Dan Clancy talks to streamer EsfandTV | Let's Chat Podcast EP 4

Hello and welcome to Let's Chat. Let's Chat is a live podcast where I talk with creators about live streaming and the way that streamers and their communities shape culture yesterday, today, and in the future. I'm Dan Clancy. I'm the CEO of Twitch and I am currently in Austin, Texas live in person with the one and only SVN TV. SVAN, welcome. Hello. Thanks for having me. I'm uh I'm I'm excited to get to chat. I always I always love getting to chat. Yeah, I'm a chatter. All right. He's a chatter. I'm a chatter. And we got a nice setup here. Nice space. We're trying this. We're one of the first times where we're we're we're trying out doing this remote and so far so good. And we'll see how it goes. All right. SN, let's start out. Okay. With um I'm going to start out back when you started. Okay. Okay. SN. and talk to me just about like um uh what what was the first time when you started stream? So um from the very beginning very beginning so funny story about how I started streaming is that I didn't start streaming on Twitch. I started streaming in 2017 that's whenever I consider myself like started streaming. Uh I had a Twitch account. Mhm. But like I was a computer science student and I just like heard about live streaming and I was like I just I was into tech stuff so I was going to try something. So I had that from before but I didn't watch anybody or like it just it's something that I did one Christmas break. So after that I kind of put it down for 5 years. Wasn't really thinking about it whatever. And uh I was in between jobs because I used to work in college football. Right. So I was a I worked in like recruiting video. So you played you played football at SMU. Yes. Right. And then when you graduated, you were working college football basically after you graduated. So the the the specifics are kind of convoluted. You don't have to go through all this. So I won't go through all of them cuz that might take up the whole podcast. But basically I um I walked on the football team. I got injured and then I didn't do anything for the the next season and new coaching staff comes in. Some people get retained on staff. Oh, and then um yeah, so I didn't do anything the next season. New coaching staff comes in and some of the coaches that get retained, they call me up or one of them calls me up. Somebody on staff actually calls me up and he's like, "Hey, you know, we know you love football. We know you love SMU. Uh we know you're super smart." And this new coach that came in, he he wants to do some more like tech stuff than what they did in the past. Like the old coach was June Jones who uh June Jones is a very like old school NFL pen and paper type of coach. New coach coming in was Chad Morris who was like a new age like you know he was at Clemson and you know high octane all this stuff. So he wanted to do more tech stuff. So they said hey are you interested at all in coming to help out? And then I did. Next thing you know I was in charge of like digital recruiting like I was doing social media graphics everything. Right. So, uh, and this is the short version, by the way. So, I'll get through it. But, uh, but yeah, so that's what I did. That's kind of how I learned all the stuff about streaming that I know is because I was doing all that, all the video stuff, production stuff. Uh, I worked in the weight room at one point, all that. Um, and I wanted to be a coach. Uh, I end up changing my major to sport management and I'm like, yeah, I'm going to go the sports route with with things like sports, business, whatever. And, uh, I end up getting a business degree. I'm supposed to have a job whenever I graduate. They were paying me as like a student through like, you know, student, you know, uh, financial aid stuff, whatever. They were they were getting me paid like pretty good. Um, for a student, but I was doing like a six-f figureure job. Mhm. So, I end up not having that position when I graduate because admin looks at it and they're like, why did you guys what is this new position you guys are hiring for now? And like, well, this is for SFAND. You know, he's been doing this. like, "Well, you got a student to do it before. Why can't you get another student?" Yeah. Yeah. So, basically two weeks before graduation, they pull the rug out from underneath me. And uh I'm like, "Okay, that sucks." All right. And now getting to the streaming. Now is when there is whenever we get to the streaming stuff. So I'm like, "Okay, uh I need to make videos. I need to make videos." And I started playing World of Warcraft private servers. So, I knew a lot about Retribution Paladins and vanilla World of Warcraft. I mean, who who does who doesn't want to learn more about Retribution Paladins? Absolutely. So, this is like I I I knew a lot about this one specific thing that mattered from like 2004 to 2006 7 actually really it was like 2008 is like my area of expertise, right? this 4-year period of time. And this is like my knowledge. It's kind of like law. It's like hieroglyphics. Okay. I regret asking this, but yeah. So, I'm not going to go into that, but it's just like not a lot of people know this thing. And I end up going and and making some videos just to stay in practice while I'm in between jobs. I'm like, I'm going to look for another another job at another school or go coach high school, something like that. And I uh I don't have enough hard drive space to record my raids. raids are about it's a 4-hour raid night. Y so I'm like well if I live stream on YouTube it'll just save it there. So it's like I can I thought it was the craziest thing in the world. I was like wait I can like record straight to the internet. So I just using it to record. Yeah. So I went live on YouTube and that's kind of how I started streaming and I just stream my raids two nights a week instead of recording it for four hours and just posting it. And then u that led to me getting banned. I got a three threemon ban on YouTube. All right. Congrats. Thanks. Congrats. Yeah, but that band is kind of like how I got known because it was like, oh, he's like he's the vanilla woow classic wow private server guy. And then classic woow got announced and then it it kind of I got all your I mean your your claim to fame streaming all came through WoW the very beginning. All right. Yeah. And so now cuz I'm like for some folks like oh please don't bore us with this. But I'm sure some folks have heard a ton of World of Warcraft. Okay. But what is it that like for you? What what is it that why is it that World of Warcraft was so if you will magical to you? And I you know there's of course lots of magic in there. Yeah. Oh, a lot of magic. Uh yeah. A lot of magic, a lot of weapons. Um so the thing with WoW to me it was nowadays when you talk about like the attention economy, there's so many things that can pull you away from anything. You have social media, which wasn't really a thing back then. It was, but not not like it is now. um YouTube, Twitch, Tik Tok, uh Discord communities to just talk to your friends online for the games, everything. WoW took all those things and it was a one-stop shop for everything. I remember logging in and some people still do this. They log in and you'll sit in a capital city and I'm just talking in what was called trade chat, which people would use at the time for general chatting. Not even they wouldn't use it for trade and selling things. They would just use it as a general chat to hang out. It was kind of like what Discord is today whereis Discord channel to hang out with your friends, right? And people just be talking in text chat and there was like memes on the server and people got to know certain people and like I was one of those people in original. Um I I was like pretty well known in the Burning Crusade expansion. But then uh I became that way in private servers too. Started streaming whatever. And then and that's actually how I came to Twitch was off of a YouTube ban. Yeah. And I was like I'm going to be a good boy now and I won't do private servers and I'll wait until class. Usually it's the opposite that happens. Right. Game Recept. Actually, it was uh Yeah, I think it was around the same cuz it was 2017. It was the end of 2017, beginning of 2018. So, and I started streaming in April of 2017 on YouTube and then like January 2018 on Twitch. Right. So, let's get So, you started with WoW, but now let's chat about IRL streaming. Something you love to do and of course it's changed like tons of changes. Yeah. So talk about when you started to IRL stream and like you know what were you thinking when you first started? So I consider myself like a second generation IRL streamer. Cuz the first generation was Pokémon Go era like 2016 2017 and uh that was like Wow. It's been that long since. Kind of crazy, right? Um Yeah. So, it was kind of that era of that that was like the first era with like Summit and and those guys uh Reckful, all these guys doing IRL back then. I uh coming to Twitch and realizing I can't stream Vanilla Wild private servers anymore because I got the three-month from Blizzard, like Blizzard Action, my YouTube account. Uh which is funny cuz I work super close with them now. But I was like I went from like being on that list to then being a good boy. But it was because I had to spend time not streaming vanilla out private servers, right? So I had to find other things to do. That was whenever I started um man this was again this is like summer of 2018 I would say and that's whenever I came down to Austin uh and visited because I grew up in Dallas and it just so happened to be that a lot of the WoW streamers who were the biggest streamers on Twitch at the time who were also heavily into the IRL theater. They all live down here and they got to know me because of the private server stuff. Like Sans's the guy for Classic Wow. Who were the ones that were into IRL streaming that were living down here then? Like Soda was in IRL streaming back then. Yeah, he was. And like I don't think of Soda and IRL streaming. He's a recluse now. But he did he did a lot of IRL like with Reckful. They had like a very famous like Japan Japan trip from years ago which like uh that was like super super popular. Uh, I think that was like the first like very like big like travel stream was like at least that was like like big big travel stream was Reckful and Soda going to Japan. Um, and then Nick was super into Reckful lived here. Yeah, Reckful lived here as well. And uh Nick was like Soda's roommate. And Nick didn't really like stream full-time yet. And he just kind of like helped Soda with like everything. And so he would help Soda with all the tech stuff. And then I'm like thinking all the pieces at the time. It was like I mean there was a long list of names here, right? But basically it got to the point where and and Asmin was Wow Guy at the time. He was a retail wow guy. I was a classic WoW guy, but that's how we got to know each other back then. Uh he actually suggested to other people. He's like, "Hey, this Asan guy's good. Like you guys you guys should like we're were doing things. There was like a cooking stream that we did with Train Wrecks back then." Um and Asmin told Train, he was like, "You shouldn't buy Sand. He's really good." And so that was kind of like how I first met everybody. Like I met Nick, I met I met Soda, I met all these guys. And u actually was Soda's guild leader. and on private servers. That's how I that's actually how I met Soda, but I didn't even know cuz I wasn't familiar. That's a kind of like a funny aside. That's That might be a story for later. But um but yeah, so like tying everything in, I kind of got into the IRL scene through that and I'm like, I need to do stuff other than classic WOW because I can't do it. And then I kind of became like in that second generation of IRL guys and I was super into the tech too because that was my background as a computer science student and then I was doing like production stuff at SMU. So uh that's why like I was like one of the guys who really pushed tech and IRL in like 2018 and 2019 leading up to the classic wow launch in 2019. Yep. All right. So and and I won't I won't I won't you know preface this with my thoughts. Let's let's try to quickly go through some of the some of the IRL things you've done that jump out at you as you know kind of most interesting, innovative, distinctive or whatever. So I mean I think I think it really starts with like probably the camera equipment and stuff that I was using. Like now it's kind of like if you look at a lot of the big IRL streams now the setup that most people are using like the camera and everything. It's the it's it's the same one that I use at least not the the encoder. I use a different encoder cuz the encoder that I have was the first one that anybody had on Twitch. At least that's what Live View said because I I use I use a Live View LU800. the be so the beauty of this okay is um and one of my views with IRL streaming that I'll tell I'll say is um uh you always have to be careful of talking to an IRL streamer about anything tech because it's going to be very intimidating. It's going to scare you away. I actually was asking the question in terms of fun things he's done in IRL That's the one thing is my thing is the tech. The tech is the one thing. I was like because I was thinking, "Oh, he did this, he did that." And then he's like, "Oh, let me tell you about the tech." Yeah. Yeah. Well, the tech to me, the tech is is some of the most fun. Get to something fun. You did IRL So, fun streams, man. Uh, well, with that tech, I was able to stream at college football stadiums. So, that was the one I was thinking of. So, I started doing Sans Tailgate Tour is what I called it. And this was like five years ago. And at the time there's no way that the like current IRL streaming equipment could handle being in like a 100,000 right, you know, capacity football stadium and being able to live stream. So I was going and I was doing these streams with my football background and like knowing college football and knowing the culture and the traditions of different schools and really showing off kind of like that sort of atmosphere to the Twitch audience. And you know, with that kind of stuff, you know, I I tied that into my Coach S fan stuff, which is like adjacent to the roleplay stuff that I do. But, uh, that that time on Twitch, a lot of people were like, I mean, I'll tell you, I had multiple big streamers tell me, they were like, "Why are you doing sports? Nobody cares about sports." Right? That's literally what they said. But my stream grew with sports. It even grew in the Madden section because what I was doing was so different than what a lot of people, not just were doing, but a lot of people could do at the time. It's funny. I think this year, especially with all the attention, you know, and all the other, you know, creators from Tik Tok, Instagram, other things that are started thinking about, oh, I should do something on Twitch. there's probably something interesting this year for tailgating cuz it's one of these things that like any and especially bringing folks that have that don't know the whole like football tradition in the South, getting them to go to I'm sure have you gotten a number of streamers to come with you that know nothing about that world? My favorite guests. My favorite guests are the ones who know nothing about football because to them it's so they have so many questions to ask. And we because we go around and it's not this is the way that I approach the sports content. Don't do a stream about football. It's an IRL stream that's adjacent to And and also it's about the people. It's about the people. I mean, when you go to if if anyone here like has not either seen the stream or been to tailgating, especially in the SEC. Okay. When you go to I I remember I went I was down visiting a friend in Georgia and before the Georgia game, there's this whole um uh uh R like RV park that's not next to the stadium where people buy little plots of land. Yeah. for like $60,000 and they literally build full like, you know, buildings with giant screen TVs and everything. Yeah. I went to the uh Georgia game a few years ago. Went to the Georgia game with Grayson a few years ago. And Grayson's a guy who actually Grayson is he played football growing up until like he was like in elementary school whenever he quit. He has a story about like one of his teammates like parents stabbed a coach or something. So his parents were like, "You're probably not going to play football anymore." So we're like, "Okay, we're not going to do this." But but Grayson is, you know, he he's, you know, familiar enough with football. But, uh, we went and we had like the craziest time cuz that's big SEC tailgating. It was one of the biggest games of the year at the time. Um, and yeah, just the atmosphere is insane. And every school has a different atmosphere. That's the cool that's that's the thing that's really cool about it is it doesn't matter where you're going. Every school has its own sort of interesting atmosphere. So, every single one of those streams was so interesting. And for me, I know how things work. I know there's like a certain schedule and how, you know, whatever. And I also know coaches and people that work on staff around the country. So, I kind of utilize that to try and get like access. So, I've been like on the field for kickoff and that's usually my Do you spend much time going up and talking to like the folks who've been tailgating for 30 or 40 years? They like, "What the heck are you doing?" I I love it. I I those are those are some of the best people to talk to. Students are hit or miss. Cuz some students are like too cool for like I don't want to talk about anything or some students are like, "Am I going to get in trouble for drinking?" Right. But when you talk to these folks that it's just part of their life, it's so fun. Yeah. Know I I I love talking to people from different parts of um just different parts of the world, but even like different parts of the country, and just kind of hearing about how they like go about their day and just do things. And well, the beauty of it is for those of y'all, of course, everyone watching this is probably um uh you know, kind of knowledgeable and into Twitch, but anyone that if you understand football and community, then you can understand Twitch. And if you understand Twitch, you can understand football and community. Yeah. Because both of them are really just excuses to connect with other people, right? In other words, you're looking for something to connect with other people. Yeah, 100%. And and that's what it all comes down to. Um it's a way that you can connect with other people and then like for me as a content creator like I get to share that. It's almost like this this is whenever I started IRL streaming. The way that I thought about it was so there's like two kind of key things. One was like this is kind of like home movies that I can share with the whole world. And you know chat and people get to enjoy it because I remember back then like the first time I went out of the country going to like dream it wasn't the first time I went out of the country but it was one of the first like big times that I streamed it. Went to Sweden for Dream Hack 2019. Um and I remember being out there with like Nim and Moral and Annie Fuchsia. I mean a whole bunch of people right with I was with Chance for a bit. We did a we did a we did a hide-and-seek stream. It was like me cool was there. It was me, Chance, uh I think it was me, Chance, Annie, uh BJP was Soda's old brother, and Moral. I think it was five of us that we But yeah, we did a uh we did like a hide-and-seek stream in IKEA, right? Oh, that is a great idea. Yeah. And Oh, hide and seek in IKEA. It was great, actually. And it's funny cuz like we were in a Swedish IKEA doing a hide-and-seek stream and they loved it. Like the the all the employees were like, "This is sick." They thought I was You know what you should try? Have you ever heard of the game Sneaky Sardines? No. It's hideand seek inverted. Okay. So, um uh what you do is you have one person that starts to hide. Okay. And then whenever someone finds them, they hide with them and then another people hide and and until there's one person left. Oh, okay. Okay. So, so you're kind of one person's hiding. eventually fight him and everyone and eventually they're all like bundled up. Okay. But it is it's a very cool inversion because you have all the people hanging out and it's funny cuz like they get easier to find as there's Exactly. as it's more people because they're not going to be quiet. Right. And they're hanging out. All right. So, let's see. I will grab um uh what we do is every now and then we go ahead and grab some um questions from chat. So, if the NFL gave you an opportunity to coach, would you do it? Obviously, not as a head coach because then you'd make a lot of money, but suppose you had an opportunity in coaching now, like would you do it now? Such a good question. Um, so I mean I Okay. Were we are we assuming that I would be good? I you tell me. That's the bet. You would have to You would have to determine. Do you think honestly like honestly you're a good streamer? Uhhuh. Do you think given the opportunity I didn't say great, I said good. No, no. Given the opportunity, do you think you'd be a really good coach or sometimes you have these things you want to do, but you realize I don't know if I would have been great at that. my instinct is you're not a hard enough ass. You're not like I know what you mean. I know I mean um it's funny because you're kind of right where I will do this thing where I mean I can turn it on but over the years I've definitely kind of just mellow it out. Um I don't man because I've noticed there's times where like if I'm like let's say I'm working out with like streamers. Like we did a workout stream with some some of the like my house I have a full house right now cuz part of it's cuz South by Southwest and people are coming to visit. So there's like six people seven people in my house right now. Um and they're like let's do a workout stream. I have my home gym. So I'm like okay we can do a workout stream. And I hit a point where I'm like if I see that somebody just like is not doing something that's like correct, I like correct them enough to where they won't get hurt, but I'm just kind of like just just let the kids play, you know? Like I won't like I won't like get on to them about it. I I mean I thought cuz I played a lot of basketball and other stuff and and I'm very good at thinking about like everyone moving and if I had stay kept playing football, I find all the plays and all that. But when I'm honest about it, I'm like, look, part of what a football coach has to do is maniacally get you to just focus on doing nothing. But whatever you have to do. Right. And part of me thinks it's like, no, that's like I'm too interested in so many different things. Yeah. I'm I'm a big X's and no guy. Like that's that's the thing I'm I'm good at is like I'm good at X's and O's, right? But I think to be a great coach, that's just a tiny part of being it. Yeah. Um, now to be fair, I think I could do all of those things, but I I'm so out of it, like it's been 10 years and I wasn't coaching that was help. You can you can do something. So, but like I I'm I'm so far out of it. I could never actually I don't think I could ever actually do it. Well, now if I had the opportunity, hey, um, would you want to come and and do some kind of thing where you're working on staff? I actually would 100% do it. Um I've thought about it actually. I I thought about doing it last year even. I was like I bet if I went because I know people places. Sure. I'm like I bet if I went and I was like don't even pay me and just have me work on staff with you guys. I bet they cuz they know that I'm good and also you can even leverage my stream and stuff cuz that's good for them. So I I know I if I wanted to do that but it wouldn't be as a coach. You're saying that you think that if you agreed to work for free, you could get someone to hire you. Believe it or not. Believe it or not. Well, I've been trying to get Blizzard to do that for years. They will not listen. Who Who' have thought being able to do that? All right. So, um uh All right, let's talk about founding OTK. So, what what caused you to do that? Um, it was kind of like a long-term sort of like streaming is streaming. And there's a lot that when you're when you're a streamer, I think that actually, you know what I realized? We just said OTK. You should explain what OTK is in case anyone listening does not know what one true king is. So, so it started as like a content or Yeah. Uh and at the time there wasn't really content orgs. There wasn't like a thing. U now there were groups of people that were making content together but not as like a official business. And we're like let's start a content or this is because uh a few of us were a part of orgs in the past and uh it kind of started with like it was me and Tips had talked about it maybe like a few months prior to the whole deal like hey someday we should start in a work together you know maybe. And we're like, "Yeah, we should totally do that." Um, put it aside. Don't even think about it. Eventually, some, you know, some stuff happens. Uh, a bunch of people end up leaving another org. And, uh, I was part of that. And whenever that happened, it was just kind of like, we're floating around for a few weeks. And I got a call from Asmin who's like, "Hey, I want to I want to start an or uh, would you be down?" And I'm like, "Yes, but and I kind of explained a few things and and one of those things was I have to have tips because tips out is is and I I to this day I believe this. If I had to pick one streamer and he's retired, but one person who's been a streamer, is a streamer, whatever in the entire world that gets stuff done no matter what finds a way to get it done, it's Tips." That's because Tips probably doesn't have ADHD. Oh, I think I I think Well, here's the thing. I think he does have ADHD, but he gets stuff done. He gets it done because he's like me where I think he gets like the ADHD hyperfocus cuz this is what happens to me. It's kind of like it goes everywhere and then if there's so much attention everywhere then you like ult and then you hyperfocus into one thing. So um the difference is you'll hyperfocus for a little while but reliably like the one thing you know is at some point we can you can I can expect you to hyperfocus and the one thing I know just is reliably at some point I can expect you not to be hyper and I'll be like I'm going to I'm going to focus on this now and I'm going to focus on that. So um yeah know 100%. You've actually gotten much better about responding to text. I'm very impressed. Yeah. Yeah. It's cuz um that's cuz somebody else does it for me now. Someone might take you seriously at that. Well, no, it's cuz I have so many phones now. So, I know he did bring he did bring his three phones here. You know, he was like, "Lord, Lord knows he can't get home without his three phones." All right, so let's get to IRL streaming today. And now, let's talk for a second. Um, and I know it was recent accident. We don't have to talk about that, but talk about it. Talk about the car, your car, and decking out a car. now. Uh I mean it took me so much time. Time time is the most valuable resource in the entire world. Uh I I feel like as time has gone on, as I've gotten older and older, I just have a less of it because I have so many more responsibilities. I have so many other things I'm thinking about. And I mean, I don't even have a wife and kids and and I'm like this, right? So if you are running a stream, you're running your own business. In my case, we have the stream and then we have OTK and then other than OTK, it's also, you know, sponsorship. You got Star Forge. Star Forge. Uh, you know, started a games publishing company, MadM. Are you active? We're jumping around, but are you do you actively do stuff with Star Forge? Uh, yes. But, but, um, of the for it's basically like you have tips that does like 99% of everything and then I do like 1% of that, you know. Um, now I I do do more than uh a lot of other people that either are or have been involved uh with any of the other companies because the technical part of like figuring out what y'all want to do with the new PC and all because you do have a technical background. Mhm. Will you be involved in trying to do that or are you really there's other with with that stuff we get the people that are a thousand times smarter than that's like nickname they may say hey this is our next one and you may use it but or something like that. most most of my responsibilities will have to do with marketing or even like uh trying to like connect with uh you know maybe different brands or something and then once once like that's done it's like it's done you know they'll they'll they'll do all that but like we have guys like when you have like Nick Dankner and and that whole like everybody there it's they're they're all so good. So let's get back. So talk to me about Starlink in the car and what Starlink opens up for you. stalling in the car is nice because there's just dead zones while you're driving because we use cellular service to to stream. Uh but there's some places that they're just dead zones. So having the Starlink in there, which explain simply what you do with Starlink because I know how you like if somebody's sitting here saying what Starlink car what what is the simple expl the simple idea how is it that you get Starlink working in the car? Um, so what do I do with it or how do I get started? No, no, no. Meaning if someone wants to know, they they know there's a Starlink Mini, but in terms of the sunroof and getting it so that you can be driving around with it without having to run wires through everything. Yeah. So, well, I I have it mounted on the inside cuz I I I had a sunroof in my car that got totaled. Um, which you can see the picture on my on my Twitter actually. It's crazy. I was parked and somebody full sent it. Yeah. Anyway, uh I had it mounted on the inside and it was a Starling Mini and I just basically I ran all the wires and the Starling Mini you only need like USB power, but you have to have enough power. Have you played around with any of the battery packs yet? Uh there's a Rav there's a Ravon battery pack that gives you 5 hours and then another one I forget the name right now that gives you 12 hours. I use I use a big DJI. Uh, right. But you could do meaning this just plugs into the Starlink like the Ravon plugs into Star Link and so you wouldn't need any wires whatsoever. Oh, I didn't into the little triangle. You plug it in and it's like the size of the triangle. And then you could just stick it up there. But basically, you use suction cups on the sunroof. Do you still have access to the Ethernet? Uh, if you need it. Yes, of course. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Through. Yeah. Cuz what I do is I'll I'll use the Starlink as like a backup. Yeah. or like an additional uh because you can use it as like what you call a failover, meaning if you lose signal then it goes over to a different thing or you have it added in with the different SIM cards that you use and uh it makes it to where like if I'm doing like a driving stream or anything like I just did that road I did a road trip uh to and from TwitchCon. This was a few months ago and we were live like the entire time. I think there was a couple places we actually did have some trouble and I don't remember what happened, but we had a couple places with some trouble on the way back, but overall like we were good like all the entire way there and I mean it was just great. Yeah, I do think I do think like now it just opens up creatively to all sorts of other stuff you can think about doing, right? Because the biggest thing is power and internet and now you can think about well actually I can go anywhere I want. you know. Yeah, it's super cool. Um the the big thing is just being if you can get the speeds that you need. Um that's why like I combine it with the the IRL backpack because there's really you know sometimes when you're also in the city you don't want to be startling. You you kind of big buildings. All right. Talk. So in terms of live stream IRL streams you kind of like are itching to do? Well off of tailgate off of tailgate. I really want to do World Cup stuff so badly. I I want to do World Cup I wanted to do the Olympics last year. Um, I almost went to the Olympics this year, but there was just there's a lot going my my like favorite version of WoW just got re-released and I'm like it's out for only a year, so I'm like I need to send it. So I' I've been doing that. So you're back playing WoW now. Yeah. I mean I'm still doing everything else but like But And how long will you be in your WoW modes? Cuz basically you you go through these wow periods. Yeah. I mean really for like three or four years I haven't like full sentent wow. This is the only time I've I've full sent Wow. Wait. I thought when Classic came out was 2019. No no no. But the refresh they did like was there was like a month a year or so ago when they Oh yeah. I mean they they'll do like like releases of like different things. I'll go like try it out. But like Well, hold on. This is something else to consider what I consider full scent. So, I haven't done what I consider full send in like three or four years. Okay. Maybe like five years. Um because the last time I full scent was Burning Crusade for like two years. And then now they're doing Burning Crusade again. Okay. So, playing for like a month isn't full. Yeah. So, like I might stream it a lot for a month or two months or three months, but like I'm actually playing it all the way through. So, I might stream it like a couple times a week, but you know, I I do so much variety and shows and travel and I host stuff. So, there's just so much else going on that realistically it's probably not going to be like more than a few nights a week like throughout the year eventually. And it's already kind of getting there where like I've played Resident Evil 9 and I got to mix in some of the other variety games and stuff that I do. So, someone from chat asked, "Is it too late to start playing WoW Classic? It is not too late to start playing Wild Classic. It's never too late to start playing Wild Classic. Yeah, it is the the best time to start is right now. Well, tell me, do like suppose somebody is starting to play WoW now. Do most people just don't play WoW Classic or um so think of like WoW Classic, it releases kind of seasonally, right? And they'll they'll do different expansions. So there's like vanilla, which is just the classic era or whatever, and that's like vanilla, and that's just vanilla forever. Then they have Burning Crusade, which is the first expansion. In my opinion, that's the best version. That's my favorite version. Uh, everybody has their own favorite. Then there's Wrath of the Lich King. So, as far as like classic WoW goes, a lot of people consider the first three versions, vanilla, um, Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King as like classic. Then there's the classic 2019 re-release that they're just kind of going through it for now. and they've got up to Mist of Pandaria, which is like a whole another expansion. Uh, it's like two expansions ahead of what people consider classic for a lot of people. Um, I would say Mist of Pandaria is kind of like the first Mr. Pandaria is like classic for people that like the retail version of WoW. So, you know, I've never played WoW. that's we need to do a stream where you are you're showing me Wow. Yeah, there's a lot to it. I mean, the the new retail expansion just came out, too. Actually, this is a big problem cuz they released them like within like a monthish of each other, and everyone's like, "What are you guys doing?" Cuz some people some people play both, but they're very different. Now, do a lot of young folks get into WoW or is it now like like in other words, there many when when you go back in time, there are a lot of 19, 20, 21 year olds playing WoW. Are there a lot of 19, 20, 21 year olds playing WoW? actually are. Um, a lot of the best, at least in 2019, a lot of the best players in my guild were the guys who were like college aged, It's funny cuz that's kind of what it was years ago. A lot of the best players were like in their early 20s. So now there's some people that have been playing so many years that, you know, they're in their 30s and 40s even. They're pretty good still. Uh, but that's like what they play. Like for me, like I'm like I'm really good at what I do in WoW. So, like at at one point, I don't know what the ratings are now. Actually, I had a bad session last night. We dropped a lot, but you know, we won't talk about that. But I was like playing at the top of the bracket in every PVP bracket, uh, like last week, which is like pretty sick. Um, so it's not the end of the season, that's really what matters. But it's like cool cuz like you're playing and like practicing and doing stuff. The next thing you're like, oh, like you're at least for NA because there's NA and EU ladders. It's like, oh, I'm playing like at the top of NA. That's crazy. So, so if you're 60 years old and you're playing WoW, live streaming, and doing IRL, are you happy? man, that is a good question. I think that this might be the last time that I Well, I don't know if I'll play Burning Crusade like I'm playing it now ever again because it was 5 years since the last time they released it and I don't know how many years it's going to be since, you know, next time. The thing that we're really looking forward to is something called Classic Plus, which is like taking the original game and like building on it in kind of like a different alternate timeline of what they did, right? Because Retail WoW, it's so different of a game than Classic WoW. It's still good. It's just that it's it's not even the same MMO. I Sometimes people they have the same name, completely different game. Completely different. So, you know, some people like both, some people like one, some people like the other, whatever, right? Um, but yeah, am I happy if that's what I'm doing? I genuinely don't know because I think as far as WOW goes, I'll probably full send it for Could be potentially. I mean, that's a bet, by the way, it's a better question to say could you be because obviously you don't know for sure, but it sounds like no, you could be like, yeah, but like there's also other things that I want, And that this is like a whole life discussion. No, that's what I that's what I was asking about if it's like you I love what I'm doing but I know I need to like you know cuz some people some people you can see them doing the same thing. I mean look co will be he might be doing different games and different things but co Carnage I can see him doing what he's doing 25 years from now. Yeah. Um do I think I'd be one of those guys? Yes. Yeah. I think that likely uh I will be one of those people that is like because I I call them boomer streamers. There's like a there's like a whole category of like the the boomer streamers are like the co maxillion dude uh moonm moon like those guys who are like they're they're old school gameplay guys. Um like that's kind of like what I probably will be doing. And I've always been one of the guys who does like the IRL and like the the shows and stuff too. So, I don't know if that's going to end up being the same thing or if I'm gonna end up picking a lane at a certain point. I'm just being a old guy that talks about games, You know, however many years down the road, Cuz I might be, but I also you want to have like what really makes you happy. And it's like, yeah, you could play a lot of games and have a lot of fun with it. You could travel, you could have a house, you could have a lot of money, right? you could do all these things but like why tell tell them what you did with Sora AI. So um basically the day that Sora 2 came out, Sora is chat GPT's image generation like section and uh they came out with Sora 2 to do video and uh you know they're obviously really proud of it. They're like this is super realistic or whatever and it's like it's still AI, right? So it's going to be scuffed. Um but on the day it came out you could only get in invite only and one of my viewers was like hey I have an invite code. You want one? I was like I'm so down. So, I get in there, I upload my face to it, and you can create a character. So, I'm I don't know if I still am cuz I kind of take the foot off a gas, right? But at one point, I was like one of the most used uh Sora AI characters on the entire platform. So because you had your stream creating stuff and then you'd watch it on stream and we ended up doing like a Sora I did like a Sora like like film festival and and this is the big thing with AI like how do I feel about AI? This is my kind of overall sort of thought about it cuz some people get real like they they get real opinionated about one side or another side of it. But the reality of it is I think there's things that you can do with AI to uh like as tools to be able to like improve the efficiency of something or you know kind of kind of get through some busy work. Sure. But it's not going to do the things that you need to have a person do like creatively or like build anything new because it can just iterate on something that's already been there. Um now that's like the workflow side of it. I think on the like creation side of it, I think AI is like good for memes and it's like funny. I think I think if you're doing like memes, they're funny. Just stupid stuff like that. Like you know they you prompt something and it comes out with a video. It's like it's a funny video, right? Cool. But that's pretty much like what it is. Um what I had my guys do was like, "Okay, chat, we're going to do the Sora SF film festival. make a short film of like a few minutes long, You prompt all the scenes that comes out with like a 10-second, it would pop out a 10-second video and like it's like, okay, Sand is dressed as like an Italian mobster in the 1930s. And so, so you'll have they would have to script the whole thing. They would have to storyboard the whole thing. They would get a 10-second video that pops up. And of that 10-second video, what they might do is, okay, I need like 4 seconds of this. So, they would cut out the 4 seconds. And then they would go in and they would have to edit it and actually like produce the video themselves. So you still need the editing skills. You still need to like plan it. You need still need to storyboard it. You have to know how to prompt. You have to do all these different things. And like people make really funny creative videos, Uh cuz I done green screen contests in the past and I was like, "Oh, this is kind of like a new type of thing that we can do adjacent to that." Uh I don't think they're the same actually. I think uh I think they're very different, but they're both entertaining. And I wonder I think they're similar in that um uh the green screen made it it lowered the bar for the skill you had to have to create something. There's this idea of of of your your expertise in a craft. And right now like to create a video it if you go back in time it took a certain amount of skill in editing videos right and now that has gotten like freaking infinitely lower for someone to do something interesting. So I think the skill to edit still needs to be adequate but that the level of adequacy is lower a little bit but I think it it's the thing that it affects more is the accessibility of you know hey I want to record a shot of SAN you're not you don't have access to me right so let's take SAN and let's have him like it's black and white and he's going to walk through a dark alleyway right so you got to like a location if there cameras. Oh, the shots from up here. Now, does it look good? No, it doesn't look great. But it looks pretty good for what it is. It's actually fine. And it's fine. And in fact, it makes it better, which is why I'm saying it's good for me. I I think I think I think um uh without a doubt, there are lots of challenges that AI presents. At the same time, it creates opportunities where, you know, you can use your audience to to creatively express themselves. And my my thinking is in general with live streaming. The reason gaming worked in live streaming is it gave a creator stimulus that they reacted to. And um I I remember I was talking to someone who was a proNBA 2K player, okay? And he live streams. He's a streamer, but he didn't stream NBA 2K. I said, 'Well, I said, why isn't NBA 2K and Madden as, you know, popular in live streaming as other things? I'm curious your answer and then I'll tell you his answer. Uh, I think because like depending on the type of game it is, like playing competitively can be boring, but also like a lot of what like the content that people do for at least Madden what it was is there's like a lot of ultimate teams. So these guys are like ripping packs and stuff and just like throwing a bunch of money at the screen and I I think it's just actually what what he said was in the game the degrees of freedom of the game are so much more limited than a really good AAA game meaning when degrees of freedom you know in other words the the of what can happen because it's already this constrained environment right of right because it's this very constrained environment. So, if you think of the things that can happen, it actually gets a little boring. Whereas, if you're playing a AAA game, whether it's Apex or whether it's Fortnite or whether it's WoW or whe whatever, there's so many degrees of freedom in the game. That's fair. That it gives you a lot more dynamics that in terms of that creates an interesting stuff that you react to. So, here's what here's what I think. I think he's kind of right, but I disagree overall because sometimes when you don't have a lot of options, that's when you can get the most options. So, whenever I started streaming Madden and my stream started growing doing it at that time, everybody was just doing Ultimate Team, which is fine, but it's just a small audience and it's people are ripping packs and they're okay playing competitive this and that. I came in and I was like, I'm going to play the seemingly neglected game mode of franchise mode, like the, you know, you're going to build a team, you're going to build out a team and all that stuff. And it's something that the like EA had kind of ignored it for several years because they don't make money off of franchise mode. Um, now this is like 5 years ago. It's very different now because they realized, wait a second, franchise is popular. People love franchise mode. So, I started doing franchise streams and I was like, yeah, it's constrained. You have a team, you can you have free agency, you have the draft, you play a game, you go to the next game, you go to the playoffs, you go to the Super Bowl. That is pretty much it. Like you can count on one hand what happens in the game, However, for me, I was like, why don't I just be creative with it and use my own football experience or like even just like stories and memes in in the news or whatever and I'm going to create a character of Coach Sband. And essentially, Coach Sband is I I think I think a coach Sband is he's got every single one of the worst qualities of every football coach ever. Like, you know, we're talking like scandals, you know, hey, we're never going to punt the football, like all that stuff, right? And that's that's like what I wanted this character to be is is just a caricature of like this ridiculous football coach. And what that does is that allows the content to be really good. So then whenever people actually started watching and started trying it, they were like, "Oh, this is what what you're saying is you could make it I I think there's this you can make it interesting, but you got to work and create like the character and all this stuff." And I do think getting back to AI, I think AI can give you stimulus to then interesting. Last question in terms of chat. Okay. Um, uh, what do you like what do you most either want to be or think you if you think about your legacy on Twitch, what do you think you'll you want to be most known for? I want to have a place on the internet where people can go. It's a community of people that are like normalish, you know? It's people that like this is the world feels insane when you go online. The world doesn't really feel as insane when you go outside, but when you go online, the world seems crazy. Wait, wait, wait. When you go online on social media? On social media, but not when you go online on Twitch. Well, it can depending on whose channel you're on. No, when you're streaming. No, when you're streaming. I don't actually This is the the interesting thing. This is an like it does feel crazy when you're going on and reading Twitter or whatever, I find that when you're when you're streaming on your channel, you never know who might come in. But the world seems so much more natural. It doesn't like cuz the people that want to whatever rable rouse and talk about this, they're just not going to sit there and watch you. Right. Right. They're not going to hang out with you, they don't want to like Yeah. I don't deal with any like I have no I have no nothing. I just cuz I'm I'm like whatever. I'm I'm too old for this, you know? I'm 25ish and uh Right. He's he's 25ish. Right. Right. And I'm 35ish, you know. I'm like, dude, I'm I'm a grown man. I don't have time for this. So, so yeah. No, I I I I want to have that. I want to be able to like establish like a place on the internet where like, yeah, people can just feel like good about being here. It's it's a good community. But like as far as what I do, like I love video games. Yeah. And and I I mean I love being one of the guys who like pushes the tech and the IRL and hosting shows and I just I just want everything that I touch and everything that I'm a part of. I want it to be better after I've been there than before I got there. I think that's a great answer. Although I'll add a piece. The other thing you can say is to be remembered as the no drama guy because there's so much drama, but it like the drama really you're you're sort of the no drama guy. Yeah. And I'm like it's it's and I don't even go out of my way to do it necessarily. I'm just like cuz I I keep it real and I'll just say like this or that, but then there's some things I'm like why are we even talking about this? Like I do not care about But you just stay out of it completely. It's like all right. So um thank you for tuning into this podcast. Uh, we stream it on Twitch with a live audience. Join us on twitch.tv twitch for the next show where you can participate in chat. Follow at twitch on socials for announcements for future guests and don't forget to rate and review. Um, thank you Svan for being here. Thank you for having me. It was fun. All right. It's been a great chat. Yeah, it's been super good. Thanks for having me. All right. Well, we'll see you in chat.