- Popular Australian streamer Whippy signs a lucrative contract with Twitch
- His path to get here was filled with many difficulties, trials, and tribulations
- He shares his early day struggles
Making it big on Twitch or any other streaming platform is difficult and Aussie streamer Whippy shares his difficulties.
Whippy Finally Makes It Big
Many streamers start with the bare basics but some manage to build a large following over time. The path to achieving internet fame is not easy, but not impossible, and Australian streamer Whippy recently shared his struggles trying to build an audience.
The now-Brisbane-based star recently sat down with Dot Esports to discuss his new, exclusive deal with Amazon’s titanic streaming platform, Twitch. This contract marks a huge moment in any streamer's career and a symbol that he has finally made something of his life. “I can’t believe it,” Whippy said. “And I am very, very thankful for it all.”
A Young Streamer’s Struggles
Whippy had always thought he might not achieve anything in his life. Back in school, he was regarded as the “dumb kid” and never had many opportunities to prove himself. He eventually decided that streaming is something he wanted to do, so he started his career in a wooden shed. The centerpiece was a wooden pole holding the whole structure together and the windows were taped over with garbage bags.
Another struggle for the young streamer was his very poor connection. Australian internet is notorious for being slow and expensive, so Whippy ended up having to pay 1 AUD a gigabyte to stream.
Whippy would often sleep during the day so he could stream at night, so he could hit primetime US viewing hours. Eventually, this messed up a lot with his sleeping schedule. “Sometimes I wouldn’t see the sun for days,” he admitted.
“That was my life for the first two years. Start at 10 (around 5AM on the US west coast) end at eight. It was, honestly, ruining my life,” Whippy explained. “I was in the wrong time zone, had the wrong internet. It was all wrong.”
Whippy’s Fortunes Turn Around
Whippy explained that the first two years were the hardest. He had already built an Australian audience and had some small US numbers, but the numbers were stagnating. Whippy had to do something.
This is when his GTA streams were timed perfectly. The young streamer started playing in the revamped No Pixel roleplaying server, a move which quickly put him on the trending page. Whippy had created a following around his two characters, drug-addicted gang leader Irwin Dundee and “the most petty cop” in the server, Crocodile Steve, both of them Aussies of course.
“I got very lucky, but it was the best thing I could have done,” he said, “Swapping (streaming times) was one of the biggest gambles I’ve ever made. It really was a gamble. Just a total risk. But I got lucky—the GTA community kept supporting me, and with the swap, I found that I could reach new fans too.”
Whippy’s switch in times and start in the No Pixel server soon paid off big time. The streamer was soon bringing in thousands of viewers, aided to no trivial degree by the fact that GTA's popularity had skyrocketed on Twitch at that time. Soon, Whippy was collaborating with popular names like xQc and Sykkuno.
“Look, I’ll say it, if you told me a few years ago that I was going to get this kind of viewership, this kind of community, I would have laughed at you. ‘Yeah right!’ I would have said,” Whippy explained.” But it makes me so happy that they’re there. It means so much to me. Even now I sometimes think it could all go away.”
Whippy said he would have not achieved this without the loyalty of his fan base. He notes that this loyalty is what made him stay on Twitch even though he had other options. “You can definitely still have success on other platforms, there’s no doubt in my mind about that, but my priority is my happiness,” Whippy explained. “I am most happy when I’m streaming on Twitch with my chat room. To me, my chat room is my best friend. It just feels like home. It would feel wrong to stream anywhere else.”
Now that the Australian streamer signed a lucrative deal with Twitch, he plans on diversifying his content a lot more. A racing car stream, cooking, and IRL adventures are all on the menu.
“Twitch is the most fun place to stream. I’m here to stay.”
