Openly Fluffy January 2020
Hi everyone! I decided to bring back these Openly Fluffy letters because it has been a year since the last one and the past year has been quite the adventure.
These letters are a way for me to openly share my personal thoughts, plans, and updates about the stream and our comfy little corner with you.
Fluff Thoughts
When I look at the past year, the top words that come to mind are: Friends, Thanks, and Support. I am so grateful for all of the new friends I have made in the last year and the continued friendships going all the way back to my very first streams as Instafluff, and our community that has continued to stay comfy and welcoming to everyone as we come up on 3 years of the Comfy Corner. Thank you for being a part of this community and for your support, not just to me but to everyone in saying hello, sharing music and funny photos to brighten our days, asking and answering questions and offering help, letting us into your life for the rainy days and the fun and celebratory days.
With the Twitch channel, the invitation from csharpfritz into the Live Coders team has been life-changing for me personally and boosted the stream into a new gear in terms of what is possible. We dove fully into being a coding stream and after countless squirrels and going from Sci & Tech to settling into the Just Chatting category, I think we are finally finding what works for us. Which also means, I'm ready to change things up and experiment with more things again in our stream, so starting next month we'll mix some game streams back in. More about this below!
Two more thoughts to share about the channel!
- It's amazing to me that this Twitch channel that began as a hobby to take my mind off of my startup at the time, led me to figure out what I really want to do with my skills in a startup, and not only that, but I couldn't have dreamed that the stream would, thanks to all of the subpports, bitpports, and GitHub Comfy Sponsors, turn into something that could have such an impact financially too. And because of that, the last stream of every month from now on will be a "Comfy Sponsored" stream to celebrate all of you for your support, in both the time and money that you've been so generous to share with me to keep the stream going.
- And most importantly, as incredible as it is for the the folks who have been able and willing to financially help me grow as a streamer, one of the main things I have wanted to maintain and preserve is that the channel stays welcome to everyone regardless of situation and doesn't become focused on or about subscriptions/donations and put money-pressure on anyone in our community. Just for me, it means no donation button, subathons, charity streams. On this front, I was looking for other ways to make the stream sustainable and last year the Microsoft Azure team reached out and I was so lucky because we have been able to have monthly sponsored streams. And I'm excited to share that the team extended our sponsored streams to the summer! So....
This is a reminder and request to anyone in our community who needs to do so. Please cancel your Twitch subscription if you need to save money and please don't feel bad about doing so. What can help more than any sub is spreading the word about the channel and joining in to keep the streams active and friendly, especially during these sponsored streams where numbers really do matter!
Plans
Comfy Sponsored Streams From this month onward, the last stream of the month will be reserved for celebrating all of us as a community, with GitHub project ideas proposed/voted on by the GitHub Comfy Sponsors.
Game Streams As mentioned earlier, starting in February, I will experiment with mixing some game streams back into our normal schedule. Stardew Thursdays is one idea... and I've been craving Tomb Raider quite a bit, so we will see.
PixelPlush This is one of my big focuses for the year and Maaya and I are building more games! We will be working on some of the games and will be able to play them together on-stream too.
Stream Upgrades We started this year with new scenes and I will be working on more through out this year so that we can have different spaces for different purposes.
Asks
If you get a chance, please share a thank you with me to our moderators and helpers for sharing their time, especially behind-the-scenes, to make things better, run smoother, and improve our community.
Summary
- Resuming Openly Fluffy letters
- Monthly Comfy Sponsored streams
- A reminder to financially take care of yourself first & foremost
- Fun and new games and plans for the new year!
Thank you always for being part of our little Comfy Corner and making it fluffy!
Stay Comfy,
Instafluff