Black Excellence in Gaming Presents: Drunkn_Buddha

“What’s on my mind right now is creating content that I that I want to make and finding people and creating a community that supports my decision to just make what I want to make and do what I want to do. And then we’ll go from there.”

Drunkn_Buddha

With Day 10 of our series finally here, we’re excited to announce the name of our feature subject for today’s piece. There are no limits when it comes to live streaming, with many interests and skills often overlapping to make for engaging and unique content. As both a cooking streamer and gamer, Drunkn_Buddha is no exception, his content having a little something for everyone.

He first became aware of live streaming during his university years after a friend told him about his own live streaming on Twitch. Not quite sure what the platform was all about, it wasn’t until he was playing Destiny one day that he became more curious about it. When one of his teammates began speaking, not towards their group but to someone else entirely, Buddha asked what they were doing and they responded by saying that they were live on Twitch and talking to their chat. The squadmate shared their channel link, and Buddha watched their stream and thought that it was interesting how one can interact with others while sharing their gameplay. It was shortly after that when he began his own live streaming journey in 2014. 

He unfortunately had to stop due to an increase in school workload but would still try to intermittently stream whenever he had some spare time. It was in 2018 that he made a full return to Twitch and began streaming a variety of games to his channel. Drunkn_Buddha used to consider himself an action adventure streamer, having enjoyed games like Spider Man: Miles Morales, both of The Last of Us games, and Bloodbourne in the past. Now, his primary focus has shifted to the Battle Royale Apex Legends. 

Making the transition from a wide array of games to the first person shooter was seamless, he recalled, citing that he has really enjoyed getting more into the game and challenging himself to try and pull off big plays similar to the pros. After slowly dipping his toes into Season 6 of the game, he gradually became more invested in Season 7 and tried out ranked play and improving his skills.

“I’m enjoying it. The transition has been seamless. The community has enjoyed it. My community has turned into a community of Apex. People who haven’t even or who weren’t really playing Apex all of a sudden is playing Apex and like my whole server is just like, ‘We’re running Apex matches today, just come hang out.’ And so, I love it.”  

Drunkn_Buddha

In addition to his Apex grinding, Drunkn_Buddha also does food and drink live streams once a week for his community, something he never anticipated doing. What was his first and supposed to be only cooking stream, was done to celebrate hitting Twitch Affiliate. After watching him make his signature cookies, his community began asking when the next food and drink stream would be and what he would be making. He decided to do one more after that, and then another after that one, and then eventually the cooking streams grew into a weekly occurrence. (If you are wondering how the conversation during our interview did not immediately derail into talking about chocolate chip cookies, please know that it did.)

While continuing to work on his Apex and personal recipes, Buddha hopes to continue to make meaningful connections with organizations throughout his streaming career. He has previously had the opportunity to work with Adult Swim and Rare Drop, and shared that he would love to collaborate with Food Network at some point in the future. Some personal goals that Drunkn_Buddha has for himself are to continue his efforts to learn and try more complex cooking techniques and even try to replicate foods from some video games that he enjoys, such as the Final Fantasy series. 

We asked Buddha to share with us some of their thoughts and experiences as a content creator when it comes to Black History Month. He said that while he doesn’t necessarily plan anything different when it comes to his content, he will take more precautionary measures for trolls. The main priority for many Black streamers during February when the trolls are at their worst is to protect themselves and their communities from harassment as best they can. 

This will be Drunkn_Buddha’s second year as a content creator during Black History Month. During his first year and subsequent Twitch Front Page feature, he was unsure of how to approach the event and what to make of this time of the year. Now, he puts emphasis on preparing for any trolls ahead of his streams, as well as doing his part to support the Black gaming community, be it through highlighting other content creators, playing with other streamers, or supporting their work.

Something that he especially appreciates this year on Twitch was the creation of the Black History Month 2021 stream team. It will be Twitch’s first time implementing something like this on their platform, and Buddha hopes that it will give many content creators the opportunity to be showcased. He shared that by checking out the stream team, he’s been able to discover and connect with even more Black content creators this month, and hopes to continue to do so throughout the year. 

“…I feel like the more people in the Black space that I can discover and be a part of and just get to know, the greater the Black Twitch community grows in and of itself. Because as content creators in the space, it’s really hard for us to be discovered even amongst ourselves, because the way the algorithm works, the way the time slots people stream. So it’s really hard for us to see everybody and to capture everything, right? And so, I like the stream team because it puts more people on the radar.”

Drunkn_Buddha

Some of his hopes going forward are that organizations will continue to support Black content creators year round, rather than from February 1st to February 28th alone. A sentiment that is shared amongst many Black creators, Drunkn_Buddha plans to steadily support his community and other streamers all year in addition to working to make his channel and content the way he wants it to be. We wish him all the best of luck on these endeavors, and look forward to seeing what 2021 has in store for him!

On behalf of the Off Colour team, we thank him for taking the time to chat with us and share more about his path as a creator!

You can be sure to support Drunkn_Buddha by visiting their Twitch channel and other socials as well. Be sure to check back soon for when we share our full interview on the Off Colour site!

Thank you so much for reading, and we hope you enjoy the rest of our series!

Lady Em

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