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

Rise Above the Small Stuff: Unlock Your Greatness [Guest: Reema]

• Jermaine Pulliam • Season 1 • Episode 57

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Ever wondered how you can balance a full-time job, school, and a thriving streaming career? Join us as we sit down with Reema, a variety caster on Twitch since 2015, who shares her unique journey from a Call of Duty enthusiast to a dedicated content creator. Inspired by a serendipitous gift card, Reema bought a PS4 and began her streaming adventure despite the technical challenges. Her story is a testament to persistence, proving that anyone can start creating content with the right mindset and determination. 


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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, today is always unlike the last episode. I have a guest this evening. Before I get her started on the podcast, I'm going to read her bio so we can get some background on her and then start this conversation. My guest today is a variety caster on Twitch and has been streaming on the platform since 2015. Remy of the Beats is a Philly girl residing in the DMV which frequently comes out in her content. She likes video games, makeup, anime and hanging out with cool folks on the interweb. With that, I'd like to introduce my guest for the evening, the one, the only Rima. Welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?

Speaker 2:

I'm doing so good. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here. And we stumble, we stumble, we fumble, but we get back up and we try again and we do it with grace and excellence.

Speaker 1:

Exactly that's what's the fun part of being a content creator you mess up and just keep moving and then nobody will know about it because you just edit that shit out.

Speaker 2:

It's the best part? I actually don't, because I love the goof ups. You know it's so funny.

Speaker 1:

I respect that.

Speaker 2:

And it brings a sense of humility. I don't. I'm also terrible at editing too.

Speaker 1:

It's my yes, I'm also terrible at editing too. Okay, you know. So right, it's my brand. It works for me. Well, rima, I'm going to start this off like we start. Every Uploaded Unfiltered. How did you get started in content creation?

Speaker 2:

I used to play a lot of Call of Duty. When Black Ops 2 came out, I played it a whole lot, so I wanted to watch a lot of YouTube on how to do like zombie stuff, like how to train zombies or whatever, and I discovered animal crossing let's plays on youtube in the process of that, because I was a really, really, really big sims watcher, so I was watching a lot of sims let's plays. I was watching a lot of animal crossing let's plays and I was watching someone named andrew arcade who's actually been a partner on Twitch for literally years, like they were the first person I subbed to.

Speaker 2:

I'm still subbed to them. I've been subbed to them for like 10 years. I was like this is not enough for me.

Speaker 2:

I wanted to watch more and I trusted this person to make really good let's plays and I went through, like their videos. You know, in the description they had that. Um, they went live on twitch a couple of times. At the time they weren't streaming a whole lot because they were focusing on youtube, but I was like what the heck is that? And I pulled it up and I saw the front page. None of it was sims or animal crossing content. A lot of it was call of duty and I was like, oh cool.

Speaker 2:

So when they weren't live, I started to explore the website and find people that I wanted to watch. A lot of them are call of duty content creators. I was like this looks really, really fun, um, but this seems like it's like kind of complicated. And then the you know, the feature for streaming straight from the playstation came out. I was like, oh, I could do this too. This sounds fun, I can stream call of duty on on ps4, and so I. So I switched cable providers. They gave me a gift card for switching cable providers to buy for internet and I used the whole gift card to buy a PS4 and started streaming with the PlayStation camera.

Speaker 1:

That is awesome.

Speaker 2:

And I did it the day after my nephew was born, so I always remember the exact date that I did it. I got the gift card when I got home from the hospital, went to the game shop the next day, bought everything and then streamed it like the day after that that is the most random.

Speaker 1:

How did we get started? I think I've heard you that's the system. That is awesome, oh yeah. And you had fiber. You started with fiber.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, all right, I mean it didn't, it doesn't matter on like a playstation streaming platform, right, because at that time it it all still looked pretty choppy at the time. And then you know, the layout was have your little camera in the top right corner, have the chat on the side or not have the chat on the side because it looks kind of ugly, and then just have the gaming in the center.

Speaker 2:

And if you could get it to stay stable, it looked okay, right, it looked okay well enough for people to watch, but if you didn't and your internet was trash, it definitely looked like the choppiest mess ever but it was still doable, like people were still doing it, hell yeah.

Speaker 1:

So how long did you do that before you, uh, ended up going the pc route?

Speaker 2:

so I think I got a computer the following year, so it might have been okay um, because in 2016 I definitely about february 2016 I got a computer.

Speaker 2:

Um, I got a capture card. I went through, I think, two different capture cards the avramedia one I kept for a while, but things were not. Not that avramedia makes bad capture cards, I think the pc itself, which is not strong enough to do both, so it would always get like delayed, like the game page or the sound would get delayed, stuff like that. The PC was just the thing that had problems. So I ended up switching things over, I think like 2017, 2018.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that's dope. See, I'm telling you people like I don't have a computer to start streaming, you can stream off these consoles. And now it's even better. Like you know what I might try, that I might stream from my Xbox play like Killer Instinct or like Halo or something, just to see what that feels like, because I've never done it actually. Like I'm actually looking forward to it.

Speaker 2:

It was interesting, so I had a little ipad.

Speaker 2:

At the time I would sit the ipad in front of where I was playing the game, so I had literally still living with my folks. My parents got my little dresser with my tv on it, my playstation. Then I had a desk with the ipad on it and I had chat on my ipad so that I could stop having a chat through the playstation stream and actually read it. And then I had music playing in my background through my microphone, like not actually playing music, like I had my speaker on.

Speaker 2:

It was so jank I love.

Speaker 1:

I love that it was so ghetto, though, but you were doing it though, right?

Speaker 2:

oh no, I was in the mud. It was probably the most fun I've actually had streaming.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, right, that's crazy. All right, I could talk about this for days, but I might. I'm gonna go on to the next, but slide into current mindset. Rima, how do you feel about not only your current content, your current output, but where do you see yourself like three to six months from now?

Speaker 2:

um, so this year and I think I'm going to be quite honest every year I try to figure out, hey, what can I do to actually make this work a little bit better? That I didn't do, and I always fall into the you should just be streaming more, kind of thing. But this year in particular, I went back to school. So now I'm really really focusing on making sure that I schedule out my streams more than I ever have before, because full-time job, going to school and then trying to stream consistently is very, very hard, especially when you work in retail and your schedule's so all over the place. So that's kind of what I'm focusing on right now is to make sure that not that I'm consistent in the manner that I'm streaming the same time every every week or what have you that I'm just being vocal about what my schedule is all the time and sticking to what it is that I set for myself and setting up realistic goals as far as my scheduling, so that the things that I want to do get done.

Speaker 2:

But, as far as me, in the next few months, there's only one thing I'm really focused on, and that's just making as much Magic the Gathering content as possible.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yo, I saw you starting to. I don't know if you just started playing, but I saw you streaming the game and I was like, oh shit, cause I just got into D and D with the homie Ronan Ronan on the sticks, he's my GM.

Speaker 2:

Oh, Ronan's recruiting everybody.

Speaker 1:

Oh, he tried to get you too.

Speaker 2:

Ronan's like, if y'all ever want to get on that dnd track just hit me up.

Speaker 1:

I'm like, yeah, bro, I can't do another hobby, but thank you right, exactly if that's a time sink, but that is awesome. So I'm gonna, because I just nerded out for a second in regards to imagine the gathering. What is your uh angle like? What is like, what are you trying to do with it?

Speaker 2:

Okay. So for people who aren't familiar with Magic, it's a card game and of course, there are a lot of different formats, kind of like Yu-Gi-Oh has a bunch of different formats, but Magic takes it to the extreme. They have so many different formats and when I first started playing, I learned in Standard, which I didn't really like, so I almost put the game down. But when I discovered Commander as a format, a more social format, a format that's more um like it's a.

Speaker 2:

Typically, games are going to be longer because you're playing with more people and it's with more cards, but it's definitely more so it's it's the same thing I get out of streaming being able to interact with people who share the same interests as you and being able to socialize within that Um. So when I started to stream arena, I was playing standard just for the sake of hey, I just want to be able to play the game. Right, I'm not playing it as often as I would want to, and if I got a stream, I want to just play the game. But then one of my homies from the twitch black guild I was talking to them about people, about people who play magic, looking for people to play spell table with, where you can basically play commander with the webcam so you can use your actual physical cards.

Speaker 1:

What right and then they were like why?

Speaker 2:

don't you just play brawl in arena? Because you play arena, right, and I'm like, yeah, but you, you kind of you got to buy packs in arena and that costs money. It was like, oh no, if you're playing the game, you're buying packs. You could craft the cards. I was like you can craft the cards, eh. So I started building Brawl decks the same way I build my Commander decks, and now I just play against folks from the Black Guild on Arena, so it's like a 1v1, but it's very similar to the experience I get from going to my local game store and playing with other people and I'm like that's awesome.

Speaker 1:

I want to continue to do that. Yes, yes, and that's going to bring that awareness to the whole genre. Like a whole set of people who probably I'd never heard of that. I didn't know there were different ways to set up your deck, to play magic, and the thing that you got me with is, like you said, that the community or the commander style is reminiscent of that Twitch feel or that streaming feel.

Speaker 2:

Yes, style is reminiscent of that twitch feel or that streaming feel. Yes, so of course in commander I mean of course it's a it's a tabletop card card game, so you're gonna like politic with people to try to get the win, but you're constantly having discussions about the type of decks that you want to build and the different like themes to them and stuff like that and kind of like in that dnd sense, like yeah, there's a you still, there's a, still a sense of the game itself, but there's camaraderie that comes with it.

Speaker 2:

Like this person did a. They might not have won but they popped off in the game and that was really cool to do. And you find so many different people and I found more and more people you know my people black people who play it and it's just been awesome, and I'm just trying to cultivate that type of community now and that's why I said, for me it's all about playing as much magic together as possible, just getting as many nerds that love the game, that love talking about the game and engaging in it that is awesome.

Speaker 1:

It's wild that you say that because I was talking to my wife like when I was younger, dnd wasn't a thing that I was allowed to play, quote unquote, and like to see more people like us playing it and digging it and having a lot of fun with it. Like that excites me to make more content around it. So, hopefully, fingers crossed. The homie Ronan. He put out a tweet about a podcast. I was like hey, let me know, I'm in there, I will, I will do it.

Speaker 2:

And then to have that, that flavor, that spin on it that only our people can really do. It's so amazing. I do like to watch dnd content um because it's such a short segue from magic to dnd yeah so you end up running into a lot of the same people who play both right or just watching content related to us. I watch one youtube video on magic. I'll probably find something similar to that in a dnd kind of format and um yeah, I'm.

Speaker 2:

I'm really happy that so many people are able to nerd out in other ways besides video games yes because video games are great, right, but a lot of the common games are single player. You're playing rpgs and stuff like that and the only way you really get to interact is by having the twitch stream. But when you get to go out and like, do in person, it's a completely different kind of feel. It kind of fills the social media in a way that streaming can't always do for you.

Speaker 1:

Yes, that was awesome. Yo, this has been dope so far. Yo, I'm excited. Listen, I always say this these podcasts are for me and everybody just gets to hear them. I get to experience things that I didn't even know existed. All right, next section we're sliding into the lessons learned section, and this is one of my favorite sections, because we all learn different things through our experiences. So my question is what is a lesson that you have learned through making content?

Speaker 2:

So, of course, because I've been on the platform for a really long time and I've seen a lot of things. I've learned to be vocal about the things that I'm passionate about, but I've also learned how to articulate myself in the way that wouldn't put me in a position put me in a bad position. So when you learn how to streaming in particular means you're talking to people a lot, you're speaking a whole lot and you're talking to different types of people, and then you have to learn how to do conflict resolution on the spot as it pertains to twitch, especially if you're a lady, because people will come in the chats and say stuff to you that'll just be off the wall and sometimes you just want to respond back the same way they gave you, like give that energy back, and other times you realize that they're not the only person in the room, so to speak with you and that you got to kind of just nip that in the bud and move on. And if you want to have a successful stream, but also you, you figure out ways to stand up for yourself, and I think I've been able to take the lessons that I learned about being able to manage a chat a little bit and incorporate it into my life as it pertains to, like, my personal as well as my professional. So I know how at work, how to advocate for myself in a way that doesn't come off as me trying to be aggressive or me trying to be combative. It's just me trying to speak and let you know what I'm comfortable with and what I'm not. And I think that is one of the most important lessons for anybody in the platform.

Speaker 2:

Don't allow anybody to say or do what you want just because you want to retain that person into your chat. Just nip that in the bud. Do it with grace, do it with you know, with as much as professionalism as you can. Sometimes people got to get called out the way that they come at you. You know it's, it's situational, but learn to advocate for yourself. Go after what it is that you want and then make sure that you are just being just being as respectful to everybody as you can because you want that to be the type of environment that you cultivate. You will see that less people come at you in that manner when you cultivate an environment that's respectful and open and things like that. So I just kind of learned to advocate for myself, especially after everything that I've seen on the platform happen and things that I've seen other people do, and then things that I've seen the platform do to other people. So, yes, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Oh my God, Reba, that whole that I'm cutting, all that that's getting plastered everywhere because you put it so succinctly, once you learn how to talk to people, they know they're not going to come at you sideways. Like you said, and especially if you cultivate that environment through your stream, through your channel, it's hard for people to just come in there, act a fool and that is a holy crap. That's a great life lesson, not only for streaming youtube but for, like you said, professional, personal advocate for yourself. Don't do it angrily, because I I was just talking about this soon as you go into a situation angry, you're already at a losing state because you're not thinking critically. You're coming off aggressive and that puts other people into a. Okay, let me back up, get in my defense mode and they're not listening to what you're saying.

Speaker 2:

Right, and on the internet people probably aren't going to do that anyway. So a lot of times, just going into it, you know, every once in a while a person comes through and you know like it's a person who's there to aggravate you and you blow some steam. That's okay. But for the most part people come in and they're asking you questions or they're doing things that typically you wouldn't want people to do in your chat. You just got to learn how to nip that in the bud in a respectful manner, because the community will reflect what you do, right. So sometimes you don't even got to come at a person when you see them say something in chat.

Speaker 2:

If you do it enough times and you're respectful about it, the people who, like you will will follow suit. They won't allow people to come in there and be disrespectful to you. They will kindly ask them to leave or they will come to your defense or they'll just answer the question just because they know and they've been around and they know that ultimately, if you didn't see it, it's not a thing that's like oh, she just ignored them or whatever the case may be, if you cultivate a positive environment, those people will look out for you and not to say that you're looking for that. But that's what community is and that's that's why it's important about to say that happens naturally.

Speaker 1:

All right words of advice. What is a piece of advice that you would give somebody? I'm not even going to put a stipulation on it. What type of advice do you want to give, and who do you want to give it to?

Speaker 2:

I guess this would apply To people who've been on the platform for a while and to people who want to start streaming. I think I have two. One I came from a pretty Crappy background as far as technologically. Yeah, streaming on ps4 is like, but just keep it. Keep it simple. Don't ever one thing that really messed me up was constantly being held up on my presentation. All right, I need this to be right, I need my this to be right, I need this to be right, and that, to this day, still kind of trips me up, which is why, like, trying to get this mic to work in this way and do this thing is not. It's just just keep it as simple as possible. Just don't worry about, or don't worry too much about, how things look and how things are presented, because it will stop you from producing the content that you want. That video that you thought looked like like doo-doo butter is going to be the video that gets 5k views in the first three days. Okay, so just just do it. Do it to the best of your ability and don't not produce it just because you feel like it isn't up to the quality that you want, because it is is good enough for somebody. I promise you that and that somebody could be that person that elevates you to the next level. And then also, as long as you're putting out the content and again, you're being respectful, you're being open to input, people are willing to help, and then eventually that issue that you had that'll get solved with time and experience. And I think that's one of the things we get caught up on oh, I don't want to go live because this isn't working. Okay, well, cool, just cut it off. Work on it at one year not streaming and then fix it later and then just make sure you put out the content, make the content always. Make the content always. Produce it and put it out.

Speaker 2:

I have so many youtube videos that I didn't put out that I feel like could have did well because I was too caught up on hey, the audio wasn't good for this, the video wasn't good for this or that. Like you know how many unboxing videos I just have sitting around that I was like this is not gonna work. I didn't produce it. No, put it, put it out because it'll make somebody's day like that collector's edition you unbox. Somebody was looking for that content and it could have been you. You know what I mean. So always don't get hung up on the small things. I think that's the number one thing don't get hung up on the small things. It's very easy in the content creation world to get hung up on that stuff and there's so many small things to get hung up on.

Speaker 1:

I think once you realize that, like you know what, this little thing doesn't matter yeah that's my number one thing Do the content, keep it simple.

Speaker 2:

Don't get hung up on the small things. You will learn. You will learn with experience, you will learn with time and you will get to a point where you are comfortable with almost everything you create. It's not going to be perfect, but you will regret not ever putting it out before you regret how it looked, because if you really regret how it looked, you know what you can take it down. There you go.

Speaker 1:

And you know what you won't. I have a video of this up right now, the last video I put out. I went to a CEO in Daytona for the Tekken tournament Well, it was a fighting game tournament but I to play tech in and as I was shooting it I was like, oh, this is gonna be dope. I got home, the audio is trash, the color is trash. I still cut that video, I still put it up. It's up. I did a little voiceover in some parts and it worked and I was like all right, it's done. But it got me thinking of how I want to do the next video, how I can fix the things that I messed up on this one Right right.

Speaker 1:

And so I'm excited to do the next video, so I don't know when it is.

Speaker 2:

You're nerds like us. Now you're looking at how, what kind of microphone can I do for this and what kind of? And now you're even more engaged and it got you excited on doing the very next thing.

Speaker 1:

And that wouldn't have happened if you did not produce it. I think to attach excitement and excitement to the mundane things we do is what makes those things more fun to do and more easier to do over time. So thank you for that words of advice. That is awesome. That is definitely getting posted everywhere. We have reached the end of our journey. Rima, this has been an awesome conversation, and I say this a lot and I'm going to say it again when you are talking things that have been in my head that I have no words for, like I just have this idea, I have this feeling, and you're just like, eloquently, without effort, just like oh, this is exactly what you're thinking. I love that. So I'm glad that you were able to do that. I appreciate you, thank you. So where can people find your content?

Speaker 2:

okay, so for right now, I mainly just stream on twitch and on tiktok. One because they both have completely different uh layouts and two because tiktok has better discoverability than twitch does, but both my handle on everything is ream of the beast. I'm very active on twitter. I'm on twitter all the time, even though I'm not better discoverability than Twitch does, but both my handle on everything is RemaTheBeast. I'm very active on Twitter. I'm on Twitter all the time, even though I'm not tweeting. I'm actively on Twitter all the time, so you can hit me up on Twitter, twitch, tiktok, instagram. I have YouTube. I don't upload to my YouTube like that, unfortunately, but if you're looking for my content specifically, definitely Twitch and TikTok is where I live stream the most.

Speaker 1:

Nice specifically, definitely twitch and tiktok is where I live stream the most nice. And are you heavy into magic, the gathering right now, or are you, uh, in and out between games?

Speaker 2:

so that's. That's why it's funny to me. I started the segue saying yeah, I used to stream call of duty and now the only stream? No, I stream pokemon, unite and magic the gathering arena. I'm a completely different content creator than when I started.

Speaker 1:

Oh that's awesome. Yeah, that's so different.

Speaker 2:

It's part of the journey. I still love Call of Duty. I'm still going to get the Black Ops that drops this year because it looks great. That's the beauty of being a variety caster. But if you ask me, right now I'm like Call of Duty. No, we're playing Pokemon.

Speaker 1:

Right, that's awesome, so check out remo's contact, tiktok, twitch and, of course, twitter. I refuse to call it x and if you haven't already, go ahead and subscribe to the podcast uploaded and unfiltered. This marks like 56 or 67 weeks in a row and again I don't see any signs of stopping. I like to thank my guest, rima. Because of guests like rima and everyone who's been on, I'm allowed to do this weekly. I don't think I could do this weekly on a solo effort. I don't want to, but again, I appreciate you being here. Thank you for sharing your journey with us, and I already know like the gems that you dropped are going to help change a lot of people's mindsets and the way that they look at their content. So I appreciate you and thank you.

Speaker 2:

Oh, thank you so much for having me. It was a great time and I thank you so much for believing in me and my content that I would have that wisdom to give to others. So thank you for that.

Speaker 1:

No problem at all, and with that we're going to end it like we always do Protect your mental, keep creating content, and I will talk to you on the next one, peace.