This year marked the 5 year anniversary of me being an affiliate on Twitch. To celebrate the occasion, I hosted "Riley's March Marathon" - an event where I streamed for 31 consecutive days between March 1st and March 31st. Unlike past celebrations where I held a "subathon" instead, I wanted to make this one special. While there were still goals in mind, all 31 days were guaranteed instead of depending on people to spend money to raise the timer.
And for what it's worth, I really enjoyed the time that was spent with my small community of friends each year. But if I'm being completely honest, I don't really enjoy streaming or content creation in its entirety as much as I used to.
Content creation.
As a kid, I always wanted to be in the public eye. I would pretend to be the weatherman like the one I saw on the local news station, and when I discovered YouTube at an admittedly young age, I also wanted to make and present videos that I can share with the rest of the world.
I've gone through so many different channels it's hard to even remember them all. And as a child, it's verrrrrry easy to pump out mindless content that doesn't really provide much of any value in terms of actual entertainment. But as I grew older, my own expectations and desire to create something that's fulfilling for not only me, but to other people as well started to grow alongside me.
Now, I touched on a lot of this in my "The end of Lt. Wilson." video, but everything that I said in that video is true.
As I've grown older, I've found myself drifting away from the same platforms that originally got me interested in being in the public eye. Whether it be all the drama that comes with the territory or the mind-numbing number game that the entire social media sphere has become.
Interests don't always have to stay the same. For someone who's brain toggles back and forth between various different interests constantly, you don't always have to stay interested in one thing forever. And the content creation sphere is just one of those interests that died off for me - at least in the capacity that I yearned for as a kid.
Truthfully, I still think about making videos about the things that I'm passionate about, like how I've been using Linux for the past month. I LOVE the creators who make their videos for the love of the craft, regardless of how "popular" they are or end of becoming. And that's something that I'd aspire to be even now.
What streaming became.
I've actually gone through a couple different transitions in the streaming realm. While I technically had a Twitch account as a kid, and I have no doubt in my mind that I probably tried to stream a game like Minecraft back then, my true streaming roots lie with the Lt. Wilson.
Like I discussed in the video, the original origins of the Lt. Wilson name and a good chunk of my early streams on YouTube were focused on GTA RP. Yes, you heard me right. That was something that I was passionate about at the time. Watching creators like Bay Area Buggs or jmwFILMS. Hell, my original logo for the Lt. Wilson channel was intended to be this "police-like" badge partnered with an intro animation for videos that were based on the police lights on cop cars.
But, interests and passions change. I eventually switched to streaming on Twitch and turning those streams into highlights on YouTube. I eventually stopped for awhile, and in that time, I wanted to learn how to make my own website.
So I started to learn how to program. Keep in mind, this was before the era of ChatGPT and ALL of the AI tools that plague the dead internet we have now. This isn't the "vibecoding" era of "learning programming" that we see today.
One of the things that I made was a chatbot named "LtRobot" that integrated with Twitch. The premise was that it was an annoying hindrance to me, where chatters could set my wallpaper. While I had the bot installed in a few different chatrooms, I wanted to prove that it actually worked. So I went live and demonstrated the commands. The stream was so short and it was so out of the blue that at the time only one or two people watched it. Until I kept streaming and showing off what the new thing my bot could do was. Then I introduced "Interactive Minecraft" where chat could send keypresses to try and ruin my run.
As time went on, more people showed up and I really started to enjoy the streaming sphere. I would end up becoming an affiliate, and I could start making money off of these streams. To a broke high school student at the time, that was legendary. And I made it abundantly clear back then.
Today.
But like I've said before in this post, my interests would eventually begin to deteriorate. While I took many extended breaks in the years that I've been an affiliate, I would always eventually come back. Some might even say that I was the William Afton of streaming.
(I don't know who, but some people might.)
Over time, I started to care less and less about coming up with quirky and unique stream ideas, and it eventually just became a spot where I could go live playing a game and just talk with my group of friends. And that's okay, I actually liked it a lot more this way. Still, as enjoyable as they were, nothing could stop the feeling that I didn't really want to "force myself" to stream anymore. Truthfully, it's a difficult feeling to describe in words - so I won't even bother trying.
But that leads me to my decision today. I wanted to end things on a high note, and one of the things that I wanted to do, had attempted once before in the past but was never successful at, was streaming consecutively for an entire month. And as of this year, I successfully accomplished that. What better time to hang up the hat than now?
So yes, I'm saying goodbye to streaming and taking an indefinite hiatus.
Will I come back? Who knows. Probably. But the reality is that I need to get my life in order in a multitude of different ways. My physical health, mental health, finances, social anxiety, my overall well-being.
What's next?
I'm going to continue to work on the things that I care about. And while what that is may continue to change as time goes on, right now, that's my coding projects.
It's what originally got me back into streaming in the first place, and lately I've found myself enveloped in the space especially with all of the resources that are available nowadays.
Funnily enough, a lot of the stuff that I've been making are streaming tools.
Now Playing: while not released yet, I'm finally working on a mockup that I made back in 2024 for a Twitch extension that displays your currently playing song as well as past songs through your Last.fm account. Allowing you to use your music platform of choice.
Maybe even my Emote Showcase? I've drafted a new design that matches the same aesthetic of the "Now Playing" extension awhile ago. Should it make a comeback? Who knows!
But yes. This is what I'll be focusing on for the foreseeable future. Maybe I'll move on to something else, and that's perfectly fine. But for now, I hope everyone enjoyed my streams. If you really miss them, you can rewatch old VODs over at owoTV.
Thank you for reading, and you know what, thank you for watching too.
❤️