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Building An FPS Community Through Adversity: A Conversation with Snooofie

Hey, streamers!

I hope you really enjoyed our first streamer interview last week. Talking with different streamers is always enlightening because each one has a unique journey to streaming on Twitch.

Next up, I'm excited to present my chat with Snooofie, who has cultivated an impressive community centered around Respawn’s APEX Legends.

Snooofie opened up about the unexpected journey that led her to Twitch and the origin of her distinctive username. Aspiring streamers will find a wealth of insights in Snooofie’s narrative, particularly her strategies for community building and her creative viewer engagement methods. And yes, it might just involve a Shrek cosplay.

Dive into the conversation and get inspired!

Best,

Dim

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Media Kit

1. Tell us a little about yourself and what inspired you to start streaming?

My name is Kyla aka Snooofie, I'm a part time streamer and I've been streaming for 2 years now.

I just jumped right into streaming, I wasn't a viewer first like some people usually are before they start, so my first year was learning how to use twitch plus learning all the aspects of streaming.

My story is a little weird but at the end of 2020 I was in a pretty bad car accident and I wasn't able to walk for a couple months after it since I broke my pelvis. So I was pretty bored during this time and my boyfriend would always play APEX Legends and always ask me to play and I would always turn him down. But since I had nothing to do and couldn't walk I was like sure I'll try it.

So I started playing with him and actually really enjoying the game . He kept mentioning to me that I should stream, and I didn’t even know what Twitch was so I would just keep brushing it off.

Finally, I was starting to get decent at the game and wanted to show him my good plays which, looking back, were me getting 1 kill and 300 damage but we're not gonna talk about that.

So I couldn't figure out how to clip my gameplay on my computer so I said fine I'll just start streaming so he could watch my gameplay while he was at work. Then I started building a community and fell in love with streaming, and the cracked 300 damage APEX gameplay clips were just a bonus.

2. How did you come up with your Twitch username?

My username is one of the many nicknames I have for my dog Sophie.

So when I was creating my twitch account I had my real name on for about a month until people started telling me I should have an alias instead of my real name.

So I used that nickname I had for my dog which I also used for her dog Instagram account haha.

So now I don't call her Snooofie anymore since I refer to myself as that, but don't worry she still has plenty of other nicknames like sue, snootle, snoodle, moodle, doodle, suba, suey, ect).

3. Let’s talk about your adorable dog. Why do they play a significant role on your channel?

Ah my favorite question ever I love rambling on about my dog!

Sophie is a rescue, she's a 7 year old great Pyrenees mix. She is definitely my soul dog, I love her so much. Since I used her nickname for my twitch channel I figured what better theme to have for the channel than dogs. So I started off with all dog emotes and pictures of her and my channel points in my stream are called snoof snacks to resemble dog treats.

People love to redeem "give Sophie a treat" on stream to see her and give her a little snack. I'm obsessed with all dogs so every time someone new comes in to chat I always force them to show me pics of their dog if they have one, and I have a !dogfact command, when people type it will tell the chat a random fact about dogs.

So if you are a dog lover my stream is definitely the place to be, don't worry all other animal lovers welcome too.

4. I noticed you put in a lot of hours into APEX Legends. What made you choose APEX as your content niche? Are there other types of content or events that you host on your stream?

I probably put too many hours into APEX haha, my community will joke around with me and say, “snoof how are you still so bad at APEX when you have more hours than me”. I don't really play multiple games at once so when I like a game that is all I play and I'll become obsessed with it. APEX is my first ever FPS and besides this I had only really played the Sims and some Nintendo DS games growing up.

I like to call myself a wannabe variety streamer, I'm always down to play new and different games on stream but it usually only lasts about an hour and then I'll go back to APEX and my community loves to make fun of me for that. I've hosted tournaments, community game nights, karaoke nights, and my community awards stream.

I love to try out horror games, Nintendo switch games, and I've dabbled in other FPS games but APEX will always have my heart.

5. What is a memorable moment from your streaming career so far? Why does it stand out to you?

The most memorable moments that always stand out to me are the ones that are so heavily focused on community engagement.

My community award streams, I hosted my first ever all girls APEX tournament this past year, I did a Halloween stream where I dressed up as Pitbull and put on a lip syncing concert for my community, I used to do a lot of drinking streams where we would play Jackbox and other community games, my birthday streams, my first sub-a-thon, and my first 24 hour stream.

Those were all such amazing streams that I love to look back on, I have the most fun on stream when I'm constantly engaging with chat and I feel like everyone is included.

6. In January, you hosted your second annual Community Awards Night. What inspired you to start hosting this event and what makes it unique?

My community awards night stream is my favorite stream!!!

That's a stream I do to celebrate my affiliate anniversary, I hosted my first one last year for my first year of streaming and it was just a way to recognize everyone in the community that I met that year and everyone that made it such a special year.

The main thing that inspired this idea was the idea of inclusion and celebrating my community so I wanted to have a stream where I showcased that. It's a whole process of nominations and voting and the community has a say in everything! They vote for the categories, they nominate people, they choose finalists and choose winners. Everyone is so involved in it so it feels like my streaming version of the Oscars haha it's the best!

I also do giveaways and I usually give a speech, but this year I showed a montage of videos of progression of my clips from when I first started to now. So every year is a little different, it's only been two years so I can't wait to see how that stream evolves over the years!

7. How do you balance streaming with your personal and work life? Do you have tips to help others looking to maintain that balance?

I've been struggling a little bit recently since getting a new puppy, but before that I just made sure to have at least one day off from streaming and work so I could have a reset day to avoid burnout.

I was in college my first year of streaming, and once I got my full time job during my second year of streaming it was definitely a big change that took a lot of adjusting.

My main tip is don't be afraid to change up your streaming schedule to what works for you! They always say consistency is key, which I do believe, but I think as long as you're honest with your community and keep them in the loop with your scheduling they will still show up for you when they can.

Having a schedule where you can stream when you're feeling your best is going to be way better than having a chaotic schedule where you feel pressured to stream and that will show during your streams and will affect your enjoyment and your viewers enjoyment.

8. In your opinion, what factors do you think contributed to you reaching +2K followers on Twitch?

I honestly don't know, and I'm shocked sometimes because I didn't start streaming with the intention to grow, I was just doing it for fun and to show my boyfriend my gameplay.

I don't really know how I got so lucky to meet all the amazing people that are currently in my community. I think the main factor that contributed to me reaching +2K followers on Twitch was just being myself, having fun, and not worrying about numbers and growth.

It wasn't until my first year when I started taking streaming more seriously and started promoting my stream on other social media, posting clips and repurposing my twitch content, which is usually how people grow. They always say you can't grow solely on twitch, and while I somewhat agree with that, I feel like that statement mainly applies to when you pass 1k followers.

During my first year I would have people come into chat and I would just build relationships with them and they kept coming back. In my free time I would look for other apex streamers to watch and get to know, and then next thing I knew I had a whole group of friends that all streamed and played the same game as me. It was awesome!

After I hit 1k followers I started posting short form content as consistently as I could and growing my following that way, we are at 2.5k followers now and I'm hoping to hit 3k by the end of 2024!

9. As a woman in the streaming space, what are some unique challenges you have faced and how have you overcome them?

Everyone has to deal with trolls on the internet, I feel like I've had my fair share of people coming into chat with inappropriate or mean messages.

So learning to just ignore them, and I have a really great group of mods that are able to take control of the situation and always have my back so shoutout to them!

Another challenge I've had to deal with is having to prove myself as to why I have a community/following. Some people will try to say I only have viewers because I'm a girl since I'm bad at the game I'm playing, I don't let their opinions get to me though because I know that is not true.

I've built a community of friends and I stream to hangout and chat with them, the game is just there. As I always say, chat comes first and always will. 

10. Can you share a piece of advice that you think would benefit a fellow female streamer who is just getting started on Twitch?

Be yourself, but also decide early on how much of your personal life you want to share with your viewers!

Creating boundaries early on will make it easier for you to enforce them and for people to respect them. There are a lot of scary people out there so don't trust super easily because you never know what someone's intentions are.

Also try to network with other streamers you feel share your mindset and interests. Twitch is so much more fun when it feels like just a bunch of friends hanging out and gaming, so the more people you get to know the less intimidating streaming will feel in the beginning.

Last thing, and most important, have fun and don't worry about the numbers, they will grow and drop continuously, focus on the people who support you throughout it all!

BONUS: If you have anything you’d like to plug here, please do!

I stream Monday, Thursday, and Sunday at 7pm EST on Twitch and TikTok!

I recently became a Rogue partner, and I'm super excited about that, go check out their hydration line and use code "SNOOOFIE" for 20% off at checkout if you're interested.

I will be hosting another APEX tournament at the end of April so feel free to come watch, and my birthday is in June and I will be doing a party stream/Shrek cosplay for that.

I post all streaming updates in my discord and on my socials so feel free to follow if you'd like, I'd really appreciate it! View LinkTree

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Thank you so much for reading and I hope to see you next week!

-Dim

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