Here, you can listen to Host Alert Episode 1 – “Patience“. If you don’t have the time to listen, I will be keeping up with the podcast and publish brief summaries of each episode as they come out, highlighting the major topics and discussions. That being said, I recommend giving it a shot. The hosts have good chemistry together, are like-able and while it may seem rough around the edges right now from a production standpoint, I think this podcast will grow to be a fun and helpful resource for many newer streamers out there.

Episode 1 – “Patience”

Overview

Episode 1 of Host Alert talks about patience, and how it needs to be worked on as a streamer. Patience is one of the most important things when running a stream. The group talks about ways to exercise this ‘patience muscle’ and how to deal with things when your patience may run out.

Major Points

• Patience is like a muscle. It has to be worked on and you can develop patience over time.
• Using in-stream experiences is one of the best ways to learn patience (i.e. dealing with stream sniping). Experience it, then self-reflect for next time.
• Different levels of patience are needed for different demographics. Younger/less mature audiences will require more patience and finesse in dealing with them.
• Unruly viewers will require different methods of dealing with them such as:
  • Ignoring the trolls.
  • Putting a positive, light-hearted spin on their negativity.
• Streamers will need to identify quickly what will work against trolling.
• In addition to the streamer ignoring an unruly viewer, you should direct/condition chat to do the same. The more the unruly viewer gets a reaction/response, the longer it will go on.
• Make sure to be very clear with your mods on your rules and what line can be crossed to timing out or banning unruly viewers. Your mod’s patience is not going to be the same as yours.
  • Communicate beforehand on Discord or somewhere off-stream so everyone is on the same page.
• Streaming is a long-term hobby/career. Be prepared for the same questions over and over. You have to choose carefully on how you want to handle that.
• Your community is one of your strongest tools to help with patience. They can answer common questions for you, help reduce the negativity of trolls, etc.
• Regular viewers sometimes require patience as well. They may have things going on their life that cause them to become more negative in chat. Don’t be afraid to privately contact them to figure out what’s causing the negative behavior.
• Trolls aren’t always forever. Be patient with them and they may even become some of your most loyal viewers!
• The way you say things can be very powerful. Reacting negatively to a negative comment can lead to a fight rather than a positive reply possibly leading to a good discussion.
  • That being said, there are unmovable people in the world. Learn to recognize this sooner than later to avoid fights.
• Part of exercising patience is giving people the benefit of the doubt. Open discussions from negative comments. Rather than insta-banning people who say “this game sucks”, maybe ask them why they think that? At the end you may still end up banning them but at least you set yourself up as a streamer who’s willing to discuss and not be extremely harsh.
• A good patience exercise is to reflect on moments that upset you during the stream. Ask yourself why you got upset at X or Y?
• Learning to move forward is another important thing. It’s good to reflect on past streams but don’t dwell on them. The next stream is always a new one.
• Be patient with your growth as well. A good quality stream will consistently grow over time but viewers will still fluctuate at the lower levels. Just because you went from 10 viewers to 6 doesn’t mean those 4 people don’t like you or your stream. Twitch viewers are fickle people. They may just want to watch something else or life got in the way.
• Learn to condition yourself to not take things so personally, especially the numbers. You won’t be happy focusing on those negative things. Self-reflection is an important ability in developing patience.

Make sure to check out previous and future episodes of Host Alert here.