Building a Cozy Community
Posted On: Saturday, March 15, 2025
We're running this post a little late, but I was distracted yesterday by reading, and then distracted from reading by a bunch of other stuff... so oops? Good news is I caught up to where I was supposed to be in my book, so we'll call it a win for now.
As I was writing the last post and reflecting back on what's happened so far this year, it made me think about how different people have different approaches to streaming and even the concept of online communities. For a lot of people, the idea of being a successful streamer is all about the numbers - and why wouldn't it be? The thought of having hundreds or thousands of followers and getting enough subs and donations to be a full-time content creator just sounds fantastic.
But where's the heart in the art? I'm coming up on five years as a streamer, and since coming back in August 2024 from a longer-than-anticipated hiatus I feel as though the Z-Stream has built a nice little community. It's a nice, close-knit group of individuals who like to hang out and talk and enjoy each other's company, and the Z-Stream is a way to facilitate that. But how would that happen in a "community" where you have hundreds of followers?
It's a question I struggle with every time I reflect on the direction I want to take on my journey as a content creator. Would I trade the closeness I have with my small community for the opportunity to be super popular? I don't know if I would. There's something important about that connection that is crucial to the way I create content, and I feel like part of the personality of the stream would go dark if I didn't have that. It might be nice to have hundreds of people watching your stream and "chatting", but if you're not truly interacting with them on a personal level then it becomes very performative.
When I started my first fan site "Endless Vortex" back in 2002 (god I'm old), internet forums were all the rage. Again, we began to build quite the little community there, and although it wasn't bursting at the seams, I can tell you that there are still members of that community to this day that I still communicate with, and they still recall memories from that time in their lives. It's amazing to see the impact that building a small, yet cozy, community can have on people.
All that being said, this was really a long-winded way of saying that I'm proud of the community that we've built so far, and the connections that I've made actually do mean a lot to me. It's not performative when I say that I love your faces, because each and every one of you have contributed to the direction of the community and the helped me grow as a person and a streamer. To be able to share my passions and obsessions with you all makes my day a little brighter.
So go find your little cozy communities. You don't need to have a large group to have a good group. You'll know them when you find them.
Many hearts, love your faces,
~ Z
