Hello there Gee. Thank you for joining us on ReVamp! How are you doing? 

Hello! I’m doing alright you know, it is what it is. I've had better weeks but I’m ok, how are you?

I would love to begin our conversation by asking what it really was that brought you closer to this world of entertainment, streaming and gaming. Was this something that you wanted to pursue professionally from a young age or did this decision come to be at a later stage of your life?

I never thought this could be a career because when I was younger or before I began to stream it, it wasn’t a career like it is today; you couldn’t make that much money from it. People would only stream and play video games for entertainment, which was like a hobby. I was really into games when I was younger, especially Habba Hotel, which I’ve spoken about before, but I played that every day. I used to be a DJ there and host events. I used to play it so much that Habba Hotel offered me moderator privileges, so I stopped bullying. If someone sent a report, I would go through it. I was only fourteen at the time and thought it was so cool, and I would always have online friends, especially from Habba Hotel, I used to play my Nintendo DS a lot, and that was kind of my introduction to gaming, but then it was always just a hobby or something I enjoy or played under the duvet after my Mum thought I gone to sleep kind of thing. 

The only time I realised it could be a career was when I met the Side Men Boys at a house party, and they were doing incredible stuff, especially back in 2016; they’ve just been at the top of their game, and I was a keen video editor, so I studied at college before I was going to go to University to study before I became a video editor for them. I just had a passion for video editing as I loved it and could do it all day, every day. When I met them, they were looking for an editor, so I used to edit their game plays and edit them down. So, that’s when I got into gaming because I would watch them play different games, especially storytelling games, and I would love it. It would be so fun to edit videos I would watch anyway. I would probably have watched them on YouTube because I liked watching many Let’s Plays like The Sims. When I was editing it, I was like, I wanted to play those games, so I invested in an Xbox, and that’s when I started playing games. I was really into Overwatch, and I would play it with Tahlia, a streamer who plays video games now as a career. 

The short answer is that I never thought I would have this as a career.

In the contemporary era, not a lot of streamers and public personalities open up their platforms to novel ways of garnering attention and money for sensitive yet significant causes like mental health. 

Yet you have raised over £50,000 in total pertaining to your streams for different humanitarian and philanthropic causes. 

I'm very curious to know what was it initially that lured you towards this particular route that you are currently on?

I think I've always been active with wanting to do better and to like to help others. I’ve had someone who has unfortunately had mental health in my life at a very young age, losing my dad to suicide and being diagnosed as psychotic, which was a misdiagnosis at the age of fifteen. I’m now diagnosed with PBD, and I’m now doing very well. I think I used to watch a YouTuber called Marie Sanchel, and unfortunately, she lost her battle with mental health last year, which breaks my heart. I want to do a huge fundraising event for her. I used to watch her on YouTube when I was suffering, and it made me feel like I was not alone. This one person I used to watch on YouTube helped me continue my journey, and it spoke volumes to me. When I started streaming and gaining a following, it made me want to help at least one person; I would have succeeded. That is the true meaning of success to me is to be able to help people get over the struggles I’ve struggled with and different things because the worst thing about mental health is feeling alone, which you never are. One of the first things that happened when I was unwell and wanted to do dangerous things was that I struggled to talk to people face-to-face or over the phone. I would struggle with being honest face to face, so if someone asked me how my mental health was, I would say I’m ok! I was working one night when I was searching for somewhere to text. I used a service called Shout, and it saved my life. I shared that on my Instagram stories because we lost someone in the Twitch community, and I thought I should share this just in case it helps someone. 

Shout reached out to me because they had hundreds of messages from people saying that they saw my story and it helped people. So I realised people were watching my story, and I helped them like Marie helped me, so that’s where it steamed from. With the charity stuff, I always wanted to do something different; I tried to get donations uniquely to stand out and for people to be reminded of it. So, when I did the Black Lives Matter charity stream, I thought of so many different ways to do it; I thought of how important it is for me to be silent because I am a white woman, and I don’t fully understand and never fully understand the struggles what black people go through. I’m very aware of that, so if I can research and read people's stories, then it has no depth. So, I wanted to use my platform for people who have struggled and have stories to use the platform, and that’s why I stayed silent. It did well, and I’m so thankful. I would love to do it again. I think it’s important that we should let the people who struggle speak and let them share their stories. It shouldn’t be told through us like we can educate people, but we should listen to struggling people.

Are you happy with the reception that you have been garnering on your streams and online initiatives so far?  

I have built a wonderful community that has been supporting, understanding and uplifting. Unfortunately, we have people on this platform who don’t like this with their communities. There is still a lot of hate online; people are behind screens, and as I have a massive male following, I have got a lot of unwanted attention; people would follow me for different reasons why I have put myself on other platforms, and they would click things or take things that I post for attention. It is something every female creator has experienced online, and I think it is overlooked a lot; we are very sexualised, and although there are creators who are happy with that, I am going to see people who will have that with me and also take it too far and do things that we entirely not consent to something that is an extreme issue right now which is deep fakes. Unfortunately, I have come across deep fakes of me, my friends, and us together, which is unsettling and scary because I’m a twenty-nine-year-old woman. It’s frightening to think who else they could be doing this to, especially to young girls, to girls that arent even online or even to girls that don’t even put themselves online and a lot of the time, people say you’ve set yourself online, you should expect to get this attention and yes, this is what happens when you get a following. There are people out there who don’t want that attention! This is something that I’m passionate about and want to speak more about because I don’t think people understand the extent of how disgusting it is or scary it is. 

I am incredibly thankful for the community I gave around me and my friends because we have incredibly supportive people. 

Growing up, I hardly witnessed any women being involved in the active gaming industry yet in our present time, the field has evolved into something so much more beautiful as we get to see such a diverse kind of audience participating and partaking in the field of gaming. 

Being someone who has left such an impactful mark in this industry, talk to me more about what the significance of having women within the landscape of gaming personally means to you? 

It’s so true! Even when I was a video editor, I went to Ireland for a company, and I was the only female video editor there. Many industries are very heavily male-dominated, and seeing more women be even on top of these industries is incredible. Again, when I started in 2016, there weren't many women that did this. I looked up to Pokeymean because she was a female streamer who always did what she wanted. I completely admired her, and I admire her to this day. I don’t know if you saw her go viral because men hated her doing make-up on stream and how she looked before and after makeup, which was just crazy, and that was the thing that people wanted to comment on. It makes me so scared for the future of women and children. It’s been incredible! I felt supported and blessed in how I knew the SideMen from 2016. They have always been on top of the game and supported me and other women in this industry because they see no difference, and there is no difference. Although there is, again, evidence that comes with a lot of younger always have something to say; recently, I was in the Sidemen hide and seek challenge, and it was nice to see 50/50 women and men, and then in the final, it was just five girls left which was so nice to see because they have such a male audience it was nice to see some female representation. Even now, we have make-up brands that want to collaborate with gamers like Charlotte Tilbury because they have a whole gaming podcast, which is insane! You never thought gaming and make-up would ever be a combination! NYX has collaborated with Fortnite, and that is nice to see!

You have also been at the forefront of several discussions in terms of your iconic 'Black Lives Matter' stream where you sat through 18 hours of constant streaming without uttering a single word as a tribute to the voiceless souls and instead played the voices of those individuals who deserve to be heard and did not have an audience.

How was your experience like raising money for such a prominent cause in that manner? Did you face any kind of challenges? 

Doing anything online comes with its challenges, and unfortunately, it’s a tricky line with what online personalities should be doing for causes or what they should be up for. So this has come with a lot of why am I speaking on this course if I have nothing to do with it or a lot of racist people would say what they want. In the comments, we did have a lot of negativity, but we did like that; they are coming over and watching it still, which means they see thousands of people supporting this matter that I’m speaking on. Even though they are trying to get a reaction, they can still will have a different view on it.

Besides these significant streams, you are also quite a prominent public figure having quite an established platform on YouTube showcasing such distinct yet extremely entertaining content. Are there any other concepts or styles of videos that you would absolutely love to explore in the future? 

-And can your fans expect any more videos on your channel in the coming months? 

So, I have taken a massive break from being online, so during lockdown, the industry completely blew up, and I put my whole heart and soul into my platform. I was streaming about 8 hours a day and making content on every single platform where I did burn up, and I lost my enjoyment for gaming, and I haven’t gained it back, so I took a step back. Now, I miss talking to my chat, and I think it’s so underrated to be a streamer that I can sit in my bedroom or my office and still have all these people chat with me, which I’ve missed the most. I want to go out and do more interviews and work with companies, so that’s the next step. Hopefully, I will fall in love with gaming again if it happens.

You can not compare YouTube and streaming because they are so different. Streaming, I can ultimately be myself, but when I start filming myself, I go robotic and not organic. I had so many YouTube ideas where I wanted to do a dyslexia spelling bee because my best friend Tahlia and I are dyslexic. and wanted to do an Ettia class of me and my friend Tahlia I have so many ideas that I’m not good at execution, and I used to organise videos and plan videos, but when it comes to myself I just can’t do it. I will slap myself on the wrist, so hopefully, I will get a yes!

What's next for you, Gee? Are any upcoming projects in the pipeline for this year? 

I want to express myself and do something different. Hopefully, you’ll see me again on a streaming service! Thank you so much for having me!