Greetings, fellow streamers, soon-to-be streamers, twitch viewers, and the random grandmother that clicked on a link and somehow found her way here.  Nice to meet you.  Come on in and put your feet up.  I want you to know that no matter which category you find yourself in the above, I understand, because I’ve been each one (except for maybe the lost grandmother).  I started as a Twitch viewer, graduated to the I-think-I-want-to-try-that viewer, moved on to the holy-moly-there’s-a-ton-of-crap-I-have-to-learn reluctant viewer, to finally…screw-it-let’s-give-it-a-try streamer.  And each of those phases was difficult to move through and every time something didn’t work or seemed too hard to figure out, I doubted myself and my abilities.  But I’m here to tell you that no matter how many mistakes or how much aggravation I went through, each time I fired up a stream and saw people already in the chat waiting for me (an imbecile with a controller) all the problems and stress of learning something new faded away.  So take this as an introduction of sorts.  You’ll be seeing my name here more often sharing my experiences, difficulties, and excitement from streaming.

Now most of you are probably thinking, “Who the hell is this Hank Bananas?  And why should I be listening to him?”  While the rest are thinking, “That’s the stupidest name I’ve ever heard.”  And I’m happy to say that every one of you is right.  My name is ridiculous and I’m absolutely insignificant in the humongous streaming world.  I don’t have thousands of people in my chat and I certainly don’t have hundreds of developers throwing free games at me.  But before you wander off into the Internet void to watch your favorite kitty play piano on YouTube, I’m here to tell you that viewer size doesn’t matter.  Why?  Because despite popular belief and the top streamers making it look easy, there’s a ton of crap actually going on behind the scenes while streaming that you’re not aware of…or maybe you are, and you’re nodding your head in agreement right now.  Either way, that’s where I come in.  See Lowco and company are mostly PC streamers and I’m exclusively a console streamer.  So I have already struggled with audio delays and the special cables needed for the tricky PS3.  But I’ve also battled with USB microphones, noise reductions, vibration problems, webcams, green/blue screens, IRC clients, stream tip applications, and on and on and on.

Streamers reading the above will understand, but soon-to-be-streamers are probably scratching their head and starting to feel a bit overwhelmed.  If you fall in the latter, I’m here to say, “relax…we’ll get through it together.”  I’m going to share as much as I possibly can, that way you’ll learn from my mistakes and hopefully never have to run into the same problems that I did.  My first real article here on StreamerSquare will be comparing PC streaming with console streaming, and which option might be right for you.

If you’re still wondering who I am, feel free to stop by my streams.  I’m a weekend warrior, currently streaming just on Saturdays and Sundays, because I’m a full-time engineer during the week.  But I’m also an artist, writer, avid reader, movie lover, food enthusiast, and of course…a gamer.

So I just wanted to quickly express my thanks to Lowco for the opportunity to share my experiences and also say thanks to the reader for sticking with me through all these words.  Hopefully we’ll talk and learn from each other.  If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment here or contact me through Twitch.  If you’re inclined to talk even more…you could always stop by my streams and we can chat and laugh while gaming.  And what’s better than that?

Nice to meet everyone,

Hank Bananas

twitch.tv/hankbananas  Gaming with a hint of sarcasm.