Lessons from Angela aka @Angeless on Streaming, the Work Ethic required for Online content, and Representation in Gaming
Today's podcast guest Angela aka @Angeless a streaming sensation where she presents a unique voice in the gaming world as a queer woman of color and is an especially unique creative to me personally as someone who has managed to build an incredible online presence and community all while working a full time job.
In this episode Angela gives me a streaming 101 lesson and you can see my lack of knowledge on this front very clearly, but we talk about the stigma people place around gaming and the tendency of the public to diminish the hard work that goes in to what Angela has created. Nevertheless, she recently reached over 100K subscribers on YouTube and is continuing to grow every day. You can find her on @Angeless on Twitter, YouTube, and Twitch, and @Angeless.IG on Instagram. Check her content out even as a non-gamer I find her presence on video to be so magnetic as you'll see in our episode today.
Full Interview Transcript:
Apologies, as always, for any typos / grammar errors in transcription - cons of a one man shop :)
Jack: Hello, creators and welcome back to another episode of the creation stories podcasts. I'm excited to be back with an episode where I learned a lot about creating in our digital world, especially because it's with one of my dear friends, Angela AKA @Angeless on Twitch where she presents a unique voice in the gaming streamer world as a queer woman of color.
This is an especially unique creative to me personally, as someone who has managed to build an incredible online presence and community all while working a full-time job. In this episode, Angela gives me a streaming one-on-one lesson, and you can see my lack of knowledge on the gaming front very clearly, but we talk about the stigma people place around gaming and the tendency of the public to diminish the hard work that goes into what Angela has created online.
Nevertheless, she has reached over a hundred thousand subscribers on YouTube. So congrats Angela, and is continuing to grow every day. You can find her on at @Angeless on Twitter, YouTube, and Twitch, and at Angeless.IG on Instagram. Check her content out, even as a non gamer. I find her presence on video to be so magnetic, as I think you'll see in our episodes.
As a reminder, if you like this show, please share with your friends and on Instagram
Jack: Alright. Let's begin. First, when did you start thinking that you were going to stream with gaming, but more specifically was it because you've always been interested in gaming or that you've always been interested in videos, YouTube, that sort of thing, or a bit of both.
Angela: This is going to be a horrible answer. I've always loved video games, but during depression quarantine I got really addicted to this game called Genshin Impact. So where I was like taking hours and hours into the night, playing it, with friends. By myself and. I was like, I am putting so much time and honestly money into this game I should make money off of it.
And so it was like, maybe I should start Twitch streaming and part of the reason for that was because I would play Fortnite with you and with Shane, like every night, over quarantine as well. And I am the most annoying person to play video games with because all I do is scream and quip and Shane, I think one day out of frustration and probably annoyance was like, have you ever thought about being a Twitch streamer? And then that's where it all started. It's true.
Jack: That's funny.
Angela: I'm annoying.
Jack: Yeah. Okay. But I think that big personality does help with. Streaming. Right. I feel people like that, that you are not as muted when they're listening.
Angela: Yeah. Yeah.
Jack: Did you watch other streamers before?
Angela: Oh, gosh. I watch my friends play video games. And like my streamer friends play. And I think before I wanted to start Twitch streaming, like I didn't really. I have a really short attention span because I have ADHD. So it's like that translates to me not being able to consume it any long form contents. I'm horrible when I watch movies, I will play games on my phone the entire time. Yeah, you've seen that. But before I started streaming, I did a lot of research and I did watch a lot of streamers some might call it market research and then I realized it was super interesting and.
I guess I picked up a lot of things along the way to be a better streamer.
Jack: So what do you do when you talk about that research? Do you look for people who are similar to you? Are they playing the same game? Or how do you think about whose ideas you can take?
Angela: I think it's all of the above, obviously there's a lot to learn from like big streamers because obviously they're successful and they make a lot of videos about like, honestly, YouTube is like your best friend for anything in life. It's like, big streamers will make videos. Like how to grow on Twitch, how to grow on YouTube, how to become, I don't know, big on the internet or something. But I think there's a lot of merit and this goes for any creative project and learning from people who are your peers and your colleagues, just because what works for someone who's really big, isn't going to work for you. And I think there's a lot of stages of growth along your creative journey, where you're gonna just have to adjust your output for that stage.
Jack: Yeah. Yeah that's a good quote.
Angela: Thank you. Thank you so much.
Jack: You're welcome. I like it, but okay. I want to take a step back also because I imagine that not everyone, like I don't watch streamers regularly. And some people who might listen to this or may have heard of it before. It's like, why do people watch this? So I'm curious what makes you think either about your audience or what draws people in to watch someone else's video games? Because I, the only time I can remember that is As a kid, I used to love doing that with my sister. I wouldn't care if she was playing,, I would just sit and watch.
Angela: Yeah, that's a good question. Well, I mean, it's like, why do we watch people play music? Why do we watch people play football?. Why do we watch fucking Jimmy Fallon? Who I don't give a shit about interview people. I think it ends up being it's very parasocial actually. And I think especially where we are right now post pandemic and the most wanted job of like this generation for better or for worse is to be a content creator. And there's so many articles about content creators, you form really pair of social relationships with them the same way you would do with musicians with sports teams, which that's something I don't get. Somebody talking to me about like, oh dude, I love Tom Brady is like meeting like, oh my God. I love Valkyrie. So I think that's a big part of it.
Jack: That makes sense and it's funny. Do you feel that a bit when you're talking about it, either with your friends or just with a stranger who's curious. But people who are less familiar. Do they write it off in that way or come across as. Like mm. I don't know if I would say disrespectful. I mean, there may be instances of that too , but just kind of underestimating the work that goes into it.
Angela: Oh my God. For sure. And I've even had friends do that.
Where, I mean Again, like just to put, the societal lens on it, because we live in a society like gaming is the new, like it is the. Mo, I think I take a very like scientific approach to a lot of this stuff.
But gaming I think it's the media and it is the forefront right now of media. I mean, you think about the metaverse and how right now, the way that gen Z is consuming media, gaming is like, It's no longer that random dude in his mom's basement who plays World of Warcraft, like. Friends will hop on discord because We're all very isolated from each other and it's just become like a very normal hobby. , And I think that, we're on the brink of gen Z and millennial where I think that a lot of people in life who are younger than me will probably be like, oh yeah, that's cool. But then there are people who don't understand, I guess, that value and yeah, I don't even remember what the question was.
Jack: No. It makes sense. I think your point around just validating it the way that our generation. That we're on the cusp of, is kind of dismissive of it, but I think it would be good to know more about your process. I'm jumping around a bit here, but because I know from working with you, being around you and seeing it it is a lot of work I know in editing the podcast, for example, it takes a ton of work.
Angela: Yeah.
Jack: And I think people don't always see that side of it. So could you talk me through Let's say you're streaming, but also not just on Twitch how do you convert that over to how you present that across other social media? How the editing process is.
Angela: Yeah, I think I have a lot of, I think I have a lot of thoughts on this? I think the way that media is right now you have to be half a content creator and half a marketer. You can't just create content for the void. Everything is over saturated there's not an original idea ever anymore. You have to learn how to not only make content.
But also make sure that you're propagating it across every single medium and you're actually finding an audience. I think like my answer to my last question, just to jump back is like, you really need to know your audience. Like I'm not streaming for, you know, the 26 year olds who live in New York city and work for banking institutions.
I'm assuming for kids who might really want to find, like, I don't know, just a queer person of color just screaming over pixels. You know, and like, Anyway, back to the original question, but like the process of that, like just really understanding your audience and really understanding your niche is something that I found really early on with my research of other streamers, I was like, okay, what are some people doing? What is their brand?
Everyone is being boxed. Like what is my box? What is my one sentence punchline and then how do I roll with that? That was my first thing.
Jack: What is your punchline?
Angela: Well, I mean, according to the Google searches, I'm a queer, I think I'm funny. I think people come for a laugh and I do feel like sometimes a little like a big sister for a lot of people who watch my stream like a gay big sister. Yeah.
Jack: But I also think that first part is interesting around defining your brand, but I think it takes a lot of courage also just to put yourself out there, even now, when you have more followers and like, yes, you have the validation. But I can imagine that's really challenging. Every time it's like hard to rewatch your videos when you're editing.
Yeah. Do you push yourself to just say, you know what, I'm just going put this out here either when you started or now.
Angela: Yeah. It's obviously really challenging, screaming into that void. I guess when I started I was really lucky. I'm not going to lie. I had a cursory understanding of like TIk Tok and what worked on there because I had like, started to Tik Tok before. I'm not going to talk about it right now because it's really lame.
But I guess in the beginning, it's just trial and error. I think in the beginning, actually, here's what it was there's less to lose. So you can, like now I'm more guarded and sensory about what I say and put online, but in the beginning, like your girl is just spewing shit onto the internet because no one was launching. Cause there's nothing to lose and all my friends knew about it. I was just saying things.
So I think that was sort of freeing for me. Like it's obviously de-motivating when no one is watching your stuff or no one is listening to you. But it's also just like nice at the end of the day outlet and something that you like doing.
Jack: Yeah. Okay. Okay, sorry. Now, taking us back to the process,
Angela: which I wanted to talk about too
Jack: So you talked about starting off, defining your brand. A lot of the point around throwing out anything and seeing what sticks cause no one's really watching and that has some freedom to it. But how did you get then to more formalizing it like making it what you do today, which I think is a pretty prescribed process from just watching your videos.
Angela: Yeah. I mean, obviously like I'm a full-time adult, shockingly, I play video games and I have a social life that is wow we're defying the stereotypes. I have a militant schedule, I think, in college if you ever saw my calendar app, it was terrifying, just because it was all blocked off all colors. I have taken that with me through my actual life where I stream three nights a week. That's three hours. I spend an hour before and after 30 minutes before, maybe 30 minutes after just figuring out, , preparing and then afterwards, thinking about, what clips that I created.
So that's three nights a week. My Sunday I don't do anything on Sundays or try not to because that's my editing day. I will edit I will sit in chair and edit for hours and hours and hours, because it takes a really long time. I learned how to use Adobe premier pro, for my videos. I had no idea how to edit before I started all of this.
And I think what that shows is You have to have, it's about drive it's about power, blah, but also you just need to be really, really intentional and Just very regimented in your schedule. And it's not just I'm going to create. Also on my Sundays I plan content, I think about ideas that I want to do when I stream. For me, having that schedule sticking to it being extremely deliberate, and also efficiency because I'm not going to create separate content on Twitch than I am on YouTube than I am on Tik TOK. That's exhausting. I do not want to push myself like that. It's like, how can I make the most out of.
One Twitch stream to create evergreen content for YouTube and then for Twitch. And I've kind of gotten it down to my science. Now it's going to change because it has changed as I've gotten along. But it's working for me right now. It's exhausting because I am a full-time adult, but it is working so.
Jack: How did you teach yourself these things so that YouTube videos.
Angela: YouTube videos.
Jack: And so when you aretalking about your schedule? So obviously you're setting aside time in the evenings and on, Sundays, and you mentioned obviously working full time. How do you balance out with also just taking care of having rest for yourself? Is that something that you've faced at times or you just feel a bit burnt out with it?
Angela: I am really, this is a personality thing for me. Sorry. My phone is buzzing. It's okay. Literally it's like a calendar application for like my social life. But I do, and this is a me problem. It's my Capricorn moon. I am really bad at resting and taking breaks. I'm constantly.
If I have a moment in my day where I'm not being productive , it feels very bad to me. This is not a good attitude. And this this goes back to like my nature of just constantly scheduling things. But like, there are nights where I'm like, I shouldn't do anything. Like I blocking off today, tonight I'm not going out. I'm not getting dinner. I'm not hanging out with people because I just need the rest. I'm bad at listening to my body, but I'm trying to be better about that. Also, I go to therapy every week.
Jack: Yeah, that's good. But you scheduled the rest time
Angela: I scheduled the rest time.
Jack: I think that's important too, because I'm very much the same way. Like I feel guilty. If I'm not productive, which is. I'm very capitalist approach of us.
Angela: Yeah, extremely. Really capitalist depression. I do live in a society.
Jack: But also it is I don't know, even if I think if I was doing a creative job, full-time I still would have to work like nine to five schedule. I don't know. I just go crazy. I think.
Angela: Same, , but the good thing about working for yourself. Like, I don't know how you feel about this, but when I'm editing my videos and stuff, I could go forever. , It's not like I'm clocking in and I'm clocking out. This is something that I'm always thinking about. And I'm like actually very scared that it has become 90% of my personality with my friends. So I try not to talk about it at a time. Unless it's like in the context of a friend's interviewing. But I think the difference between like this and a nine to five is I'd like the idea of working for myself. Not everybody wants to do that, but I find it very fulfilling and very energizing.
Jack: Yeah, I totally agree with you. I think for me though, it's interesting that you say you don't get tired of the editing part, because for me, I hate it.
Angela: Oh, I don't like editing.
Jack: Because that is such a drag. How do you push yourself in those moments where it's like, okay, this is a means to an end if I want to do the thing, part of it that I really like.
Angela: Well, I feel like you probably face this too. I don't like watching myself. We literally watched videos of myself earlier and I was like, turn it off, turn it off. That's my voice gross . After a while. I I just kind of became numb to see my face moving in front of me.
And it is like, I mean, I did write, we've bonded over that. To me , it does feel like a different version of storytelling which is really interesting to me. I honestly just had to like buck up and deal with it.
Honestly, maybe editing isn't super fun for me cause , I'm still working like this for my full time job. Maybe I'd like it more, but it's exhausting. Yeah. So tiring takes. Like hours and hours. But yeah, I guess my attitude is some people really like editing. I'm like, okay with it. Sometimes I like it. Some times I hate it, but it's just like, you just got to buck up and deal.
Jack: Yeah. Yeah. And I think having that Sunday aside to just be like, Yeah it's not going to be my favorite part of what I do for this, but it'll help me just be done with it and I can move along with it
Angela: exactly.
Jack: How do you, okay. Switching back again a little bit to a different part of the process, but how do you decide to make new content. And you talked about planning your content, how do you try and make itGenshindifferent obviously play different games, but I know you were primarily in Genshin Impact .
Angela: "Gentian"
Jack: How do you say it?
Angela: Genshin, but no, it's actually funny cause , there's a running joke. Cause it like won a game award and everyone was somebody that was a Genshin Impact . It was a very Adele Dazeem moment.
Jack: Okay. But what do you do to plan out content. If you're playing the same game, like how do you try and keep it fresh and interesting?
Angela: Nothing is original. . Someone is going to have an idea. You're going to take it and you're going to make it yours. That's the whole idea of Tik Tok. There's a trending sound. Somebody bless their heart starts it, but for every trending sound and every trend there are millions of people trying to make their own trends with their own sounds and miserably failing and getting zero views. What is working for other people? How can you make it yours? If there was one Challenge that was like, if I say something or do something I have to roll, which basically means like spending your money on the game in the very simplest terms. And I saw that and people were like, if I say this word, I have to do this. Or if I if I die in the game, I have to do this. And I was like, what do I do a lot that would be high stakes for me. And that is probably interesting for my audience and true to my brand. Unfortunately, I'm not family friendly and I curse a lot. So I was like, I'm going to say, if I swear, I curse and it ended up being like a really good video. Probably my best long form video or like approaching a 100K which I know isn't a ton for a lot of people, but I mean, Okay.
Thanks. I. I did just start like consistently posting two months ago. So it's crazy. I know it's wild.
Jack: But. So what did you have to do when you swore??
Angela: Oh, I literally shelled out my credit card and that was my adult money.
Jack: . Do you find that people like, obviously on Twitch, you can donate. Did people also donate more when they were seeing you spend more?
Angela: Yeah.
Jack: Interesting.
Angela: Yeah. I mean, it's also you can also play it. Like. A little marker or a little like ticker for donations. Like a lot of streamers will be like, oh, I'm trying to save up for, I don't know, an outfit or a vacation, or Coachella or something. And people will just donate, they'll see the ticker and they'll donate because they're supporting their favorite streamer.
Yeah, it's really interesting when you take out the middle man, and you're just like donating to a person.
Jack: Yeah. . Well, I think it is also interesting because that's something I found fascinating to me, it is about like how people less so with, with Twitch, which I can understand that like, Tik Tok people who would go viral and they put their Venmos and people send them thousands of dollars. I'm like, whoa, I just can't like, I've never seen that and been like, I should support their work, which is interesting because I do think it does take creative energy. How do you deal with that Monetization piece with trying to make it feel so authentic while also being like, Hey, if I want to do something like this, More full-time I have to monetize it if I want to actually even do it as a hobby, like it's really expensive. So I have to get some sort of earnings back.
Angela: Yeah. It's it's interesting. At first, when I like started it feels weird. I don't know why it feels weird to just like, have someone put money, like someone who is not a corporation, give me money. But I think it just feels for me, like, I don't see it in like a very malicious way or anything. Like, I don't feel very evil for when somebody like, you know, Venmos me a dollar or something like. To me,, it's really motivating because again, it's like screaming into the void. It's really hard to do this stuff for free and unfortunately, money is a way you can show your support. Another way people show their support is just chatting in the stream or commenting and stuff. And , that's all very tangible too, but money is another very tangible way of support.
Jack: Speaking of the commenting piece. What about the flip side? Which is like
Angela: haters?
Jack: Yeah. Because I think that would literally just shut me down. Like if I started to get. That kind of stuff coming in. How do you kind of weather. That. And do you remember when it started? Like if it started.
Angela: Yeah, when I first started dating Tik TOK stuff, I've had so many funny, hater stories. I think they're funny. Because if you don't deal with things with a sense of humor, it's just like, . I think you need to have to have a good sense of humor to deal with anything. But my first I have two really big incidents on my Tik Tok , at least where I got hate. The first one, I made a video where I was which of these fictional characters would be a Heather like the connor gray song. And some 10-year olds, dueted me or stitched me and was like you should die. . You need to jump off a cliff like this girl is heather, what are you talking about? And I was like, number one, where are your parents, why do you have a phone while you look like you recorded this from literally a Nokia number two, this is hate speech. You're getting reported. And the second time was I made a video, I was like I know why women like fictional men more than real men. It's because fictional men actually have character development. This neckberad, man he looked like Thor when he was like depressed.
Like duetted me I think he had crumbs in his beard and he was like, oh, I know why we like fictional women more than real women because fictional women won't cheat. And I'm like, oh, that was like the worst comeback because it just made no sense. I don't know what the logic but that one like went viral.
All of these men, all of these, can I say incel?? Yeah. Yeah. This is why I'm never getting sponsored. All these incels started attacking me and it was very jarring. I remember logging off of work, seeing the video and being like, oh my God, I am public enemy number one for these Redditors. Yeah.
But I mean, I still get small comments on my videos. I still get people saying you're cringe or I hate this. Like I never want to see your face again. I think, number one, , I just kind of feel sad for these people. Cause I'm like you had nothing better to do then comment and spend hours of your time fighting with a stranger on the internet under one of my videos. And number two I just think it's funny, unless I do something like actually horrible and offensive like, This is stupid. It's just understanding when things actually matter. And when you have fucked up or when it's just people you know, who hate me because I'm a woman or I'm queer, or I'm a woman of color. And then they just take offense to me. I don't care. I'm not for everyone.
Jack: Have you had anything ever truly make you uncomfortable or frightening, because I also find that obviously with a lot of people are getting doxxed or is that something you're afraid of? Or how have you thought about?
Angela: I'm terrified of it. I try not to give any personal information about myself on the internet. I have slipped up a few times because I'm to be a real person.
Jack: Right.
Angela: But there was something called swatting and it's when and this is something that happens to a lot of streamers where someone will call the police. On a streamer when they're live streaming. This happened to my friend. And the police will come and there's a SWAT team will come because it's like a bomb threat.
It's very common people have died because of this. That's wild. Yeah, I'm terrified of that. I've been hate rated, which is when somebody buys a bunch of bots and they spam your channel with hateful words , and it's really shitty. And usually those types of things I mean.
Swatting happens to like a lot of streamers, but I think because I am like, A queer woman of color on Twitch, which by the way, all of the top streamers are cis het straight white dudes. I probably have to deal with that more than other people. And it's something that I take very seriously as I'm growing and whatnot. And for me I just have to keep myself as safe as possible.
Jack: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Moving to hopefully a brighter topics. But when you think about growth obviously you mentioned you grew like a hundred thousand followers a month. Okay. 75,000.
Angela: We're going to get the a hundred thousand.
Jack: On YouTube, several thousand, 30,000.
Angela: 20,000 on Twitch. I have 200,000 on Tik Tok
Jack: yeah. It's crazy in two months.
Angela: Yeah. I mean, the Twitch thing was nine months. Instagram, I have 16,000 that's also like maybe half a year. But YouTube has been crazy. YouTube has been two months of consistent posting and like 75k
Jack: Do you remember when you started seeing, was it at like one point where it was like, Whoa, I'm exploding right now.
Angela: The thing about, I think, yes. So YouTube, I was kind of posting for the void for maybe a week or two. This is also just so I'm so lucky for this the algorithm decided to pick up and then it just kept going. Like it just is continuing. That's the scary thing it's like, especially with. The way that content works online these days is the algorithm will love you one day and then you'll plateau. And then you'll drop off because there's something else or something better. I'm just kind of riding this wave of momentum
Jack: Okay, but were you intentional about the algorithm to like make it, I don't know if there's a way you can kind of. Yeah, really get in there to, to boost it.
Angela: You can. Yes. I mean, obviously I studied like what was working for other people, what they were titling, the hashtags that I was doing , you can put all I mean it's going back to you have to be a content person. I have to be creating content but you also have to be like half a marketer. Yeah. Like if you're making amazing, amazing content there's no one to see it. If a tree falls in a forest and there's no one to hear it, like, does it even fucking matter? So yeah, I optimize it for SEO. Optimize it as much as possible for like clickability and virality. But that's one part of the puzzle.
Jack: And did you learn those things all through self research or is there an element of your professional life?
Angela: I don't talk about what I do. I always am like I work in music and then the running joke is I'm a K-pop star. I am the fifth member of black pink. But I think A lot of it has been YouTube. Like I think Even if you're, let's say a marketing major content and social media is a completely different game. I equate it to like, you know I feel like we learned a lot about a lot of things in theory, in college, right like taxes and stuff. And then you get to the real world and you're like, what is this?
Jack: Yeah. Yeah. Especially for digital. I find like, I'm sure we both have this where it's just like, professors are really good at teaching all the basics and fundamentals and even advance things or like concepts. But less are doing research or at least talking about the research around digital trends. Like SEO I did not know as a thing before starting my own thing.
Angela: Yeah. It's a lot of trial and error and there's no good crash course to it. Somebody should start in social media school. Business venture? No, but I think. It is a lot of learning on the spot. And I think honestly, retroactively, and this is such a small tactical piece, I've gone back and changed, the names, the taggingon a lot of my old videos and stuff, as I've learned more. And I know I'm going to learn more as I go along.
Jack: And I know you're grinding it out. Do you have any other thoughts about expanding this into other realms or making different types of content. I'm curious if you've given thought into that.
Angela: I have, I'm not going to be a pop star unfortunately, I think I'm a little too old for that. I mean with YouTube, especially, I think youTube and this is me being really scientific again, is a platform with a lot of longevity, YouTube's always going to be around. Where I'm trying not to niche myself into one game into one thing where I'm like, oh, I'm going to do vlogs . I'm going to do a Q and A 'cause like, yeah, you can sell the hell out of a game, but can you sell the hell out of yourself? Because that is where it matters. And that is where the longevity is going to be. So I'm really trying to see, how do we shift from being someone playing this one game to like being the person.
Jack: Yeah. I get what you're saying, but which in terms of platforms, which do you find are easiest for creators? Like is Twitch easier than YouTube? Is YouTube like creator friendly? I knowYouTube pay is The best in terms of versus Tik TOK.
Angela: I guess my take on this as they're all so different I think you have to really like sit down and understand what each platform is going to do for you. Tik Tok is the easiest to go viral on. You could post your first video and it could be a rat, eating pizza on the street of New York city with a trending sound and it'll get millions of views.
I think that one is, I think Tik TOK is something you can rig for vitality. But you're only 10 seconds on a person's screen on Tik TOK. People will forget about you. I think it's great for pushing awareness and I don't think Tik Tok even knows what it's doing right now in terms of like how that company is moving. But it's really hard to grow on Twitch. What I learned from a ton of YouTube videos about people being like you want, so you want to be a Twitch streamer was like, you're not going to grow organically on Twitch. You're not going to grow organically on literally any single platform. For the most part, you just have to Spread yourself out.
Because they're all kind of like connected in a way. , You post on Tik TOK to get more views to your YouTube, to get more like subscribers on your Twitch or followers on your Twitch. You've got to be doing it all. Yeah.
Jack: So, what advice would you have for me?
Okay. Let's say. Audio is a medium that translates well for podcasts you can do writing , but organically right now, it's going to be tough.
What would you say to someone like me who's like, actually it probably would benefit me from being on Tik TOK or recording these and trying out, like, just to test and see different awareness. But I have hesitancy around oh, that's more effort that will distract from the work piece or I'm not going to be good on most platforms because I just don't understand them in the same way.
Angela: I think like, one, I didn't understand YouTube at all. When I started and now I'm like, oh, I think I got it. I think I know what does, well, I think what hashtags I can use, and I know I'm going to keep learning. I would say for me, I optimize my content, so it's like, you're literally recording me right now like you could easily put a camera to it. Edit the video to match the audio clips cut off the audio clips create a YouTube video, create the podcast. Cut up what you already had for the YouTube video into smaller bite size clips for YouTube shorts, Instagram reels. Tik Tok . You don't know what's going to do well, but it's how do you just make the most out of the content you have? Because especially being full-time adults with full-time jobs and social lives OMG shocking. Yeah. To balance at all. It's really tense, really stressful and like tiring, but how do you optimize that so business and growth.
Jack: No, but it's true.
Angela: Oh my God.
It's also like just how you have to be.
Yeah, you have to be.
Jack: Yeah. Okay. I know we're almost out of time. So that was very helpful advice going back , you talked about setting your brand. You obviously set aside a lot of time and have been super intentional about how you give your time. How would you advise someone who's not doing that? Maybe starting a new project how you approach who you want to be and who you want to put out in the world. And B then how you go and build a structure to support going after that goal?
Angela: This is the most trite advice to start, just start it. And I think , you'll learn along the way, because when I started this, I had no schedule, I didn't even know I was supposed to be reusing my clips for YouTube and Tik Tok and stuff. These are all things I've learned along the way. And you will learn along the way if you're like serious about doing it.
Jack: I love it. And it is trite but I think it is good advice. And also if I do make any videos. Credit to you. So we'll see. I definitely think I feel more uncomfortable with it, but I think to your point, it's just like, getting out there trying it. It may flop, but nobody's watching so who cares.
Angela: Who cares? Nobody's watching.
Jack: All right. Well, thank you for joining. For our first in-person interview. I'm so thankful and I really liked a lot of your advice. It's interesting how translatable it is. Like I've obviously made it a lot about me , but even you, as you're going through, you're thinking about how this applies to other mediums, because the reality is all of us are in this digital world, whether you're an artist or a writer or DJ or whatever, it all circles back to the same principles right now, because of the way we have to monetize. And I think. It's so useful. So I really appreciate it because I will definitely use it.
Okay. I'm glad. I mean, also like I'm still new to this. I'm still so green and like, there's going to be so much more. I learn along the way. And I think, I hope that like, whoever is listening to this is
Angela: I don't know. I think like you've been interviewing a lot of super amazing, decorated people, but then there are, you know, the people who are like us who are just like, I want to do something creative on the side and it's like, don't let yourself stop you.
Jack: Yeah, I love that. And I really enjoyed that because it is. Easier to like, talk about the process. And we can also bring you back easilywhen we do learn more and hopefully we'll have more followers and listeners.
Angela: We will.
Jack: Thanks once again to Angela. And I hope if you're a creative in the digital space, you can learn a lot about making the most out of your content and valuable lessons on where and how to improve your craft from Angela's stories today. I'd love to hear your thoughts as always, so please feel free to drop them in our Instagram comments @CreationStoriesMedia.
Thanks again to coma media, whose music is licensed under creative comments for this podcast. Thanks and make today a day to make.
