ORGANISING MC CHAMPIONSHIP & BEING A MINECRAFT CONTENT CREATOR | Ep.16 dangthatsalongname aka Smajor

Welcome to beyond the game my name is Greg and today I’m going to be chatting with Scots major also known as major or dang that’s a long name my whole thing is like I’m a branding Nightmare and I suddenly went from getting so much praise over the last year in a bit and

Then suddenly that just flexed on its head and I became Twitter’s most hated man of the month you hit a million at the end of 2020 right yeah I could have it just started with like another kick for the box and it was just like okay

What else is life going to bring we’ll see what happens what would you say the single greatest thing to happen off the back of uh being a big content creator is you mentioned a few things there like the modeling hosting a big show I don’t I think I’m unattractive but I’m not

Like what you imagine for a model so when I got the emails like hey do you want to come to this I was like huh you’re gonna give one piece of advice or many pieces of advice to the new Minecraft generation of creators what would you say to them going into it with

The want and desire to be famous and to make the money is such a hard mindset because it’s such a different thing to achieve and it will only lead to you being upset and disappointed in yourself when a lot of it is out of your control make sure to follow for future episodes

And let us know who you want to hear from next I don’t know if you noticed but we’ve upgraded all the text slowly throughout the episode so far and I think we’re at a sweet spot now where the audio is the best we can make it so

Let us know what you want to see improved in terms of the background the cameras whatever it is we’re always trying to improve this podcast to be the best one in gaming without further Ado let’s get to know Scott beyond the game Welcome Scott hello it’s good to have you here I am excited to talk about all sorts of different things because it’s not just going to be the typical I met you through among us through it’s not gonna be that typical let’s find out about you with content creation but we

Have the whole Minecraft world to talk about which I think this is the first time I’m going to be deep diving into the Minecraft world on this podcast it’s going to be a journey I’m not sure you’re ready for her but we’ll take it for the next hour and a half let’s talk

About let’s talk about Minecraft and everything about it but you are a content creator now over a million subscribers you also stream on Twitch you got um many different avenues that you do outside of your content creation projects like the MCC and Minecraft Championship um but let’s let’s sort of get you to

Define what would you say your first thing is if someone say oh what do you do what would be the first thing that comes to your mind I normally see content creation but like I’m a YouTuber first it’s always been the thing so like I have a lot of friends who Twitches

Their main thing and they wouldn’t consider itself content currency consider themselves streamers whereas I’m like no YouTubers like my main thing so it would be content creator or slash YouTuber and you do um or organized the MC Championship that’s probably what the most people will have known you for yeah or seen the

Impact of I guess because MC Championship one of the biggest events in gaming uh being the the massive Minecraft event every month yeah how did that start um so it was a weird story where I was it was Gin of 2019. and I was doing like Twitches like front page pride

Month things like I had like inflated views because it was on front page and then keemstar of all people not a great person but came into my chat and was like if you do you want to play my Minecraft tournament and I was like huh

I was like sure he’s like okay if you kill five creepers in 10 minutes I don’t know if this was going to be a hard challenge it’s like you can be at it and I was like okay and then he just left and then came back like 10 minutes

I was like did you do it and we were like yes and he’s like okay you’re in I was like cool so that was how I got into Minecraft Mondays um which was an awful event um I remember we used to at the end of every event he made us Post our stats

From the stream into the Discord or into the twitch DM or Twitter DM so that every like if you didn’t hit the minimum views to count you kicked you out um so everyone it was also just like picking reviews that’s ending everyone else was really weird

Um but that was how that happened and basically dead MCE Mondays for a while and was like he’s not a nice person and these events are kind of rubbish but me and my friend keff who was also networking a talking we were like I like the whole like bring 40 people together

And like playing an event together in the same night like but just not with him and so we were like maybe we could try and figure out how to do it ourselves like we have the connection so guy then sort of was like okay I’ll ask

About I know this person knocks out who runs nox crew that I’d met earlier that summer I was like I’ll ask him if he knows anyone um because I knew they did Bedrock maps at the time but they didn’t do they weren’t doing like game show or anything

At this point so I was like hey do you know anyone we’re wanting to like do this event kind of thing and Stefan was instantly just like us we’re doing it you’re not allowed to go anywhere else no it’s Curry going to do this thing and

I was like okay and then that was probably about August September and then in November we ran the first MCC so my job is to make sure people show up and his job was to make sure the games exist well the the games that they play obviously you said about the game show

Or just repurposed yeah and so I was with the Knox crew and this was one of the first things we spoke about when we first met we were playing Among Us and when we were both dead I was like hey Scott I don’t know if you know this but

I used to be a builder in the Knox crew my job was to make the maps as functionally fun as possible in the game show I wasn’t that artistic with my design but I was very good with with the feel and how it played out and

Everything and so I used to be involved in I think it was around the sixth game show I think it was the one where we had Captain Sparkles yeah that was around the time where I was that was my first one and then after that we did the whole

Like game show for the for the community and everything like that so we had an inbuilt MCC ready to go yeah so when you went to knoxite did you think that he was going to repurpose the game show at the time honestly like it’s funny because game not three game show was a

Little bit before my time so I didn’t remember that the noise crew game show existed um before I went to Stefan the reason I even went safe was I’d met him that summer at E3 with my friend Shelby who ended up all three of us going to lunch

And we got on very well and I was like you do Minecraft stuff like maybe you knew a team that do events like that was kind of my reasoning for going to Stephanie I’d forgot that they did the North Street game show completely um and obviously it then just worked out

I think they’d been Aussie not scream shows what they used to do and then they’ve been doing Bedrock for so long and I think they were kind of missing that passion project so when MCC came out was like wait a minute this is going back to Ritz

Let’s do it yeah um the the thing about it as well is after game show we tried repurposing it in so many different ways I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about this because at the time we weren’t even a business you know we were doing it as a passion project we’re

Doing for fun now they’re a business where they’ve got ndas and stuff but we we had ideas like doing a Takeshi’s Castle style thing yeah we would get 100 members of the community to all enter and then see if they could beat the the Knox crew game show kind of yeah and and

Like repurposing maps in that um and then you know the the game show maps that have now been repurposed into MCC some of those were um changed quite a bit some of them barely changed at all I mean the decision Dome yep that’s been part of the Knoxville game show since the

Beginning of it’s like a lot of hole in the wall always basically just take it’s a lot of it was taken the old games and then updated for a what you can do with Minecraft now but also then just to fit a 40 player like stream environment kind

Of thing it was always a fun our learning process photos when we first started where the team would come up with like these really cool game design ideas and they’d be really happy with it and I’d have to come in and be like that’s really cool doesn’t work

When you’re live though like the thing is caught like example used to be signs of time which I know was a repurposed old game where you like stopped a nuclear reactor going off or something that was the original sand of time was similar to the current one but it wasn’t

Randomly generated and then they did uh a sequel to it which was meltdown yes which was the generator one I remember the Meltdown was sort of what they were drawings before when we were doing the sound same for MCC because I remember watching the trailers and that in the

Meetings but I remember at the time like Isaac the game like design lead was then like people don’t need to stand in the middle room for like the sand time like it’s not the most efficient way to do it and I had to be like it might not be but

Streamers are not going to risk being locked in a dungeon for 10 minutes while they’re alive so they’re all was going to leave someone in the room so we need to think of things for people to do in the room like that was sort of the

Learning curve I think we’ve had a good spot now where like my involvement sort of take a back step after like MCC 14 because people got annoyed or felt it was unfair with how much like knowledge I had um so my involvement of understanding the game is sort of like I give the

Feedback or the idea of how it’s going to go or I’m like this is how it should work or this is an idea that I had and then I don’t know anything about it until I get the update video script like two days before we post it and I’m like

Okay so this is what we’ve actually done like it’s very pulled back from that but it was I think we got to a good spot where the team started to understand like we can now can have more fun with MCC Island like the public server of like okay island is

Where we can have more RNG and fun stuff because it’s not a tournament and then for the stream event it kind of has to be a bit more like streamlined in certain places for streaming so yeah it’s crazy when you look back at like the Knox crew as a whole and what they

Had there ready to go and then how you guys were able to come in at the right time and be like this is what we want to do yeah create a centerpiece for all of these content creators to work together and it almost has a similar effect of

What Among Us had of that cross-pollination of communities where you’re getting people who’ve never interacted with each other before who are getting a chance to do that through the different teams what’s what’s it like for you finding because you you put the teams together yeah you have to talk

With YouTubers which is is not the easiest uh thing to do in the world they’re quite hard to get a hold of sometimes yeah and you have to build these teams out and then also announce it to the public and deal with the Public’s view on these things what’s

That whole experience like and it’s changed a lot over time I remember the first few MCCS back in the day like trying to get 40 people to shop for another Minecraft tournament like back into 2019 there was Minecraft tournaments otherwise like there was all over the place there was Minecraft

Bundies then to compete with them Minecraft Saturday started because the very first MCC was actually on a Sunday because we didn’t want to fight AMC Saturdays for like their players were like we’ll just do the Sunday and then Minecraft already ended so when it came

To the next year we were like okay we take the Saturdays back um but it used to be me like struggling to get people to show up I had to end up reaching out to my twitch manager I remember right to start being like I need help cont like do you have anyone

So then they went and got a bunch of people um and then I would always have like without a doubt there’d be like two to four people would drop out like the day of the event so I was like I needed 40 people and then I needed backups and it’s funny because

There’s a lot of people who are now like MCC regulars like Sylvie who only was at MCC because someone dropped out on the day of the event and I needed two spots and I invited cranios who was one of her backups and then asked if he had a

Friend and he was like oh I can bring my friend selfie it’s like great bring them in we’re going like and that was how like a couple people got into the event was back then I needed it whereas now I have people who are be on the wait

List for like a year a year and a half because I just don’t have the space to let them in um because it’s just got more popular and people aren’t really dropping out so I usually my setup form maybe had like 40 people 44 now it’s like 80 people

Sign up and I’m like oh no I need to bench half of you God oh this will be fun um I think as it’s also got more popular it’s more sought after it’s been people are more responsive to me I know YouTubers are normally notoriously bad at responding to things but I think

With the way MCC is and how passionate people are and how much they want to play when they see a DM from me pop up they tend to be pretty quite cotton responses which is nice now I think people have like found a nice level of respect which I

Appreciate because they appreciate the time I put into it um but yeah making the teams has only gotten weirder I used to like the whole point of MCC was to I always like to imagine like the Smash Bros of Minecraft where you bring in like some hermitcraft

People and some Empires and some dream SMP and you sort of bring them and mesh them into a team that the audience are like I never would have seen green with well worth it like what this is a weird combo and I enjoyed that because it was

Like bringing in these people who didn’t normally interact together but obviously that then over time you get some creators who don’t want to expand outside their circles so then when they sign up like I’ll only play with people I know and then you have audiences who maybe love one Creator but hate another

One but then if they end up putting together it causes like fights between fandoms of like why is this person here so it’s also for a while the people that would be mad at stuff like that thought I just did everything like I think they

Thought I ran the show myself which so I just get blamed for game decisions or like I was like I pick who plays that’s where I check out like I have to make sure people show up and I have to deal with they’re like talking to the

Creators and reaching out but I would say to that that’s my jurisdiction like blame nox I go for one of them um but yeah it’s been like I think we’ve gotten to a lot better place where I also don’t care anymore about like internet opinions I’ve kind of I get like I posted

The teams into the Discord for the new MCC that’s coming up and I had like five different people like text or message me like teams are really good like this I’m so excited and I was like that’s all I need as long as the players are happy

That’s fine like I want my players to be happy so they will make entertaining content and that’s the most important part for MCC so yeah we’ll get on to the opinions of the internet but later on but I want to rewind and go back to early Scott and how Okay uh young Scott

Living in Scotland managed to get to the current major dang that’s a long name who’s making Minecraft content who’s doing the MCC stuff um where did it all begin um for me it started way back when I was in like high school and I remember to me

YouTube at the time was like cat videos and music videos like that was it and I remember my sister coming in and being like Oh I found these like vloggers which is really funny because there’s two people who have no like best friends with like Joey Graceffa and Strawberry

17 and she came in and was like oh there’s these people like they do like Vlog things of their life and I was like that’s weird I was like why would you do that like YouTube is for cat videos and music stuff like why are people doing that

Um and I was like okay and then I like looked more and I found people that did gaming and I ended up finding my friend Lizzie at the time who was doing Minecraft stuff and I was like this is cool like I’m into this and at the time

I was like I talk a lot anyway that was going up through school that was always the parent evening comment of like Scott’s lovely Sarah polite worked hard he does talk quite a lot and distracts people um so I was like I already do that like

Figured out how to download like OBS and I had a computer anyway and sort of like started making a couple Minecraft videos and then what would end up happening was like I would start YouTube do it for a month or two wouldn’t get anywhere because also growing a channel out of nowhere

Especially back then and also when you have really bad setup not great um and then I’d give up for about six months and then the bug to make videos again or to try again would kick in but I would forget the password and email for the account so then I’d just make a

New one and start again and I did that like three times before my current one so there’s like three channels of mine that are really old that exist on the internet that I can’t delete but I just don’t ever tell anyone the names for because I’m like no one needs to find that

Um but then obviously it was the dinosaur name one was one that’s stuck and I remember I was like Lizzy at the time had said like she’d done like a video or something someone’s like how do you cut the channel name and her thing was like

You want to make sure that it is easy to remember doesn’t have any like complex like numbers or underscores or X’s like that sort of thing because they’re hard to sort of remember it needs to be like easy enough to spell so I remember going through being like okay well I’ve used

All my usual ones like I can’t do s major and all that sort of stuff so it’s like what do I do um and I originally it was going to be damn that’s a long name and then my brain was like some people think Dan’s a

Sweater so it’s like dang that’s a long name I was like that’s funny I like that um turns out it’s a hit with parents anytime a parent finds out that’s the name they laugh about it or whenever I need to give my email for like adult things like insurance or buying a sofa

Whatever like what’s your email and I have to spell it out they like chuckle to themselves like the Boomers love it it’s great um but that was kind of where that started and the channel kind of began as like not Vlogs but like more camera me samades doing like a sketch or talking

About something and then pivoted back into Minecraft and then doing like back then it was like Gary’s mod with my friends Lizzy and that and in Sims and over time at one point I did capture videos was one of the reaction to sort of sort of stuff and then Minecraft and

Then Among Us which is then where I met you um and then back to Minecraft but Minecraft’s kind of been the staple one I’ve always kind of stuck to her had on in the background with other stuff so so I guess dang that’s a long name was the

The first big content explosion for you and then you streaming as major and like when we we met in among us he was Major there I found it hard the other way around to find your YouTube channel because I was like oh so it searched

Major and then it didn’t come off I was like what’s going on here so what I want to know is there a difference Beyond just the name between major dang that’s a long name and Eva even use Scott outside of content um it’s funny because like so the whole

Reason I have all of that is like at the time I had Ace major in 1985 on like Twitter and Instagram and twitch but I’d already used that on YouTube as one of the old channels so I couldn’t have it when I made the dance line channel so I

Did that but then Twitter and twitch all that there was like a character limit and doing that song name didn’t fit YouTube was the only one that let me have it so yeah so I used to then like my whole thing is like I’m a branding

Nightmare is the whole like joke kind of thing um and for ages I was basically just Diana’s long name or Scott and then twitch when it started doing well and it then became s major at Earth’s major and then my friend tubble called me Scots major at one point and that then just

Stuck so I just became Scots major was how most people know me now um and that kind of like I’d say the different I at the time it was like I’m a branding nightmare this makes it difficult for like business cards because it’s like YouTube is this

One twitch is this one and then Instagram and Twitter this one because they’re all different but it’s actually worked out quite well in that I often have people be like I didn’t realize he had a Twitch account like I watched your YouTube videos for years or I didn’t realize you did YouTube because

I only knows major but there’s been a couple times over the last like year or two where I’ve become like Twitter’s hated man of the month um which almost contains itself within like Twitter and twitch it never made it over to YouTube because the people who

Hate hated me or didn’t like me didn’t know that I was dying that song name because I don’t really do face cam on their match um so then that kind of just left unscathed and I was like actually enjoy this it’s great I can kind of have that separation and I would say

YouTube is the most PG version of me and then Twitches I’d say YouTube’s like PG-13 Twitches like PG 1513 and then like real life I can just be unfiltered and say what I want kind of thing um so I’d say that’s like the YouTube is the most refined version of

Me or edited twitch is a bit more casual and people get to know me a bit better and then obviously outside of content I’m even more chill like there’s more relaxed kind of version so it’s like the different tiers which are actually in hindsight enjoy having

Um being able to kind of separate it that way yeah it’s interesting is there any difference in personality you mentioned about the uh the P genus but do you notice your you act differently in each of them I would say YouTube I like when my brain’s on YouTube mode I

Tend to not swear at all there’s occasional slip-ups or whatever but like that’s just I don’t tend to swear a lot anyway um and then twitch I’m like I’m a bit more free with I don’t have to think or curate myself as much and I also make a

Lot more like innuendos and adults yeah like a little bit more tongue-in-cheek kind of flirty like that sort of thing to um wind up my friends and do all that sort of stuff and then I’ll say in person you don’t you just be yourself you don’t need to worry about it it’s

Kind of like how you have the person you are when you’re in friends versus the person you’re around your parents like it’s that kind of separation of like YouTube is my parents one and then Twitches my friends like yeah it’s interesting because I always find that that the more

Time goes on the more I recognize the difference between Mike and Greg and yep and I’m interested to know how many other people have that and your your case being when we’ve got almost two online personalities and the real life personality I was wondering if there was

Any differences there I’d say I said over time I’ve maybe blurred the lines a bit more because I’ve started it almost worked out quite well whereas when YouTube I remember a couple years ago had this thing where it was like kids content is no longer monetized and

Honestly most of the people I was friends with were making like Minecraft content which everyone was freaking out like oh God is YouTube going to consider my content for kids I remember having a call with my manager and he was like you’re fine he’s like we have you mark

Down it’s basically like PG-13 he’s like with the Enya indoors you make and the occasional jokes he’s like you don’t enjoyed it I was like yeah kill I got a bit confused by that for the when I first got back into YouTube because I don’t swear at all my content is aim for

Adults because it’s quite theoretical rocket League stuff but I clicked the made for kids thinking oh yeah it’s fine you know anyone could watch this and there’s no swear or drink like that and it was like this is not what you want to do this is like

Um baby shark videos and stuff like that my manager described it as made for kids as like Dora the Explorer where like it’s content that is designed for kids but the other side is like Great British Bake Off kids could watch that but it’s not made for kids so that’s where it was

Like I make Great British Bake Off style content where like kids could watch my videos as quite often they do but I’m not being like how do you spell this like can you see this like I don’t play into that sort of stuff so with the Minecraft being your your main content

Focus and we mentioned Among Us I’m interested to know what your top five games in your journey to where you are now is you can use games that are important to your career you could use games that are ones that you particularly enjoyed but what do you

Reckon your top five games of all time are I would see I probably have three games that sort of have defined my career and I have two games that have sort of been that I go back to is like me games um career-wise it’s obviously number one

Is Minecraft it’s the one I’ve done for the longest I’ve played back when it was an alpha like I’ve kind of been playing it for the longest period of time um then among others which was sort of like the blow up I had during the pandemic

Which laid me to meeting so many people I never would have it’s like yourself outside of the Minecraft sphere um and it ended up being really good timing for MCC at the time because it suddenly meant I had pla like I was friends and followed with like Pokemon or Valkyrie or disguised tools

Where I could be like hey do you want to play in this Minecraft tournament and they’re like sure like it was sort of expanding that and then the other one was Sims um which was when I kind of grew up playing in sort of dabbled in content over time and

Again it’s funny like I the whole meme like Twitter and the internet have about me is that like there isn’t an SMP I’m not part of or connected to in some way like I understand people will be announced and then I am there like that sort of thing but even to the point

Where I have a lot of friends who are semmers because I used to do sevens content and then they see me pop up in like the silver Channel like huh how is he how is he here now as well like what how we can’t escape him

Um so Sims would probably be the last one for that and then personally I like having certain games that like I don’t attach to work so for me that’s World of Warcraft or League of Legends or the two kind of games I always fall back to

Because I always used to get this thing called like what I called gamer guilt where like I’d be playing a game for fun and then I’d feel guilty about it because my brain is like I could be streaming this or I could be recording this like I could be making this into

Content and eventually like World of Warcraft League have very specific audiences like you need to be into those two games to want to watch that content so I was like right I’m gonna stick to everything else’s work slash like I enjoy the games I enjoy Among Us and I

Enjoy Minecraft but World of Warcraft League of Legends became my like these are what I play and I could just have down time I don’t think about it I can play games with friends I can play it myself and I have those for me and then

The other three for work yeah that makes sense I mean a lot of big games there you’ve chosen uh games I think a lot of people will know about yep um and I think also the the Minecraft thing I think there’s a lot of people who Minecraft would be in their top five

Games even if they didn’t make content out of it just because of how versatile it is you mentioned you’ve been on so many different smps the multiplayer servers like you can experience a whole different game in every single one of them you know you can do role play you

Can do you can play like what Knox crew do you can play many games like yeah yeah so the the options are endless now the interesting thing for me is how different wow and League of Legends are they’re very I’d say hardcore games I think you could if you ask someone what

What three games do you think of for hardcore games I think both of those would be up there in most people’s top uh what is it about those games that you enjoy I think for me I enjoy I’m a big lore person like I enjoy story and

Animation as the other thing in both the Legends and world Warcraft have always been really good for like cinematic animations like when new games come out or that sort of stuff and I started 3D computer animation at University so like that was stuff that always gonna stuck

Out to me and I’d say both of those even though like League of Legend the lore doesn’t affect the actual gameplay it’s still like the character designs and all that are really cool and thought out and I enjoy that sort of stuff um I think for me world Warcraft was

When I got into when I was like 12 I remember getting the battle chess thing for my birthday and my parents were quite strict of like if a game has an age limit you’re not allowed to play until you’re that age so I remember for my 12th birthday I got the World of

Warcraft battle thing because I just kept seeing the box of the dwarf and the Griffin and being like I want to play that and Mom’s like you’re not 12 yet you can’t do it so that was sort of where I’ve kind of stuck to with wow I’m

A big multiplayer game person as well I tend to lose interest in single player stuff um so obviously World of Warcraft I like the fact that as I’m running around I’m like that’s another person also sat at a computer playing the game at the same time somewhere else in the world and

That’s cool to me um and in League of Legends it was the same thing if it was like me and four other people are playing against five other people that are also sat doing the exact same thing as me and like that’s cool and it’s why I like Minecraft smps

Is what I tend to do rather than single player stuff um or Among Us it was like 10 of us on a call or 15 offers like playing a game at the same time um so I think that’s why I like having those kind of games that are mine that

Come from like a fantasy enjoyment and then obviously just got into the mechanics of it but yeah I guess the the multiplayer side of things it’s something that uh definitely Our Generation got introduced to yeah halfway through our gaming Journeys you know when we’re in our early teens yeah

It was it was eye-opening of this idea that we could connect and play with other people um I was I grew up with a brother so I always played multiplayer games with him or against him yeah um so yeah always enjoyed multiplayer games too I guess the the final question around your

Gaming life growing up what would you say your greatest ever gaming achievement is hmm I mean I think like the obvious answer would be like oh my YouTube subscription thing like I think Philadelphia was probably actually from last year at twitchcon I took part in uh like the twitch Rivals at San

Diego called it was like MCL so it was basically Minecraft MOBA it was a League of Legends speaks Minecraft like that sort of thing and I got asked if I wanted to do it and I said yes and they’re like great you’re a captain you

Can pick your team so I was like cool so I went and asked my friend JoJo who’s really good at the game and that’s my friend fruit berries who’s really good at the game um and then I also brought in my friend CPK and my friend Owen and I was like

Great do y’all wanna you’re all coming to San Diego do you want to do this tournament thing and everyone’s like yeah let’s do it so we ended up going to the saying it was like there was four teams so you played like it was a knockout kind of elements if you lost

The first one you would then be playing for a third so we did it and like we won the first round and then we lost a second round and then we won the third round so we made it through and it was us versus this other team that had won

Both their rounds like instantly like they rolled through them so we were like okay we’re playing for a second here like we’ll do our best and we just adapted better as a team like we kind of like figured out and knew how to pick changes or characters in a way that

Countered them quicker than they could adapt and it got down to like base of three we both won the first rounds and it was like the last kind of thing were like ever Dragon which was the thing you had to kill was open and theirs was open and it

Was sort of this like really intense last minute like fruit fairies managed to get in and like check it out and we’re like oh my God this is insane what the heck like um playing up this big storm kind of thing like it was winning that on stage

While it was like we all got the trophies we all got to stand there so I just have this big trophy in the background of my office which I’d say is probably my like top gaming moment from just getting to win something like that with my friends was fun yeah I think

Winning in gaming is one of the most fun experience I had in my life like obviously with Esports I’ve experienced it as a coach in that way but uh twitch Rivals I had a rocket League twitch Rivals which I won and that was an amazing experience I think that’s one of

The beauties of twitch Rivals is you get people who don’t normally get a chance to compete in gaming to compete in a game that is more balanced in the sense that it’s not a a competitive game or if it is they have rules around you only

There are this many people at this rank this many Pros whatever it is um yeah good work twitch Rivals yeah for creating special memories for all of us yeah exactly it’s a good sort of entry point for people who don’t normally do competitive games to like get a little

Taste of it so also I I do want to move on now and talk a little bit about what you mentioned earlier on which is the the hardcore fan base of the Minecraft Community the stands yeah um I’ve been on the receiving end not directly but

Indirectly by going to a party which was perfectly legal party I was at that bowling party um but obviously I was not directly attacked because I was not a Minecraft content creator but there was a lot of people at that party who were um and so I’ve seen the Wrath of the

Minecraft stands you get a lot of it through MCC um MCC gets a lot of it through uh I remember there was like an artwork of one of the team graphics that got a lot of problems you know all these like really silly it was really stupid things yeah

Um you mentioned that you’ve learned to ignore it talk to me about when you couldn’t ignore it well and how that made you feel um I think like right in the very start so like MCC kind of ran from one through up to ncc-14 sort of perfectly like

There was there was a couple take issues here and there and MCC at the start was always for fun like the teams used to be like there was maybe three like three to four teams who had a chance of winning and the race were there just for fun and from about mcc7 um

Onwards it started getting more and more competitive and that was due to like the people we brought in started being like a bit more like not that it’s a negative thing but more try Harding and wanting to win it suddenly pivoted the general environment frenzy so a lot

Of people who used to play for fun started wanting to improve and get better and it suddenly like became okay this is more competitive now um in mcc-14 was the start of MCC season two so we just come back after the break and I was like great we had all these

New maps we had all these things and I remember it was one where my team won and one of the games that we played it was this new ace race map and I had played it once as I had every game for the last 13 mcc’s because I would

Normally take part in one test like the week before the event to make sure that I’m like does this work for streaming um and never had an issue with it before um until this one where I obviously then knew where I was going so people were

Following me and I at one point got out of sight of the person who was in second and everyone else was just buying them and they took a wrong turn and ended up in a lit like the cycle that really reset them back and it meant I finished

And everyone else struggled for ages and it caused this uproar um and then like we obviously that one game wouldn’t have changed the winners like we won every other game to make it there but ended up getting down to US versus a team who had a couple of like

The creators who tend to have like that Stan kind of audience and we ended up rolling them in DodgeBall so we won all three rounds really quick and that then upset the audience and also the Creator the Creator ended up spending time on live like re-watching my team’s vods and like

Seeing how we were cheating and all this sort of stuff while still being live to Their audience to just like field that kind of hate and I suddenly went from getting so much praise over the last year in a bit which was also like pandemic time so you

Weren’t like normally you kind of get that like reinvigoration when you go to events and you meet people like meet and greets or that and they’re like oh my goodness I love your content and really helped me through this hard time and it’s sort of like okay what I’m doing is worth it

Um and that was kind of what I’d been getting from Twitter for the last year because it was a pandemic and then suddenly that just flipped on its head and I became Twitter’s most hated man of the month um and like people were then like digging up tweets that had no negative

Connotations on like twisting them in ways that made them hot like they were like oh my goodness he meant this and it’s like I said I had this for lunch and you’re saying this is a racist statement like huh like they would really find ways to nitpick and

From there there was nothing I could do on Twitter that was right like we then did a pride month event free with YouTube so normally I pick who’s an MCC but with this one because it was partnered with YouTube they had to stream on YouTube and YouTube invited a bunch of people

And I remember at the time people were like wow there’s a parade event in only one quarter one third of the event or LGBT and it’s like yes because YouTube invited most of the people I felt slopped YouTube invited everyone um or it was wow Scott hates lesbians

Because there’s no lesbians in it and I was like we asked about four or three identifies lesbians and they all said no like what do you want from me um and I think it sort of like it ended up picking me in like quite a dark spot

Where like I was just getting like I couldn’t do anything you’re all right I couldn’t do anything without like it being a something proper hated kind of thing and it ended up I remember like my lowest kind of Point like it was really getting to me and it

Was like making me lose motivation for work and it was just like making me really anxious and all that sort of stuff and again it was actually one of those things where it was quite lucky where my YouTube was kind of separate we’re like I didn’t actually I had

Negative comments on like Instagram and Tick Tock and Twitter um not as much on Twitch like people don’t like calling you out when you can react to it in person um because for me if someone comes into my chat as being an idiot I will just

Blast them in front of my chat like and they can’t hide behind their keyboard as much there but YouTube obviously was fine no one really looked into that um but I remember my turning point for it where I was like I’m putting too much like weight into this was the year

Before my granite passed away and then I was obviously really upset this time we were really close but I remember being like my mental health is worse now from the hate I’m getting on Minecraft than I was from losing a family member and I

Was like it was a block game that I won that I organized that has no prize money and I was like you could all just off I don’t care like I was like you’re a bunch of children who I could not care less about at this point and I think like

I ended up kind of it’s the thing that like a lot of people say where like Twitter isn’t real like you can when you’re not looking at it it doesn’t exist like I can walk around and go for coffee or a shop and my server isn’t spitting in my drink because I cheated

On a Minecraft game like I’ve not done like there’s certain people who I think need like should be de-platformed and canceled because if they’re like racist or they’re homophobic or like they’re horrible people like I’m like yep great like we shouldn’t promote that but I was

Like I cheated on a block game it’s like huh like this isn’t right and I ended up deleting Twitter from my phone and it was like October that year but I didn’t reinstall it until like September the next year and it just really changed my mental space like I also changed all my

Notifications so I only see stuff if it’s people that like I already follow and things like that and it just sort of made a much healthier headspace for me but that took a long time several months of being like what was me this is awful I can’t do anything right

Before I eventually I was like no I need to flick this can I switch Yeah I guess you’ve almost got to experience it before you can learn how to deal with it because I was going through um towards the end of last year I was starting to get quite agitated by

Individual comments and people I didn’t know yeah um you know on a much smaller scale to what you’re dealing with you’re dealing with thousands of comments all resonating with the same message of you’re an evil person for Cheating in a Minecraft uh tournament and I think that

Can feel a lot more overwhelming because it feels like there’s a lot of people against you um I felt like I would read a comment in my twitch stream or I’d read a reply to something I’d read a Reddit message or whatever it was

Um and it would all hit me so hard and actually remember there was um one time where I was going to go out on camera where I was on the desk for an event where I was having quite a lot of comments about me being at that event

Yeah um I don’t want to go into too much detail about it but um I was reading the comments beforehand and I was literally like on the on the cusp of crying in the Green Room yeah and Cole who’s one of my best mates came up to me around look

They they don’t know why you’re doing this they don’t know who you are they don’t know what you believe in they are just um sad and frustrated at home and doing these comments you’re fine you got this and I remember just being like right

Just put on a brave face and I did that whole like for the audio list is not only very useful but like the whole like hand in front the face like Faking It kind of thing where I was like sadness and then just smiling afterwards and I

Had to do that’s got on camera but it doesn’t just go away you can’t just read a comment get affected by it and move on you have to build up the tolerance over time which is what you said or learn ways to deal with it which is like

Delete the app turn off notifications uh block people all that kind of stuff but it does affect people pretty badly and like I’m feeling on a smaller scale and I’m trying to learn how to deal with it um and so I was interested to hear how you had with a massive scale situation

Like that so now when something like that happens to be heard the thing like it was one of my friends Well Bar members saying Jimmy and like this was I kept being like oh this sort of stuff and like I went through a horrible phase of like I would

Even check my indirects which you should never do in Twitter if I used to do it because I’d be like oh no one’s tweeted anything bad about me indirectly in five days so like I’ve got a break and then something would come again it would spiral it was that sort of thing where

It was like me searching the indirects was only going to hide with me being upset because I would see nothing and be like neutral and then see something I didn’t like and be sad and it was like I’m never seeing this and being happy

Like why am I doing this and it was my friend welber was kind of like the only do it because they know you’re seeing it they know you’re getting a reaction um he was like people get mad at me all the time and he’s like but I don’t use

Twitter so I don’t see it so then they give up and is that sort of like when they realize they’re just shouting at a wall they stop and that was why I ended up deleting the app kind of thing that’s where I became like I only checked Twitter from my computer I sent

Notifications so like I’m only seeing notifications people that I already follow that like things or reply and I like wouldn’t check tweets is the main thing like don’t check quote Retreats those are the worst um but that sort of thing is like where I kind of realized like oh yeah as soon

As people realize they aren’t getting to you they get bored off it because that’s why I think a lot of the hate on the internet especially back when I was getting it was boredom because people weren’t able to go out people weren’t able to and try it for their friends who

Weren’t at school it was that sort of thing where I was like people have too much free time that they can sit and be disinvesting mad over a Minecraft tournament that’s ran for free and has no money like okay you’re gonna be disinvested like people are dying like

There are people in the world who are dying use your energy into that like channel that anger to people who are being screwed over or don’t have rights like do that sort of thing not a block game like pick your battles there shouldn’t be one of them

Um and I think when I realized that of like oh okay well if I just don’t give them any acknowledgment or they don’t know that it’s getting to me which obviously stopped because you aren’t paying attention you get bored yeah I think it’s also the thing I always told my

Players was when they were doing well in tournaments if you’re gonna let the the praise affect you positively as much as it is right now you know people that after they’ve won a tournament they’ll go on to Reddit they’ll go on Twitter they’ll check everything like if you win

A MCC if you go on socials and you’ve done really well everyone’s like oh Scott was amazing in this one the way he played dodgeball is amazing if you go through that you’re like oh this feels great then the moment there’s a negative it’s gonna also feel bad yeah bad so you

Almost have to learn to ignore everything because if you’re reading the positive as a positive and then ignoring the negative you’re essentially tricking your brain into a false reality whereby you’re letting the opinion to people you don’t know only affect you in the positive and you’ll get caught off guard

Eventually when you read something and think oh I think I thought they liked me it also I think depends on the type of person you are like I’m very much a pause relative reinforcement teaches me things like I like I know a lot of people like one of my friends Joel

I remember for a while the you were just saying red I remember for MCC red it was a lot of things were like oh yeah Joel’s not that good like he just plays for fun and like that’s fine and Joel was like screw you I’m gonna get good and like

Got really really wet good at the game and like is one of the top players in MCC now but he’s the type person who does well with that kind of like negative like he has that I’m going to out of spite proves you wrong type of motivations whereas I don’t have that

I’m like uh oh you think I can’t do it okay I want them like I need someone to be like this is doing really well this thing you’re doing is really good and I’m like okay thanks I can keep doing it so I think I’ll say different shorts for

Different folks okay nothing where like some people it works better but I think yeah for mental stability just try and avoid it like at the end of the day these people don’t know who you are they’re just somewhere at home like typing a computer and as long as

Your friends and family still like you and get on with you that’s all that matters yeah it’s a tough old space out there but you do definitely learn how to deal with it and uh one other thing I’m interested to hear how you reacted to it because it’s something I’ve heard

Um affect people very differently and it’s something they um they build themselves up to and they love the idea if it’s going to happen and when it get there it it doesn’t feel the same and that’s reaching a million subscribers so you hit a million at the end of 2020

Right yeah pandemic pandemic and I saw you made a post yes I’ve hit a million which you have to everyone does that um how did you frame that Target in your mind and how did it make you feel when you hit it and that short period afterwards where I’ve heard a lot of

People feel empty after that where they’re like now what do I do so how did a million subscribers feel to you it’s funny because I remember hitting it I was on Discord with my friend Lizzy and we were like just sat on a call feel like okay it’s happening now like are

Watching on like social blade kind of thing and it was just the two of his kind of thing and we’re like watching and then as like literally I hit it was like yeah great okay I’m gonna go to bed like but I remember hitting it and then

Being like so I recorded at the time and I posted that with like the tweet and I was like okay now what do I do Liz like you’re retired I was like great like okay I’m off um I think it was one of those things where I’ve never been

I don’t know what the word is like I’ve never aspired to be like oh I need 10 million now like my brain was like one male get the plaque done like that’s that kind of thing like I’m now in the big leagues I’ve hit it which there’s so

Many people nowadays with over a million Subs like back when I was wanting it it was such a small number and now there’s so many offers um but I never really had the like oh this is kind of thing I think because I had like MCC to kind of like also be

Working on and doing stuff with and like I’m also still making different content and like again I think 2020 is my Among Us times and it was like moving back to Minecraft and all this sort of stuff so I never really had the oh well what’s the point anymore kind of thing I’ve

Always been quite lucky in that as time has gone on I’ve always had like different opportunities that I never would have thought would happened then dead so like 2019 I hosted Minecon for like live in Nashville and I remember being like that isn’t something I ever

Thought it would do and then last year I was one of the models for the lacrosse Minecraft thing I was like that isn’t something I thought I would do and it sort of stuff I think like as I kind of it just started with like

Another kick for the box and it was just like okay what else is life gonna break and we’ll see what happens um so I never had uh oh my God what do I do now I’ve had tickets and I think it was just that okay that’s cool I’ve hit

It now I don’t need to I don’t have the oh I need to have this kind of motivation it’s now just I’m just it’s obviously what I’m doing is working just got to keep doing it and hope for the best what would you say the single

Greatest thing to happen off the back of uh being a big content creator is you mentioned a few things there like the modeling hosting a big show um you know the benefits of having a big Channel and and the events you get to be a part of what is the one

Biggest thing that comes to your mind when honestly probably the modeling it wasn’t something I ever thought I would ever do like I don’t I think I’m unattractive but I’m not like what you imagine for a model so when I got the emails like hey do you

Want to come to this I was like huh I was like me like what okay sure like um it was a fun and also my friend like one of my best friends Shelby was also doing it so it was like really cool to get to she also hosted Minecon it’s

Quite funny where like a lot of our big moments we’ve got to do together which has been really nice of like getting to share this really cool experience that neither of us thought would ever happen but getting to do it together was a fun thing but I think probably that was the

Most memorable and it was the most left field like I never thought of myself as going to be a model for things like so that was a cool like checkbox of like oh yeah I got to be in an ad that was all over like New York and Paris and London

Where it was like my face of me modeling these clothes like that was cool that’s pretty crazy I mean what can come out of being a big content creator especially in the Minecraft space how quickly it can happen uh it’s pretty special and I guess that’s where I want to ask you

You’ve he mentioned to me before the reason why MCC was such a perfect role for you in terms of bringing people together was you’re in that middle generation between the early OG Minecraft content creators and you’ve also now connected with the new ones you kind of grew between them so

You’ve seen the old you you know the new uh what would you say if you’re gonna give one piece of advice or many pieces of advice to the new Minecraft generation of creators to make sure that they do it right and don’t mess up what would you say to them

I think like for me the reason you should do content creation is because it’s something you enjoy it’s such a hard job to do and there’s no guarantee with it like I think a lot of jobs it’s like okay you can go to Unique get a degree get an entry-level job and work

Way up whereas it’s like I know people who make really good content who can’t afford this as a real full-time job because you just have a lot of luck and I think going into it with the want and desire to be famous and to make the money is such a

Hard mindset because it’s such a difficult thing to achieve and it will only lead to you being upset and disappointed in yourself when a lot of it is out of your control um so I think putting less pressure on yourself and more focus on doing it because it’s something

You enjoyed doing I would say is one and I think the other thing is like there is a lot especially nowadays it’s a lot harder for the younger people because if they blow up quick especially today they are under such a big Lanes like back when I was like my trajectory for

My YouTube thing has always been very like slow and steady and I’ll kind of go up a bit or I’ll have like a little Spike and then I Plateau a new kind of high and then it goes up a little bit and it sort of just a mess

Um over different CDs or games whereas nowadays A lot of people start like a lot of my friends like Rambo or Amy or tubble sort of just went right like this and then plummet and again the other thing is like the plummet wasn’t because

Of them it was just they blew up in the time where Minecraft and content was at its peak to then people now have gone back to work people have gone to school people have gone up and Minecraft itself in general has dropped so suddenly they’ve dropped and it’s again that sort

Of like they think it’s a damn thing and it’s like no this YouTube and configuration is a roller coaster of ups and downs it will always be like that um but I think they had a lot harder because they’re also under a magnifying glass from this audience who will

Scrutinize every single thing like so many of the older creators made mistakes or said things that at the time were fine whereas now it’s not um I say fine like was socially acceptable at the time whereas now it isn’t in I think obviously back then the internet was a lot more forgiving

Um and also a lot quicker to forget whereas nowadays it’s sort of like you said this thing when you were 15 and like I’m a totally different person when I’m 27 to when I was even like 22 let alone when I was 15. like there’s so

Much it’s a lot harder I think nowadays um for them to kind of like adapt and make mistakes I don’t think the internet says forgiving for people making mistakes anymore um so I think just learning to do it for the right reasons and focus on yourself and trying to ignore what the internet

Thinks of you is probably the best advice I could give and like do it because you want to not because you want something from it yeah because I I guess we’re we’re in a generation now where Fame comes with a burialless entry to your fans where historically if you’re

Famous you wouldn’t be able to interact directly with your fans except for in that environment where you’d be walking by them take a quick picture do an autograph I guess even not even pictures back yeah a lot of time there wasn’t even cameras available on a phone

Whereas now even if you’re in public they could be filming you yep they could be looking at you you know you can’t leave your house like think of all the time times back back when when we were growing up and you’d see in the newspaper or whatever there’ll be a

Picture of someone on their way out of their their hotel or whatever wearing like track suits and like cap and glasses on to try and hide it as them now if a content creator walks out the house they could get recognized anywhere so they have to constantly be on ready

They can’t have bad days you can’t miss a stream because someone will remember that and tell you off for not being there for them I think it’s also one of those things like the differ or the difference between like what you would have with like normal mainstream

Celebrities is what you said is like I think there’s almost an area of like untouchableness of like a celebrity we are like they are identity also everyone’s a person but like you have this sort of like oh they’re on this pedestal and they’re up there and

I think almost like when you are a fan or if you’re someone that’s kind of a healthy balance to have and a different set of like this is someone I don’t know but I enjoy them like that kind of thing whereas content creation blurs the lines with that where like

People it builds up parasocial relationships you’re like oh I know this person it’s like no you know what the content creator puts out there you know what the conjugator allows you to see but you don’t know them and they don’t know you and I think that’s always a

Dangerous and blurry line where people then get like oh yeah I’m friends with this person it’s like you know you subscribe to them and twitch and you’re in their chat a lot and they recognize you but you know what they’re like on Twitch you don’t know what they do when

They’re at home with their friends or when they’re written about like it’s that sort of Blurred Lines and I think that’s partially why like content creation shot into Fame because it was like almost more approachable Celebrity Status where people are like oh my goodness I really

Like them I think that’s I think one of the differences between a lot of times when you hear someone talk about a concrete they’re like because they’re like oh yeah I can imagine we could be friends like that’s you sort of see them and you’re like we could be friends like

I’ve had it before with I said it’s funny obviously when I talk about it because my friend Lizzie I started as a viewer and now she’s my best friend but I started off as being like I like her content and it was that sort of I think

We would be friends which turns out I was right but it’s the way you go about it and I was like how it’s done whether it crosses that line of like parasorcial and creepy or like nice but it’s such a messy and delicate line to balance I

Guess that kind of happens in Celebrity culture too you know two actors you’ve never met before yep they could both parasocially love each other’s work and then one day they meet and they get on really well and it’s yeah that same idea that when you work in the same space

There is a chance you will meet when there’s events whether it’s because of among us back when we had that and that kind of crossover um so it is a weird one because at what point um you know like for example uh Harry who’s my producer he was someone who was

A viewer at first there’s all sorts of other stages to it and I had to navigate around that what I thought was a parasocial relationship it was actually very much a we are on Level Playing Field relationship and it was one day um when it was like the third time where

I’d asked I’d like Harry do you want to go for a coffee and I went he’s not a viewer he’s a friend yeah and having to build up that mindset of everyone in my chat is a viewer therefore I do not I’m not friends with them they are just a viewer create that

Barrier and you create that barrier for long enough where sometimes you meet people who you are friends with and in your community like I said with my I now live with yeah um and for that longest time I had convinced myself that I was not their friend and actually we were

Friends and that’s that’s the tough bit in this whole Space because navigating friendships and parasocial relationships is quite tricky I think also within this space it’s such a blurred line of like if you work in a normal like nine to five office job you have your work life

And your work friends and people you meet through work and then you have your actual friends and family and I think with congregation it’s such a weird line because it’s like I only make content with people I’m friends with which means I only work with my friends which adds a

Whole other environment to it um and again it’s the same as like I have I think you can start like it’s again it’s that sort of like the longer you know someone the more you get to know them I think it helps when they’re around your age and you get on summer

Interests like I have a lot of my twitch mods who started out as viewers and then like the way I do modding and twitch is very different for a lot of people I’ve realized a lot of people it’s like we make applications and you sign up

Whereas I suddenly will just be like I need a modern I’ve seen your name several times so congrats here’s the gauntlet and I throw them in the ring um you seem mature yeah I’m like I like you and you’ve not annoyed me for the last eight months have mod abilities

Good luck like you feed them to The Wills um and a lot of those people that like I’ve now known for years and like events I’ll meet them and we go out for a drink or a coffee or like and I’m like yeah they’re my mods but they’re also like no

My friends but again that’s something like built up over a long period of time like I think one of my mods of like did their re-sub recently where it was like 50 something months and I was like oh God we’re both so old you’ve been here

For so long like but again it’s that sort of like it’s such a what’s the word like gray area there’s no through line of like this is the right answer that strong answer sort of a each situation is different like I got on really well with Lizzy and we became

Best friends yeah there’s people who she was also like viewers off that aren’t her friends because they never can across that way it’s just sort of a case-by-case basis but it’s also with the way people grow you know you could be in someone’s stream when they had 20

Viewers yeah and they treat you like a best friend because when you’ve only got 20 viewers you do give a lot of time to every one of your viewers once they get to 2000 you might still feel like you’re one of those 20 viewers in the way you

Act but actually at that point you know it’s changing it is a weird one I can completely empathize with everyone who is struggling with parasocial relationships online yeah we’re very blessed by we’re in a position where um a lot of situations we probably act very similarly to the people who are

Viewers and parasocially um in that position where they they feel connected with someone but more than they are yeah but we’re very fortunate in that position whereby we can often break that barrier down because we do go to an event or we do meet them in a

Um Among Us Lobby or in a Discord that we’re in or whatever it is um so I do completely empathize with people on on that on that situation uh it’s not an easy one to navigate and I think um as time goes on hopefully you’ll get better or we’ll face A new challenge

With the online world because everything seems to be changing so fast which is fun um so with with online and everything like that you’ve mentioned all the different challenges you’ve faced um but I think the the hardest thing with being online is switching off from online

Um and one of one of the things that you’re talking about earlier on and I thought it was so um so beautiful the way you described it is your Friday routine you have a little Friday routine do you want to yeah tell me a bit more about that I think for

Like when you do content creation it’s specific it’s very hard to get into a routine I think there’s a couple people I know who have it but like it’s this balance of like one of my friends Callum he basically treats it like a nine to five where he’s like oh

Yeah I work from this time and I end at this time and we’re like you have one of the jobs that’s the most flexible in the world and you’ve decided to turn it into a nine to five like why um but I think and I always describe it

As like content creation is always working and never working like that’s the kind of line of like and I don’t want to work like today when I came to see you I was like okay I’m just not going to stream tonight I was able to do

That but it does then mean that like my brain’s like okay well I need to make up for it by shooting him these days or do this work in advance or like I had to get the video that’s going up tonight done before today so that I could come here

Um so for me I ended up my Fridays turned into a little routine where I get up in the morning get ready I tend to like put on my little outfit where I pick a little life I’m like okay I look nice today and then I go to therapy and

Then on the way back from therapy because where I park my car is near my best friend no one’s so I tend to on the way back from therapy I’ll stop at it like a little sandwich shop get us both a sandwich stop at a different place and

Get coffee and then go to his and have lunch with him on the radiotherapy chat about things and then I go home and then go on with the rest of my evening or my day but like that’s my one day of the week where I’m like I’ve got my little

Routine if I do this and it follows that sort of stuff through and it’s like it kind of helps round off my week so Friday’s running like one of my favorite days because I’m like this is fun I get to talk about my feelings get a really

Nice sandwich and get to spend time with my best friend this is great like that’s my little routine that I have at the moment so you go to therapy every week yep um when did you start therapy I started therapy last November I think it was

Um it was one of those things where like I’m an odd for years being like I should go to therapy and then back man I was like I didn’t like I don’t have like childhood trauma where I was like oh I grew up and this thing happened and

I need to talk about like I’ve always felt kind of a weird one to be like yeah I’m gonna go to therapy to talk about my problems but I think I ended up November last year I ended up deciding like no like I was going through a weird mental

Space I was like you know what I’m gonna go like find someone um and it was actually really nice because I have a lot of like I have a really good Social Circle and I have a lot of friends so I can lean on and such that’s never something I’ve struggled

With but there also becomes a point where it’s like you feel bad for like trauma dumping on your friends or like saying like hey these are all the issues I have um so having a professional who is then able to actually give their professional advice and also will question my things

Like I think with friends and it’s good for like listening but it’s hard for them to then be able to try and offer Solutions or things because then it’s like oh well you’re going like and that emotional state you are a bit more sensitive whereas like when it’s a professional who’s studied

For this and understands these situations and has obviously worked with people who have had similar things they’re able to kind of like call you out on your issues a bit more and be like but why do you do that or why do you think this um

Which is like always a fun thing to unpack for me we found out I just don’t get angry that’s we don’t know why something will unpack in therapy but I just don’t get mad um which is a fun thing to try and figure out um but it’s always a good I

Recommend therapy obviously it’s one of those things where I’m like you can’t some people can’t afford it and it’s an expensive thing to try and do but I think it’s always something that even if you think you don’t need it it’s maybe worth going to for a couple times just

To sort of see what’s there yeah it’s something I’ve considered for a while especially through tougher times but realistically it shouldn’t be reaction to a tougher time it should be something that’s there for when the tougher times come yeah like my mental spaces way better now than it was last year but I’m

Like no I like therapy I’m going to keep going and it’s it’s funny because sometimes I go in and be like how was your weekend I was like great that’s like not a single thing happened this week that we can talk about in like well then it’ll be like what about this thing

In your childhood I was like nope that was fine and like we can have unpack it from there but then there’s sometimes where it’s like God this thing happened on like Monday or Tuesday and I’m like I need Friday to come because I need to be

Able to talk about this and like get out so it definitely is better to kind of have that routine of knowing that like you’ve got an outlet for that sort of stuff rather than as you said just reactionary to like oh bad time I should go to therapy and it’s always good to

Have yeah we spoke a bit about therapy on the ninth podcast we had with Stumpy um and he has a different therapy style to a lot of people he goes on a walk with someone um and just gets that fresh air in the forest walk experience whilst also

Talking to a therapist so there is loads of different types of therapy out there I think that’s the hardest thing coming into it for a lot of new people is which therapy do I go for because there’s so many different styles there’s different Specialties and and everything like that but

Um everyone I’ve spoken to who who has therapy sings its Praises which makes sense because it is such an important part of our lives and I guess one of the the biggest things is making sure that you do have that support circle around you even without therapy because

Um so well and good relying on your therapist but you need to have friends and family who can still lean on and I think for me I’m very lucky that um my my mum’s very good for that kind of stuff so um whenever I’m struggling she’s always

There I wish I could help her more with her struggles but I I’m not a very good therapist for my mum unfortunately but yeah having that kind of support is key and I think um every time I hear it I’m closer to getting it and I think that’s the big

Thing now is people are much more willing to talk about it like it’s a normal thing like it’s a bit taboo I think it was funny because I remember telling I was like I don’t know if I’m gonna tell my family that I go to therapy like that was a sort of weird

One I was like I don’t know if I will because obviously if a parent hears that you’ve gone to therapy they’re then like was it something I did like that sort of thing like it always like that’s a lot for my dynamic it’s that sort of thing and I remember like eventually being

Like my parents were down or my mom was there with my sister and my niece when I would have had therapy so I was like I have therapy I need to go to and I told my sister and she was like okay it’s like is it on light and I was like no

It’s like okay cool and I was gonna wear it life whereas my mom I was like oh yeah I’ve got therapy and she’s like physical therapy and I was like no mental therapy just like for what and I was like for my mental health like and it’s just it’s a generational thing like

My parents were a bit older so it wasn’t something they ever did it was sort of like your issues and feelings were kept to you and your household like you dealt with it apparently you didn’t tell anyone um so it was like a weird thing for her

I think to kind of wrap her head around if like why are you going to this thing like why would you do that whereas obviously my sister who’s four years older than me so sell the same generation was like oh you know that makes sense like she doesn’t go to it

But she’s like yeah it makes sense to do um which it was just a funny little like differentiation but I think you’re right and that most people nowadays are a lot more open about it and a lot more comfortable talking about it and I think people are getting more comfortable

Asking for help which I think is important yeah and I think the the interesting one for you as well is you you’re speaking to me a bit before about how when you move down to Brighton you were in quite a like socially active house with a lot

Of people around you and you now you cut you recognize your you’re quite introverted but you do need that social time so you kind of built your lifestyle around what is good for your social and mental health yeah um how how did you kind of come to terms

And understand your own social needs and and mental health needs I think for me like through the pandemic I lived alone like I was I had my own house I lived with me and my cat that I just got just at the start of the pandemics it was

Just out it’s good timing yep perfect timing and it ended up like I was totally fighting for the pandemic I think because we almost supplemented socializing with like online stuff so like we were doing streams of Among Us with 10 people five hours a day like you were doing stuff

Like that and I was totally fine and I was always quite like I always described myself as introvert pretending to be an extrovert where I would be out and about events socializing having fun everyone’s like am I going to see chats away and like this sort of stuff but then I would need

To as soon as I get back to my hotel room and shut the door and be like okay I just need no one to talk to me and like after I’d come back from an event I’d be like no one messaged me for a week I need to just sit and exist myself

And I then obviously after the pandemic was kind of like I need a change like I lived up in Sheffield I need a change I went down to visit Brighton um with some friends in the summer and like fell in love with and I had a lot

More friends down there so I was kind of like you know what I’m gonna move to Brighton so I did an October I think it was 2021. um and I ended up moving in with my friend Jack and we kind of had like the bigger house so then everyone started coming

Over more and socializing and all this sort of stuff and that sort of I think pivoted my brain a little bit but even then to be fair I was still like feel like hey do you want to go out and I’d be like no thanks like I was quite happy

To be like I’m okay with myself um and then in 2022 and me I had a tonsillectomy surgery and which meant I couldn’t talk or eat for it was about like 18 days I think it was 18 20 days where like I was just in constant pain um couldn’t work couldn’t stream

Couldn’t focus on anything like TV was boring all that sort of stuff and my housemate at the time was then in America for a work thing so for I had one friend stay with me for like four days at the start which I certainly surgery is a weird one because normally

The pain starts is worse than it gets better as it is go on whereas with that one the first four days were fine were okay and then day five through about 11 to 12 awful like worst pain I’ve ever had and I just had to set alone in the house like

You’re basically just waiting for time to pass between getting different painkillers and all that sort of stuff and that then kind of like was almost like the closest like isolation I’ve had where I was like I hate this I hate being alone and I don’t enjoy this sort

Of thing and then since then I’ve sort of like my brain changed in a way where I was like I need to see different people at least like three times a week otherwise I get upset now like I need to have friend time otherwise I get upset like whether it’s

Like I was just sitting in a call playing a game at night or going down into like the movie or I said I have the Friday thing with Owen where it’s like I see him for an hour and it like and to be fair there’s even times where if he’s

Busy that day I’ll sometimes just give him the sandwich we’ll chat at the door for a few minutes and go but even that is enough for my brain to be like okay I’ve seen someone like so that was where I sort of pivoted or changed to like oh

No I know actually would say I’m more extroverted we’re like I need that socializing to fill my battery and then once that batteries feel I’m okay being alone for a while it sort of like changed the other way yeah I think a lot of people will start to re-design their

Social life around the post lockdown period because it made a lot of people more comfortable spending time alone I think it also made people realize uh who they wanted to spend time with and all that kind of stuff so it was interesting to hear your experience with it

Especially moving to a whole new city and learning very quickly like what you needed in that in that place um so yeah I think a lot of people are still coming to terms of their Mental Health still come to terms with their social uh I guess like activity style yeah

Um you know I’m very similar to you where I’m pretty introverted but you know I do like going out and socializing um and and that’s quite nice with with this flat living with Harry living in a place where people can come to visit often um I do think it’s something we’re more

Aware of now than ever before like when growing up I didn’t even think about this kind of stuff I don’t think it was a conversation you ever had of like whether you were an English you were like a lot of one thing I realized when I left school was it was

Like I was friends with these people because I’ve seen them five days a week like you didn’t have to plan socializing growing up because you just did it when you were at school like you didn’t need to worry about hanging out at night because you spent all day six hours with

Your friends even though it was like doing stuff you were still with them so I think yeah you don’t really think about being interested until you become an adult and suddenly the only time you see people is if you make the effort to see them like you you don’t have that

Especially with what we do I think obviously if you work a normal nine to five where you go into an office you kind of have that socializing during those hours each day whereas obviously with what we do it’s like the only thing you’re socializing is if one of the

Parties makes the effort to be like hey do you want to see a movie or do you want to grab dinner if you don’t do that nothing happens um well thank you for for sharing all that I think we’re I I don’t actually know because time has flown so fast I

Think we’re we’re well and truly running out of time um because you shared so much of your experiences and and to us I’ve learned a lot listening to you speak and that’s one of my favorite things about this podcast is speaking to people within the space and learning different things

About them whether it be the therapy side of things I think that the way you just casually brought it up was quite um quite nice to hear because I think that’s becoming more and more normal of like oh yeah on Fridays I go to therapy and um you know speaking about mental health

Speaking about social health and everything like that uh so thank you for that thank you um and I think the last thing we’ll ask you is what I ask every guest okay and that is what is gaming mean to you and does gaming mean to you what is does not

Make sense what does gaming mean to you I like giving to me as a source of making friends it’s uh like uh it’s what I imagine a lot of people who like sports Bond over where they’re like oh yes I love football and I support this

Team oh my God you love football team result like we have a common interest like gaming for me was that I didn’t like sports growing up I like video games so then finding a community when I got older that also shared the same interests and the same things was a nice

Kind of bonding thing for me so it’s a very big social aspect for me for gaming yeah I think social aspect it’s beautiful I think the the people you meet through it has been an amazing experience and we’re just at the start of that Journey yeah we’re gonna be

Those 56 year old people playing video games still hopefully hopefully fingers crossed yeah thank you very much Scott thank you