ABSTRACT
This essay focuses on the journey I am on as a content creator with a small channel and the sympathetic shift it inspired in my personal life. The beginning stages were choked with assumptions of my reception and trepidation of being seen as a target, punctuated with moments of battling self-sabotage and attempts to make myself as inoffensive as possible both new viewers and personal associates. Observation of a culture I had been steeped in gave way to introspection and a momentary flash of spiteful bravery and when I landed, I found somewhere I could be, comfortably. Where I had once found my marginalizations pitted against each other, accepting that I was experiencing each simultaneously gave me a rare and often silenced perspective that colored my perceptions - whether or not I spoke directly of it on camera. In evaluating my relationship and feelings on my Blackness, my mental illness and what being Queer means to me, my voice coalesced and my focus became clear. perspectives that help keep players immersed in the experience of the game instead of the “politics” of the real-world.
