Uploaded and Unfiltered: Conversations about Personal Growth, Mindsets, and Advice with BIPOC Creators for Creators

Balancing Streaming and a Demanding Day Job [Guest: Shwamm]

• Jermaine Pulliam • Season 1 • Episode 45

Share episode

Send me a text! Be part of the show!

Have you ever stumbled into a world where you suddenly realized you belonged? That's exactly what Shwamm, my guest this week, experienced as he transitioned from a student dabbling in video production to a content creator synonymous with resilience and multitalented flair. Listen in as we journey through Shwamm's unexpected path to streaming and content creation, touching on that heart-stopping moment during his first live stream and how a technical disaster became a testament to the power of community support.

Join us for a conversation filled with passion, advice, and the occasional geek-out moment – because your story might just be the beacon for someone else on their creative voyage. 

Support the show

Speaker 1:

Welcome. Welcome back to another episode of uploaded and unfiltered, the podcast in which I, your host Jermaine, interviews another content creator. In regards to the journey thus far, as always, tonight I have a special guest. Before we get him introduced, I'm gonna go ahead and read his bio so we can get this conversation started. Introduce I'm gonna go ahead and read his bio so we can get this conversation started. Schwam is a multi-faceted content creator. He raps, sings, designs, collaborates, edits and many more other things. He has a passion for RPGs and nerdy stuff. With his background in television, he plans to take content creation by storm, hopefully to create a space where people are free to talk and debate about things from anime to pop culture to adulting. Schwam town is an open space for everyone. Don't be afraid to stay for a while. Oh, my god, I read that in one shot. I'm the best anyways. Uh, I like to introduce my best. Introduce my guest for the evening. Uh, schwam, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing, man?

Speaker 2:

I'm doing great man. Thanks for having me on. I really really appreciate you reaching out and, yeah, I'm I'm excited, I'm excited to have this conversation today yeah, me too.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for uh carving out some time to do it. And again, I'm going to shout this out because I like doing podcasts during the day, so if you want to do this and you could do it during the day, hit me up. This is great. It's like a whole nother time frame. Um, but with that schwam, I need to know, I gotta know, what's your origin story in regards to your content creation. Start funny thing about that is um.

Speaker 2:

I never meant to get into content creation I I went to school for video production.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

So there was times where I was like, ooh, the sound would go well, goes well with this little snippet of video here, right, so I would just throw stuff together and then people would like it and then be like, oh, okay, I'll do another one, yeah, we'll like it, and I'm just like, maybe, maybe I'm good at this, so so, maybe I'm good at this so so you know, I would start posting videos on Twitter. Uh, I think I did like maybe two or three with an anime video and then with a, a rap song.

Speaker 1:

Okay, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And it got some traction and then I was like you know, this is good, and then I just stopped. I just stopped, I'm done, I just stopped.

Speaker 2:

That's all you guys are getting from me. And then a few years later, I move out of my parents' house, I'm in my own house and my friend slash coworker is streaming. So I was like, hmm, that sounds seems like fun. You know I watch, you know Tim the tap man and sometimes ninja, sometimes people who do wrestling content, and I was like it doesn't seem that hard, sadly mistaken, right. So so you know, I was like you know I got, I know how to edit and I do all this stuff.

Speaker 2:

So I throw up a YouTube video, I try YouTube and my first video gets taken down, striking immediately. I try to do a reaction video to some anime. I didn't know all the guidelines in time, even though I should because I work in TV. True, I didn't know all the guidelines at the time for YouTube. I didn't know you the guidelines at the time for YouTube, so I didn't know you had to make it look completely different from what the whistle name was. So I was like, let me just throw it up there within an hour, maybe like 20 views, and then tick it down. So I re-upload it and it doesn't do as well. And then I try to do another one and it doesn't do as well done done yeah that's done.

Speaker 2:

So I think a year later I I bought a pc because I was like you know, I want to play games and the part the my partner at the time, who I was living with, wanted to play games too. So we bought, we both bought pcs and we started playing borderlands three. And then, you know, I was like I think I should stream, since I have a PC now. And she was like just go ahead, go ahead. And I was like I will, I will, I will, I will. Three months later still hasn't streamed, not a lick, right. And then I get one time I just like let me just boot up. Like obviously it's nerves, so I boot up, I'm playing Call of Duty. Random guy from New Zealand comes in and plays Call of Duty with me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Tells me, I suck.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay, it's about par for the course, yeah, you're learning.

Speaker 2:

So I was like you know, it's cool, I streamed for an hour, got off off, and then it was just cool, okay, and and then, and then I think maybe two years after that is when I met real mama eagle and she was, like you know, giving me the tips on how to start a stream and how to do things.

Speaker 2:

And I'm just like, okay, let me just set up my stream this way and do this that way, and just keep going and keep going. And then things just started taking off and I'm just like, okay, yeah I'm liking this. I'm liking this, I'm liking this and then then the hate raid, stuff happened. And then you know I don't know if you heard the story about the hate raid in my channel- I did not um you know people were using that app from twitch.

Speaker 2:

That helps you delete all the bots yes, channel yes, I was using that and me using it for the first time. I deleted everybody, so I went from four. I went, I went from 400 followers yeah, hard working 400 followers to zero. Oh, no damn. And and this is why community is important, yes, so people in there? Tg's in there, boss is in there, who else is in there? Real Mama Eagle's in there, and I'm just sitting there like well, chuck it up, just going to do it again, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And just continue with stream Like nothing happened. And then people just started flunting in follow, follow, follow, follow follow, follow follow, follow, follow, follow, follow.

Speaker 2:

I'm just sitting there like what's going on. People started tweeting out like, hey, he lost all his followers trying to stop a hate raid, and it's just like, wow, yeah, so they started chanting 300 today because, you know, they're trying to get me back to 300. And I ended the day with 1,000. Hell yeah, 1,000 followers. That's what I'm talking about and I'm just sitting there like what is going on here? Yeah, and you know, candidly, kayla Kiwi on the sticks, I think Cleo Cleopatra Jones was in there as well. I think Cleo Cleopatra Jones was in there as well, who is now named. I forgot her name now. The fact is, this community is important. Yes, and that helped push me through you know that tough time that I was going through and ever since then it's been, you know, pretty smooth journey. I took last year off due to. You know, life happens.

Speaker 2:

Yeah for sure. You know people break up, you know happens yeah for sure, you know people, people, people break up mm-hmm, you know things happen.

Speaker 2:

So me and my my ex-fiancee broke up and things happen, moving on with life, trying to be trying to be better. Yeah, and now I'm back on Twitch enjoying myself, trying to, you know, find my space again. Things are taking off slowly, but you know I'm not too worried about it. Mm-hmm, you know, find my space again. Things are taking off slowly, but you know I'm not too worried about it. You know I obviously, after you take a year off, you're not going to come back and have 100 people in your channel then be like, I mean, I ain't got that type of gravitation pool yeah, not yet, but you know yeah but it's, it's going well.

Speaker 2:

You know people are there for the rpgs but obviously streaming in the morning you don't have as much um, how would you say interaction, because people are at work, right people are doing things, you know. So I do my best for what I have, and we play rpgs on mondays and then on fridays we do whatever they want to do. Mostly it's fortnight okay, or maybe party animals or something like that yeah so yeah nice that's pretty much the journey from them to now that's awesome.

Speaker 1:

You carved out a little space for yourself, like the fact. I can't believe I've never heard this story about the hate raid that you got rid of all your followers and ended up with. I guess 700 extra a thousand more folk came through. That is dope Like damn. I wish I would've heard about that. I'm hearing about it now and it makes a great story for the podcast, so I appreciate that, Thank you.

Speaker 2:

No problem.

Speaker 1:

Well, while we're here at the beginning of your well, not the beginning kind of where you are now as far as content goes, I have to ask how did you come up with your screen name? Schwam it Up? I love it, but my phone doesn't. Every time I type it it's like Simon. I'm like who the fuck is Simon, sean, no, schwam. Anyways, go ahead.

Speaker 2:

Oh man, so in high school. I don't know if you ever heard. You've seen the show Punk'd correct yes yep, Okay, so they were mimicking the show, Punk'd, Okay, and they just kept saying Swam, swam, swam, swam, swam, swam, swam, swam, swam, swam, swam.

Speaker 1:

So me watching the movie, I go to school the next day and I just started saying Swam swam, swam, swam, swam, swam swam like it was, like there's that swam kid and I'm just like, and then people just started saying hey, swam, and I'm just like and, and it just stuck it just stuck yo, oh damn, that wasn't. Yep, you were right. That shit is hilarious. I wasn't expecting that. What?

Speaker 2:

so it just stuck. And I was like you know, I would love to come into the space with the swam name, yeah, but I was like I, you know, I would love to come into the space with the SRAM name, yeah, but I was like I feel like I need to add something to it, right. So, and then one of my friends you know like I have friends from high school and they still call me SRAM to this day, yeah and there was one day like we were playing 2K or Madden or something like that, and he was like what, you want to slam it up? And I was just like, yeah, that fits, that fits.

Speaker 1:

So I was just like slam it up, man. I love hearing people's origin stories for their names because that is crazy, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Epic movie yeah, that's awesome. I kind of want to see that movie now. I might have to pull up in discord and just catch a few clips of it I don't know exactly where the movie is because I haven't seen it since right high school. Yeah, it wasn't a great movie.

Speaker 1:

I you know what? I kind of felt that, like I remember seeing commercial, I was like that might be a nice late night on a couch watch, but I'm not going on my way to say, yeah, you don't have to trust me. Gotcha, gotcha, that's dope. All right, let's go ahead and slide into our next section. This is, uh, we kind of spoke on this a little bit, but this is the current mindset in regards to your content now and kind of a little glimpse into the future. How do, what do you feel that you will be doing with your contents, like six months to a year from now? Six?

Speaker 2:

months to a year from now. So right now, um, I'm starting to do sub goals, so my first sub goal, which I will be starting tomorrow, will be for if I get 50 subs, I'll be doing a Sailor Uranus cosplay.

Speaker 1:

Oh, you're getting those 50 subs.

Speaker 2:

That's happening, I know.

Speaker 1:

I know it's going to happen For Twitch?

Speaker 2:

only the clips, only. I just want to be, I just want to have fun with it. Yeah, I want to be unapologetically me and for me. I really don't care what the public thinks. Like people are going to judge you like oh, you know, that's that and that's that. Like, bro, I'm just having fun, exactly like, if this is what the audience wants, that's what the audience wants, you know, it's not gonna hurt yeah, that's gonna be dope I just hope I don't get it the first day.

Speaker 1:

Yeah right, they're going to be like all right game's over. It's two hours in. Where's the suit? I'm like oh, I got to finish.

Speaker 2:

I got to order it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's crazy, that's good, I think, sub goals I think some people jump in them too early. When they have like three or four people watching, they're like, all right, sub go. I'm like bitch, there's two people here like yeah, what's up, but there's no, you can't get your goal. But I like that. I like when I hear people saying, all right, I'm starting to move into that monetized mindset while having fun with it.

Speaker 2:

That's how you do this right, but for more of the content I want to move into more skits, because I don't I'm not going to say streaming is, you know, going to last forever. Right? Because I don't know how long I'm going to have the time to stream. I'm getting older. I mean, I'm sure 99 percent of people that I do talk to are older than me.

Speaker 1:

Yes, but.

Speaker 2:

I'm getting. I'm getting older and time is of essence, and my job is getting a little bit more demanding, right, especially working in TV. Yeah, so it's. You know it's live TV at that, so yeah. Oh, you know what it's a mixture.

Speaker 1:

I would say is there any correlation that you see between your day job and streaming that kind of bleed over, or is it totally separate?

Speaker 2:

Well, right now at my job, I'm a motion graphic designer.

Speaker 1:

Damn so all my alerts are designed by me. Dope. Okay, that makes sense.

Speaker 2:

And yeah, there's a lot of correlation there, because I have templates for the way I design things.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So if I'm knocking these things out, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, it's quick but it's tedious.

Speaker 1:

I can only imagine, like I don't know how to motion graphics. So when I get in there I'm just fucking around and I get some at the end and I'm like all right, cool. But like I can't imagine, like you know what you're doing and you have a template and you can just like here's my idea, let me just iron through that and your shit looks clean.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, I mean, I wish, I wish cause for me. I love anime, so I'm on the other side of of animation, which is just moving blocks and squares, where.

Speaker 2:

I would love to be on the other side of animation, okay, which is just moving blocks and squares, where I would love to be, on the other side of animation, where I'm moving people, yeah, so I mean, you only can get one or the other. So, like I'm, I'm not. I'm gonna try to get over there, because right now I bought an ipad. I'm starting to learn how to draw, yes, but moving to animation, I don't know, it may take like 10 years to get there. We'll see, we'll see, we'll see, we'll see animation I want.

Speaker 1:

I've been wanting to dabble in that too, like from a novice, like just more purely as a fan. I just want to see how it works, the back end. But, um, I've had some ideas of things that I want to do on stream. Like, even if it's a simple, this thing comes from this side of the screen, it goes to the other side. Like I want to be able to knock that thing out real quick and I think I hopefully this procreate. I forgot what it's called. I have to look it up.

Speaker 2:

Well, actually, let me, send me a message one day we can work it out I mean say less, man, I'm gonna hit you up.

Speaker 1:

I want to say have you I I hate? Okay, I'm not gonna say I hate. When people have a large amount of talent, people always assume that they're selling those talents.

Speaker 2:

So I give information away for free.

Speaker 1:

I was about to say. I was like are you said? Well, now, let's say, somebody came to you, was like I have an idea and I want to just pay you to do it would. Would you be up to that?

Speaker 2:

For sure.

Speaker 1:

Okay, Just making you know yeah.

Speaker 2:

But there's limits because I only got so much time, so I always preface this as like if you want something done in a week, go find somebody who's doing this.

Speaker 1:

Yes, exactly that makes sense.

Speaker 2:

But, if you're going to give me three months, I got you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, hell yeah but if you're gonna give me three months, I got you. Yeah, hell, yeah, all right, like that's fine, that makes sense and the fact that you share information.

Speaker 2:

That's dope. Yeah, I'll point you in the right direction. I'll tell you what youtube videos to look at. I'll if I can do it myself well, I'll share my screen, do it for you, send it to you, and then now you know how to do it right, that's.

Speaker 1:

Dope sharing is uh, you know again, like I've I don't have, like I used to have it skills, I dropped out of that shit. But when it came to like building your computer and all that stuff, I'm like I'm just gonna let you know how to do it like, because I don't want to build anybody's computer, but it's straightforward enough that I think most people can do it. They just need to get over the nerves. Like I don't want to break it. It's like you you can't. I mean you can, but it's hard to just fuck up your computer while putting it together.

Speaker 2:

So I learned that. I learned that day. Well, I learned that I can't break it the hard way, because I'm sitting here shoving my my graphics card.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, I was like, oh, he needs to go inside this thing first, then you push it in.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so yeah, that's the thing. Like it still works. Yeah, it's like does that work? Yeah, all right, bet it sounds like it's about the break when you put it in there. It's like like I don't know that's supposed to happen.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, that's awesome all right let's go ahead and roll into lessons learned. What type of lessons again? I asked all my uh content creator friends this, because it's wild the stuff that you learn from doing something that you love, whether it be personal relationships or like how to set a schedule, any of that shit. What have you learned, um, through streaming that you have taken to the real world?

Speaker 2:

take your time. Anything worth having is going to take time. You're not going to jump on the scene and get 30,000 followers just like that. It's going to take time. You're going to have to build relationships. You're going to have to work hard. You're going to have some sleepless nights, but if you want to get into content creation, take your time and no one's gonna find you in a day there. Those are like anomalies. Most times when you see people go viral, they've been doing this for maybe a year, six months, three months. Usually no one ever blows up the first time. They start exactly now. They're like I said, there's anomalies that you know. Some people like oh this is my first video, I got 30 000 likes, right, yeah, it happens, it, it happens, it happens. But just don't expect that to be you. Yeah, you might have the greatest idea ever, but it may take a few videos before you know I get there. Or it may take a few uh, a few years before you get there.

Speaker 1:

Just bide your time, enjoy yourself I think the important thing to remember is that is normal, like that's the normal path, like it might take a little bit, but if you know that going in, I think it makes it way easier to like get through those rough patches. You're like all right that didn't hit like it was supposed to, but whatever, I learned this x, y and z, I'm gonna put it into the next video. Man, yeah, I wish I think when you first start, especially in streaming, when you are only streaming to like two people for seven months on end and you're not really doing anything to fix that, like you're not reaching out to other creators, you're not like trying to build a community, it is easy to be like well, I guess I'm not supposed to do this and just fucking quit. But, like you said, take your time take your time.

Speaker 2:

It's not. Rome wasn't built in a day. Neither will your community be built in a day I'll let you buy that mom like I mean you could buy it, you know they'll pop into your chat when you, when you're, when you first start, they'll pop into your chat. When you first start, they'll pop into your chat. Hey, buyfollowerscom, exactly you can do that. It's not going to work for you. It ain't going to help. You can do it.

Speaker 1:

It'll look cool for that hour.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, when you reach out to companies and they see you got a bunch of bot accounts, they might fight for it.

Speaker 1:

They might not We'll see. Yeah, I think that's the thing that people don't realize, Like hey, yeah, your numbers are inflated, but companies know how to see who's watching you. And we're like oh, these are all bots, we're good.

Speaker 2:

They'll watch you for days at a time.

Speaker 1:

Yes, also, you never know who's watching you. That's the exciting part about streaming. That was my next. Oh, go ahead, I'm going to let you rock. Go ahead, you do it.

Speaker 2:

You never know who's watching. Because there was one time I was playing a Plague's Tale and I was playing and I was like, oh man, I can't wait for the next one. I can't wait for the next one. I apply to get on the creative program for the next one yeah with the day, the day the game comes out. I was like man. I knew they wasn't gonna send me a code. Open my email code sitting right there waiting. I'm just like yeah I can't believe they actually gave me the game right like crazy because I I was so ready for the second one.

Speaker 2:

I've been hyped since I finished the first one.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I was just like man, this is crazy. And I think there was an indie game that I was playing and the creator comes into my chat and was like oh yeah, I'm glad you're enjoying the game and blah, blah, blah, blah and I'm just like this is great.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome, like you're playing a game and the person who made it is in here chatting with you. I would have lost my shit.

Speaker 2:

You see what I'm saying. So it's just like you never know who's watching. Just have fun with it. It's going to be a difficult journey. It's not the easiest journey, but just have fun with it. And, last but not least, be careful of the friends you make. Everybody on this platform is not here to be your friend unfortunately, and that will not have to learn the hard way.

Speaker 1:

I don't know how you learn that like you, gotta go in.

Speaker 2:

I learned well, that's the reason why I took my year break okay, that makes sense every, yeah, everyone's not your friend. You find your close ones, stick to them and, you know, still watch everyone closely. I mean, you never know, people's hearts change all the time.

Speaker 1:

So just be careful. Hell, yeah, I like that. And something that you just got to remember no matter how long you've been doing this, it's always good to just check in. Honestly, it's good to check in to see who's around you. The people that I call my closest friends. They still rock with me. They still see the vision that I see and I still see the vision they see. Cool, we can still rock with each other. Outside of that, it gets dicey.

Speaker 2:

One thing I did see on Twitter, though I'm not going to say the creator's name, but it's okay to have business-to-business relationships with other streamers. It's okay. You guys are on a business-to-business level. You guys don't have to chop it up. You guys don't have to meet. You guys don't have to do anything. You could be in your chat and you guys could be in each other's chat Cool, or you could just be in their chat. Not everything has to turn into a friendship.

Speaker 1:

Exactly. I'm glad you said that, because that's where my mindset is always. For some reason. If you came to me and was like, hey, I just want to do this podcast and never want to talk to you again, I'd be like I get it, you busy, blah, blah, blah. But I think people's feelings get intertwined with this too easily. When those situations hurt, I'd be like, oh man, I thought we were super cool and super dope. I was like, nah, bro, I think he was just we had one conversation.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, we had one conversation and that was it. We can't be super cool off of one conversation.

Speaker 1:

I barely know you Exactly. That conversation was dope, but we have to have more. We need to build that rapport, god damn it right.

Speaker 2:

We had a conversation two years ago. How are we super cool yeah, we talked about.

Speaker 1:

We talked for 20 minutes, bro what. I don't remember that conversation.

Speaker 2:

I'm not, I'm being, I'm being honest, I don't remember that shit I have, I have, I have shits longer than 20 minutes, like I wouldn't say that to them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's right, but you know, yeah, like, come on man. Oh my God, Yo, that's funny. Wait, did we? Was that lessons learned, or did we just bust through words of advice?

Speaker 2:

That was lessons.

Speaker 1:

No. No, it was a mixture. We started with some lessons and then we bled into some words of advice, but it all is, honestly, it's all the same. It's shit. Did you learn why you were doing this?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because I mean, obviously you know your lessons learned turns into advice, exactly.

Speaker 1:

If you know if you're sharing enough, like some people be hoarding information sharing.

Speaker 2:

Enough like some people be hoarding information like, yeah, I don't. I don't like the hoard information, because information is key to everybody's growth. Agreed yeah, hoarding information it'll stunt your growth because someone might know something you don't know now you're. You guys are holding the information against each other yeah, like for what?

Speaker 1:

making each other's lives harder for no reason?

Speaker 2:

exactly like someone, someone on twitter. Funny story I was on twitter and someone had a you know calypso. Right, the drink clips. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Someone had a calypso bottle. I was like and then blurred it out. It was like, oh, this drink is so fire I'm like why would you do that?

Speaker 1:

why are we gatekeeping calypso? Oh my god, it's for everybody, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So what's going to steal your?

Speaker 1:

calypso. Yeah hey, I don't want y'all to know what this is. I'm gonna blur it out, so y'all don't buy it all it's calypso, relax, we know oh damn all right. Well, that's that. Shit's hilarious. I don't know where can the people find your content, where are you streaming at and what's your schedule look like nowadays?

Speaker 2:

I'm streaming on twitch. Uh schedule is mondays and fridays at 9 am. Uh subject to change. Just letting you guys know now. Subject to change. Things are coming up up. You know, I don't know. Yeah, also, you can find me schwemming up on most platforms Twitter, instagram, twitch.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I mean are you in TikTok as well or not?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you can find me a schwemming up on TikTok. It might have an underscore or something like that, but you, you'll see. You'll see the same picture on every single one.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, nice, keep it consistent.

Speaker 2:

Show it up on YouTube. That one is a little bit different, but it's going to change soon Probably. Probably like right after this, it's going to change Hell yeah, hell yeah.

Speaker 2:

Show it up on YouTube. Show it up on YouTube. I have a whole series of God of War, the first one and half a series of. If you guys are interested, you can go ahead and watch that. Don't feel pressured. No one's pressured. I'll find my way back into the YouTube scenery some way somehow. But yeah, that's pretty much all my information there alright, get to it on all the platforms.

Speaker 1:

Just do a search and more than likely it's going to be him as always if you haven't already subscribed to the podcast, do so, upload and unfilter.

Speaker 1:

It's on Apple Music, spotify, youtube, alexa, a bunch of other podcast directories that you can just throw your podcast into. It's there, so share it with your friends, share it with your co-workers. Most importantly, share it with other creators. I think these conversations that we have are important for us to just hear other people's experiences so we can, a tell that we're not going through this shit by ourselves and, b that all people go through this stuff and we all get through it. So keep that in mind. Um, but, as always, yo schwam, thank you for doing this. It was fun, as fun as hell. I knew it was going to be, but thank you, I appreciate it.

Speaker 2:

No problem, no problem, I'll see you on that TechN.

Speaker 1:

Oh, hey, say less, don't get me started. No, me and this podcast before I start talking about TechN. I appreciate y'all for listening. As always, protect your mental, keep creating content and I will talk to y'all in the next one peace.