to download the recording, then upload it to YouTube. But over time, she noticed more people were showing up to the livestreams on Twitch than watching the VODs on YouTube.
Now, four years later, Jalon has more than 50,000 followers on Twitch, and feels like finding a career there was like coming “full circle,” and it’s “meant to be.”
Check out our chat with her below.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tubefilter: Very excited to get to chat with you! I know that you started streaming in 2020 and I know that you’re originally from Arizona, but for anybody who’s reading this and maybe isn’t familiar, can you give me a little intro about you, where you’re from, and your early life up until getting on Twitch?
Jalon: Early life sounds so crazy. I feel this is like my early life.
Tubefilter: Earliest life.
Jalon: Totally. To start, I grew up in Arizona. Both my parents met at Howard University and they both had been doing STEM at the time. They moved to Arizona for their jobs or whatever. They’re like, “Oh, this is a nice place to raise a kid. It’s not too crazy.” Then, I felt a lot of pressure by my parents to do the same thing that they did, especially because my mom is from Bangladesh. She always had that typical immigrant I want to be a doctor. I’m going to be a doctor. She just had that directive and drive to do it, to come to America and do that. She hoped that for me as well, to do something, under the STEM field at least.
Then, I ended up just doing that to make them happy, I feel, but I wasn’t really doing what I wanted to do. I chose psychology. I really like psychology. I love getting to pick people’s brains and understand how people work. I very much love that about people, just the humanism and everybody. I was like, “This is the STEM thing that I like. I’ll just go pursue that.” Then, at the end of my high school career, I was like, “I’m going to go ahead and just go into neuroscience.” I went into neuroscience for two years until I was like, “Wait, though. I don’t want to graduate and regret anything.”
I always loved entertainment and film, and I was always doing theater and acting every summer in high school and leading up to that, even in junior high. I was always into drama. I did musicals and plays and I always had a dream to be acting on TV one day, as a kid. I didn’t want to really let that go. I just was like, “You know what? I want to maybe double major.” I double majored in film and television in my sophomore year of college. I got accepted into their program. Then, I was juggling both and it was really, really hard because I really realized that I wasn’t really passionate about psychology. I was interested in it, but it wasn’t something that I wanted to make it my entire life.
I was so extroverted in college and it was weird because in high school I was not. I went to one of those overachiever academic schools and everything. I was super quiet and I just did my homework and whatever. I went to a public school after a little bit, I transferred and I didn’t talk to anybody. I was just like, “I just want to graduate.” I just want to move on from this part of my life. Then once I got to college, I was like, “I want to do everything.” I just want to be that girl. I was so, I was, I was really friends with everybody. I don’t know. It was just, I blossomed as a person.
I think by the time I hit that sophomore year, I was like, “I’m not passionate about this.” My parents didn’t approve it first, but once they realized like how determined I was, they accepted it. I eventually just dropped neuroscience altogether and just pursued film and marketing. I graduated from University of Arizona with a film and marketing degree. Then after that, I moved to California in 2019 and I was set to work on a production set, as an assistant director or helping out with producing. That’s what I mostly did with all the short films that I made in college.
Then, the set was delayed so much that I was like, “I need a job in the meantime.” I worked as a social media assistant. I was dating someone in social media at the time. it made sense. I understood the world a little bit and I did that and I ended up falling into the pandemic though because I moved in 2019. At the start of 2020, I was just out of a job in LA, not doing much, just making TikToks. At a certain point, I was like, “I need to go home.” I got broken up with at some point. The pandemic was going on. Financially, staying in LA just didn’t make sense.
I went home, and I had always loved gaming. Gaming has been a part of my life since I was a kid. My dad and I used to play Animal Crossing together. I would be addicted on The Sims to the point where I just would not go to sleep. I ended up just saving up for a gaming PC or laptop. I had a laptop because I wasn’t sure if I was going to move back or if I was going to stay in Arizona. Whatever the case was, I was still wanting to be able to potentially stream.
Weirdly enough, I wasn’t even going into creating content thinking that this was going to be a career. It was just that I wanted to make YouTube videos about Animal Crossing, which came out, which was my favorite game and still is. I was just like, “I want to make YouTube videos.” I was using YouTube. I think I was using the Twitch VOD feature to like download the VOD itself, but also like maximize like, oh, maybe if someone comes to the stream, they can come say hi. Ironically, more people were in the streams than actually watching the YouTube videos. I was like, “Let me just stop spending hours editing and I’ll just focus on streaming.”
I did that and it was great. I was playing Among Us with my friends. I was doing Fortnite and I just was playing with viewers. I was just having a good time. I just honestly just didn’t want to feel alone. I feel it was so isolating being back home in my hometown because everyone had either moved out or I just didn’t really talk to them anymore. Having a sense of community online was my number one most important thing.
Also, my number one most important thing now is that my streams and my content, or whatever it may be, is somewhat of a comfort. You can hang out and like kick off your feet and like just chill and just be yourself and have a discussion about things you may not usually have a discussion with a streamer about. That’s a basic lead up to where we are now.
Ironically enough, the original first month that I started streaming, I decided, you know what? Let me see what happens if I like put 120% into this. Let me put everything I can into this. Obviously, I was still working from home for my job, but I just wanted to see what would happen if I really tried. I ended up hitting 1,000 followers within a month. A lot of people were like, “Jalon, that’s really good. You should keep trying it.” I was like, “Okay, sure.” I kept going, going, going, and going. Then by the time we got to the fifth or sixth month of me streaming, I was eligible for partnership.
I was a very quick, I don’t know. I was very relentless about just being consistent. Every single stream I wanted to improve something a little by little by little. Before I knew it, I was partnered in the 10th month and it was actually live on stream. Coca-Cola and all the staff came in and Coca-Cola funded my donation goal for an actual gaming PC. Because I was streaming off my laptop in my parents’ room for about the first year of my entire streaming career. No one even knew, because I was very meticulous about making sure that I played certain games that wouldn’t crash my laptop, for example. I think a lot of streamers did start on a laptop.
That was the thing, I had very little to go off of. I think I actually bought the laptop off unemployment checks from the pandemic. It was very strange career shift. At the same time, I feel it was also full circle and meant to be, because it is like entertainment and marketing and, in some ways, acting. I’m still myself on stream all the time, but there’s a sense of having to be an entertainer at the end of the day, too.
Tubefilter: Yes, absolutely.
Jalon: I think that’s like pretty much amounted to where it is now. I got my gaming PC funded. My community helped out with that. Then I moved to LA again back in July of 2022.
Tubefilter: Did moving back to LA do anything for you? Because I’ve spoken to, I think, three or four separate people for this series who were like, “I moved to LA and then my traffic skyrocketed.” There was a noticeable uptick in traffic.
Jalon: It wasn’t really that I moved to LA for the sake of social. I literally had nobody to hang out with in Arizona. It was extremely isolating. I was like waking up to stream in the middle of the night, 10:00 PM to 7:00 AM degenerate. It was not healthy for my mind, body, and just overall health, I think, to be streaming at those hours and having just me in my room.
I moved to LA because, ironically, I was doing a few Twitch front-page streams and my internet was getting throttled at the time. My parents, they don’t have fiber out there. It was literally just one internet service provider that I had as an option. Even then, it’s not even close to the options that I have out here in LA. My parents were like, “You could either like get an apartment in Phoenix or you could get another place downtown. What do you want to do?” I was like, “Man, fuck it. Let’s just go back to LA because that’s the end goal anyways. I’m going to move.” I just full sent it and found a place with fiber and just moved as fast as I could back to LA because I have obligations and I can’t really do my job without internet. We had internet, but internet that was strong enough to support streaming.
I don’t feel moving to LA made a drastic difference in my streams per se, but I think it made a drastic difference in the people that I’ve met. I don’t think I would have met or attended a lot of these events that I did if I wasn’t here. There’s a lot of things like, I don’t know, just creators, in general, that will host parties or there’s opportunities that will come at you last minute. I remember I was doing– I was just out here for a week or two and someone had offered like, “Do you want to be a part of this sponsor? It’s in person. You’ll get paid X amount.” I was like, “Oh, hell yes.” To think about it, it’s like, wow, I wouldn’t have ever got that offer if I didn’t live in LA.
I think that because this is such an entertainment hub, it did help in that regard. In terms of me being social industry connections, going to events, that helped a lot, but I don’t know if I’ve really noticed a huge difference in terms of my views skyrocketing because I moved to LA.
Tubefilter: Interesting.
Jalon: I don’t know if that’s something that you’ve noticed across the board and I’m just an outlier.
Tubefilter: I’m not sure, to be honest. I was just curious if you’d also had that experience.
Jalon: I think it could be because once you come out here, there is more opportunity to collab with a lot of people and just fall into different things. At first, I already had a group of friends and people that I knew out here in LA because I already built a network of people when I flew into here the first time. I also made my streamer friends and I don’t think that the, I don’t know that I was collabing all that much with the people that I already knew right when I got out here.
If anything, it was maybe more gradual per se. yes. I can’t say I wouldn’t have met a lot of the people that I know now if I didn’t live here, for sure. 100,000%. I’d be in my own little bubble still. At least in terms of feeling my peers know my name or are familiar with me or have been like, “Oh, I’ve seen her before,” that’s something that I think is a plus, for sure.
I think if anything, I actually noticed a drop that way, actually, now I think about it.
Tubefilter: Oh really?
Jalon: Yes, because when I moved straight from LA, there was a two-week period that I wasn’t live because I was moving. I think that my viewership actually dropped because of the lack of consistency. Then, on top of it, the stream vibe was completely different because then, it was completely empty room. Me just in there. I was doing a subathon. I don’t know. It was just like I almost had to re-hype and build the momentum after moving. That’s why I felt I didn’t really have a big change in viewership. Maybe if I was still consistently streaming during the move, I would have noticed something.
Tubefilter: Huh. What is your current stream schedule?
Jalon: I stream usually every other day. I’ll hop on and I’ll do some reactions. I’ll do literally any game. I would say my bread and butter used to be Valorant, but now I’ve ventured more into the variety world. I’ve been playing like this is my plan for stream for the next couple of days. It’s Super Mario 3D All-Stars. I just finished Super Mario Wonder. I’ll do anything. We also played Super Smash on stream the other day. I played some Stardew Valley.
Tubefilter: You did some Lethal Company too.
Jalon: Lethal Company, some CoD, it really doesn’t matter. I’ve been gaming for so long that I’m happy to dip my toes into everything, but Nintendo games specifically have a good place in my heart because my parents were so strict. They’d actually didn’t allow me to have a console. I would actually just watch Markiplier and his play-throughs and live vicariously through him. Nintendo was the only console they let me have, which maybe it was for the best because now I see how toxic people are on CoD. I think that makes sense. I never started playing shooters until like when I started streaming actually. The fact that that’s one of my core games is funny actually.
Tubefilter: I’m curious, I know a lot of YouTubers really struggle with Nintendo being very strict about of usage of its games in YouTube videos. Is that a thing that you have to worry about with Twitch as well?
Jalon: No, actually. They don’t have any issues with you playing their games whatsoever. I’ve never gotten in trouble with them. If anything, they’ve contacted me to play their games. They’ll gift me the game to play on stream. I think that they also will do that for a YouTuber, sure, if you disclose that it’s gifted to you and stuff. No, I’ve never had any problems. I think that’s just a strictly YouTube thing. Because I know that was a big thing for PointCrow with Zelda. It’s wild. We’re promoting your game, basically.
Tubefilter: I think it’s just let’s plays they get really touchy about, but I was curious if you had trouble, because streams are also long-form.
Jalon: No, all good on Twitch.
Tubefilter: That’s good. You mentioned, your earlier stream schedule was more difficult on you. I think it’s important to talk about the fact that streamers are people who need to have decent sleep schedules. I was wondering if you’d talk a little bit about your decision to change things up and have more time for you.
Jalon: I realized that when I started streaming, it was beneficial to me to be streaming from literally 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM and ending stream at 5:00 AM to 7:00 AM I would usually start work around like noon or so or 11:00 so I did have that flexibility to at least get like five or six hours a night if I went to bed at 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning.
I definitely feel in terms of figuring out when to stream, when you’re starting out those weird or super early morning time slots or very late night time slots are really good because you’re one of the few people that are live so if someone’s up in the middle of the night or if you’re you have your viewership, then it’s great for you, but at what cost, right? You have to continuously do that. I was streaming for so long at those hours. It was almost a year and a half that I kept up that schedule of going live at night that even still to this day, I feel so weird starting a stream at 2:00 PM PST. I’m like, “This is 5:00 PM over on the East Coast but I feel weird.” I feel it’s broad daylight and I’m on stream.
I realized that overall, I actually gained a bit of weight. I was mentally just so alone. Of course, I had the support of my community so I wasn’t alone but I just felt I wanted someone to go celebrate my achievements with when I hit partner, when I had my birthday. I celebrated every holiday just in my room, of course, with my parents. I love them but, at the end of the day, it would be nice I remember thinking to myself to celebrate this milestone with a friend over a nice dinner.
That was an achievement of mine in my head when I moved to LA. I was like, “I want to move to LA so I can have some sort of social life, a support system.” I’m in my 20s. I felt like the pandemic took years off of my life in a way and I’m sure other people can relate where I don’t even feel 25. I feel 23 mentally because I was literally just in that room or a year and a half and that’s such a strange feeling.
It wasn’t good and I don’t recommend it. I think that there’s a rat race component when it comes to content creation where you have to constantly keep up. You have to maintain and be posting every single day. This past year, I prioritized my mental health and my physical health over everything else and everything still worked out. I feel that it should be the number one priority because if you’re not mentally and physically sound, how are you even going to produce your content at the highest level.
BTS RECAP OF JALON’S IRL EXTRAVAGANZA IS OUT NOW! ft. @scumtk @killm4ri @soullig @kanirosi
➡️ https://t.co/QGwKW7wXjF pic.twitter.com/kKPO1WkivV
— jalon (@jalonaz) February 6, 2024
Tubefilter: Streamers especially seem with that because the pressure is on to just always be available or always be actively broadcasting, and I feel that’s something we need to talk about.
Jalon: Definitely. It’s very different from YouTube and Instagram and TikTok, in some ways. TikTok less so, but you can just post and go on with your life which is very nice. As a Twitch streamer, you have to be physically there in order to stream unless you’re pre-recording. No one likes that. They like to have an interaction and that live component. It’s so much more demanding, I feel, than a typical content creation job because not only do you have to set out six to or however many hours a day to schedule a stream.
Some people do two, whatever works for you, but you also have to keep up with everything else because it’s like, “I finished my livestream but that’s only going to stay on a VOD for literally 60 days and then it disappears. Do I upload that to my YouTube channel? Do I chop it up? Do I put it on TikTok? How am I going to make this evergreen and everlasting family because livestreaming is temporary? If you’re there, you’re there and you know, you know. Which is why it’s so special because it’s a moment that’s shared in that time.
At the same time, it also adds another layer of pressure on the creator because it’s like, “How can I make this withstand time?” I’ve actually been so sad about it because I forgot to download VODs for the entire month of November, so everything I did for October and November, which were like literally my best streams, I feel, over the past year, are gone. I have like no record of that, ever, and I can’t even repurpose that. But I have clips. I have some highlights. I started my YouTube channel in September and now we’re at 13,000. I’m so happy that I made that, though, not just because I’m like throwing myself out there to YouTube but because I now have a literal like I can look back on these moments from stream-type moments. This is a nice recap of this or this is a nice recap of that. Anyways, went on a ramble there.
Tubefilter: That’s so rough. I feel like you should not be losing VODs from two months ago. There should be longer storage time.
Jalon: It’s a pain.
Tubefilter: Clearly. Since you mentioned YouTube, I know you have almost 50,000 followers on TikTok as well, do you feel like that’s a necessary thing to grow your audience on Twitch? Do you feel like you would struggle without other platforms, or do you feel like you can grow organically on Twitch?
Jalon: Oh, my gosh, crazily enough, actually, when I started streaming, I was too embarrassed to talk about it. I didn’t tell anybody anything until month two or three. The discoverability on Twitch, for whatever reason, at least within the recommended channel or whatever I was doing in terms of rating new streamers every time I went live, I think it was so wild. Everybody was telling me that Twitch sucks for discoverability but I was growing the most just off Twitch alone.
Tubefilter: That’s amazing.
Jalon: At least in the beginning, it was like I disagree, and then when it got to a point where I was growing and growing and growing, I reached a bit of a plateau, then I was like, “I see what everybody means now.” Then, I was like, “Let’s take TikTok a little bit more seriously. Let’s take YouTube a bit more seriously.” I definitely think that you have a wider reach in an audience on TikTok so you should be active there. I think that– How much am I at? I don’t know. I’m trying to get to three times a week this year. That’s my goal so we’ll see if I can keep it up. I’m going live there too. It’s huge. I saw people like Jynxzi that have just absolutely skyrocketed in the past few months, basically.
Tubefilter: I think you’re one of the first people I’ve spoken to for this column who’s like, “Twitch worked for me.”
Jalon: Because I was embarrassed. I was like, “I don’t want to post about my Twitch stuff to my IRL friends.” They might not understand. They might be like, I’m like shaking ass on twitch.tv, who knows. They don’t know what that site is.
Tubefilter: You got the hot tub streams.
Jalon: Who knows, right, I was like, “They might not think of me in the same way.” I don’t know if they would think I was nerdy or whatever. I was trying to get out of about my IRL friends judging me or just people that knew me that I wasn’t that close to judging me because anyone that’s close to me wouldn’t think anything of it. I was trying to let go of like the old version of Jalon in a way and I’m glad that I did.
Tubefilter: I’m assuming you’re more open about it now.
Jalon: Oh, yes, all the time. After that one-month mark and two-month mark, I was like, “By the way, guys, I stream on Twitch if you guys want check me out,” and more people were supportive than I expected so I didn’t need to be afraid of anything.
Tubefilter: Very interesting. You’re still seeing some good growth. Where do you feel your current growth is coming from?
Jalon: Sure, I feel, basically, I like to think of it like I was doing pretty much anything and everything I had a yes theory where it’s like a why not, like a say yes to anything mindset in 2023. If someone was like, “Do you want to be a part of my merch drop?” I’d be like, “Yes,” and then they’d be like, “I’ve seen Jalon before.” If someone was like, “Do you want to be a part of this?” I’d be like, “Yes,” and so they’d be like, Oh, shit, I found Jalon there too.
I just tried to put myself out there in many different ways and then everything came to fruition around June or July when I went to pursue IRL streaming. I added that into my content because I felt I loved gaming so much but it was becoming my– It was my job. It was my full-time job at that point and so I felt I needed another way to show people that I’m more than just gaming and that I have more interests and personality to myself than that.
Ironically, I was right. I enjoyed doing IRL stream so much. I was able to showcase more of my personality. When you’re gaming, you’re so locked in sometimes. You’re not really engaging with the chat. You’re just calming or you’re doing the same run-of-the-mill routine but then, when you’re out and about in real life, there’s so many instances where a random person might interact with you. Who knows? That’ll show a piece of your personality or it’ll show off the way that you eat that might be different or your preferences, all these different things that people might relate to and can find things to connect with you on in a way that gaming might not be able to.
Gaming can bring people together in so many ways. Yet, I think there’s a personability aspect in terms of taking someone literally with you to share your life with them. I started IRL streaming back in July, and then I took everybody in with me into Dream Con. People, definitely, were watching a lot of my Dream Con streams a lot because a lot of people weren’t familiar with that convention at all. I think they were just curious to be like, “What is Dream Con?” Two, like, “I want to see my favorite creators, I can watch it vicariously through Jolan’s stream.”
Ever since then, I was like, “Let me ride that momentum as much as possible.” I continue to do IRL streams, cooking streams once a week. I had like a schedule, literally, every week that I was posting about what streams I was doing. Then, after that, I was doing a series called ‘5 Dates 5 States‘ with Agent 00. A lot of people found out about me through his content and it all just built up. Everything continued to stack and stack and stack. Then people were like, “Oh, I saw her from Dream Con. Oh, I saw her from collabing with this person or that person,” or, “Oh, she was a part of the right games drops,” or “Oh, she was a part of this.”
All of the work that I had put in for the past two years at that point, then just came to fruition. It was like I planted a flower and it was finally blooming. I think that now, it’s just a matter of keeping it alive.
That’s where I’m at right now. I’ve just been doing a lot of different things. I really do love cooking content. I’ve gone full force ahead in trying to up the production value in my cooking streams. I’m doing a series called Yes Chef.
Tubefilter: I saw it! I like it.
Jalon: Oh, you’re good. The series called Yes Chef is basically where I have pro chefs come and cook with me. They teach me how to just make their favorite dish or a specific dish, for example. I had the opportunity to cook with–or not cook–well, yes, I did cook a little bit with Chef Jasper and Chef Dafne from Rosalynn Supper Club. Dafne Mejia was on Hell’s Kitchen, I believe is the name. I can’t remember exactly which reality show. She was cheffing it up with Gordon Ramsay. She’s really up in there. She taught me how to make a tortellini on my first iteration of that. Jasper as well has Rosalynn Supper Club here in LA and he’s a wonderful chef. Just wonderful guy, has the Durian Pod. The podcast is amazing. It actually talks about just people of color in just different spaces and how they go against the grain and the norm of what’s expected of them.
Great people learning how to make a steak and, hopefully, pasta from scratch. Who knows? We’re going to talk it out. That’s not until February, I believe when I’ll have them on my stream again. I’m excited for that. I almost want to see how far I can grow as a cook, as a chef in general from this, but share my life in a nice way that’s also giving Rachael Ray, but make her an awkward half-Black girl.
Then, I’m also trying to plan a few different things where I just get more girls together in the space. I feel there are so many just groups of guys that you see making content together. I was just like, “Dude, I have so many cool girlfriends I just want to put together in a room and just see what happens.” They’re all down. That’s something that I’m trying to pull off for the next I think next week or the week after. That’s, basically, going to be a different combination of like, getting them together for a podcast. I’ll just not say too much, but I’m working on a podcast for sure.
I just want to get my girls together to do more livestreams in general in real life, not just through Discord, something different and special. Like a cook-off almost or think maybe Fear Factor-esque. I don’t know if I’m still going to surprise people on this. Just that we’re all going to get in one room and it’s going to be awesome. I do fully believe in people always think, “Oh, I have to collab with the biggest creator ever in order to be successful.” Not necessarily. You should probably collab with people around your age. I forget what’s called. Horizontal collaboration is so much more rewarding in the end because you all get to grow together. Then when you are at the top, it’s like, “Oh, these are my people.” Versus when you’re seeking upwards, it’s almost less valuable in a way because it just feels it’s invalidating because people will say, “Oh, you only made it because of X person.” Really, there’s been so much behind that led up to that moment for you to even be able to work with them too. I don’t know. Things I think about.
lil cameo at 1:18! https://t.co/yOTZtoxwmq
— jalon (@jalonaz) February 2, 2024
Tubefilter: Definitely very interesting and good stuff to think about.
Jalon: Sorry, if I’m legit just rambling.
Tubefilter: No, you’re great. Let’s cap it off with what you’re looking forward to in 2024.
Jalon: I think overall this year, I think that I spent a lot of last year, really, setting a foundation of what do I how do I want people to see me. In general, 2022 and 2021 was just the grind, staying consistent, making sure I’m on top of my stream schedule. I was. Then just moving to LA. Now, 2023 was like, “I’m comfortable now. Let’s go ahead and just be, this is Jalon.” I was this is Jalon. Now, I’m spending all of ’24 just going full force. This is what I do. I like cooking. I like IRL streams. I love chatting and I love gaming. You’re going to get all this no matter what.
I almost want to make it so clear that when someone tries to describe me, they won’t hesitate to know. I think that it’s funny because back a year ago, people would be like, “Oh, yes, Jalon, she’s a wonderful Valorant streamer and just chatting streamer.” That’s what I was known for. Now, you’ll see people describe me or I’ll listen to my friends introduce me at parties or wherever it may be.
They don’t really say, “Oh, she’s a Valorant streamer,” anymore. They’re like, “Oh, she’s a variety streamer,” or, “She does IRL streams or whatever they may know at the top of their mind. It’s always something that I’m genuinely interested in, which makes me happy because I’m just very about being front-facing or I’m very about being straightforward online and transparent. At least about me and my personality. Personal private matters, those can stay offline because the internet doesn’t need to know everything about my life.
Tubefilter: Anything else that you would want people to know about you or anything else you wanted to touch on?
Jalon: Let me think. I think that I wholeheartedly believe in doing the most with the bare minimum. I don’t know, people will ask a lot of times, “How did you get started?” Stuff like that. It’s just I didn’t have the fanciest setup. I don’t I didn’t have even a light, I used a lamp. I think I used a couple of cardboard boxes to set up a webcam. I think that a lot of people will think that this has to be a huge production. No, you could just go on your phone nowadays and stream if you want to. That’s the beauty of it, too. As long as you showcase who you are and are proud to do that and are 100% happy to be there, then they’ll be happy to watch.
That’s something maybe I would say to whoever’s reading. Did I miss anything about myself, though? No, I think that’s pretty much it. I’m really excited for this year. I’m so happy to be working and everything with Kinetic Group, just because it feels nice to feel people are recognizing and just even you being willing to meet me, it’s like thank you for almost validating all the hard work that has been done. That will happen in this year. Can’t wait to make you proud and be like, “Hell, yes, I interviewed that girl.”
