The Titanova

Top tier: Pokemon. It's one of the biggest franchises in gaming, there's infinite of them but because they're all super similar it's never alienating, fanbase is as dedicated as any other Nintendo fanbase, they're free due to the amount of romhacks, people never tire of pokemon, there's a huge community of pokemon streamers and youtubers, there's so many different sub-sections of the pokemon community that are all distinct, it's an easy series so there's never any challenge except self-imposed ones (depending on your opinion on whether downloading purposefully difficult rom-hacks is a self-imposed challenge), they're not taxing to stream because they're turn based and it's current enough that there's new pokemon games all the time and technically speaking they can be run on basically any machine (not to mention pokemon's not super bothered about high FPS or graphics settings), and if you actually play the modern ones for realsies it's super easy to interact with fans in ways other than pwning them (trading). I am convinced they are the best games to stream if you want to focus on growth. The 'never alienating' people is super important because everything else you can stream can alienate people whereas pokemon being VERY similar across all the games means that happens way less

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A tier: the newest game of the now, rotating (so like right now would be fallout 4 or the new tomb raider). People go to twitch to see the newest games to decide on buying them or before they can get them, and it can be pretty easy to pick up people. The only thing is sometimes, if the game is TOO big (like fallout 4, actually) then you'll likely get drowned in all the others playing it. Tomb raider a better choice atm

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B tier: newest installments of [X popular franchise] when the game is no longer 'new' itself. See Skyrim, the latest MGS, latest Sonic, latest Mario, etc

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C tier: Hearthstone, League of Legends, World of Warcraft, CoD, Counterstrike, DOTA 2

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Also C tier: audience interaction games. People love to play along and cards against humanity/jackbox are great for that. They're only good for low-medium growth though because at upper echelons the chances of getting in are so small that people aren't as keen. These games drop on this tier list the bigger you get, with tiny streamers getting the maximum B tier out of them. You will also find lots of your 'growth' from this source to be artificial and they won't actually be watching except for when you play these games

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Also C tier: older installments of [X popular franchise]. Older Sonic games, older Mario games, older resident evil games, etc. My personal one is Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

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D tier: Indie games which have passionate followings (Binding of Isaac is the most obvious choice here)

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F tier: everything else

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Having said that it is totally possible to grow entirely on F tier games. Also this list does not account for a couple of things like speedrunners, artists and erotic games (don't know much about any)

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1) tell them exactly what you want different. Do they talk about themselves too much? Do they read EVERY single message in the chat and disrupt the stream for stuff not worth reading? Are they way too obsessed with themselves in your streams? Are they checking their phone every 2 minutes? Tell them, 'you are bad' is not helpful
1b) make sure you are friends with the kinds of people who are both critical and able to take criticism. This is just general good life advice though
2) with that in mind, stick to the general rule of advice which is "it is worth mentioning if it can be fixed in 30 minutes or less" (a bad habit, an audio issue, etc) and do not mention it otherwise (a personality trait, a lisp, etc)
3) watch group content makers you like and try to pick out exactly what it is you like about them and try to emulate it or adapt it and make it your own
4) Being someone else's co-commentator, being the main host who has co-commentators on, and being an equal part of a group are all pretty different roles and even if you only ever plan on being one of those roles it helps to get practice on all 3 so that you have a better understanding of presentation in general. Streaming is about you and your audience (as opposed to youtube which due to how editing works can be whatever you want and your audience) and so you ride or die on who you are, and a big part of that is being able to present. Mini-guide to learning all 3:
Practice being a co-commentator by a pal playing a single player game and you being 'colour commentary'
Practice the group thing by co-op game/competing vs friend streams
Practice being the 'host' by doing streams oriented around you or things you're doing or your own goals (follower totals, donation drives, single player stuff etc)
(you'll notice I use the word 'practice' in all 3 and that is because it's by far the most important thing)

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This is a super tough question to answer because my life has been easier and better than basically anyone I know. Trying to answer this question might be the worst period of my life because it's really hard. Like I've been sad before and had hardships but also I am incredibly good at coping with stuff, I had an amazing pair of parents, I've known a wide range of fantastic friends and no matter how bad my life gets I am able to methodically think "okay how can we tackle this" and be okay with it. And I strongly believe how good or bad your life is depends on way more than "what shit have you faced" (a category in which I am hard to beat IMO). I feel far more sorry for people who've had bad parenting or stressful living situations or things like that, because that all makes hardship harder to cope with. On top of that, as a white heterosexual able-bodied middle class male with no mental disorders, I've had a lot of benefits for me. I'm not afraid to cry or say when I muck up (both fairly frequently lol) and I just try to take a good attitude to stuff. I've never in my life felt 'beaten'. Loads of people have and even if 'on paper' their life seems easier it's not. I had some very personal stuff happen to me in 2013 which I can't talk about, and then almost straight after that happened and I was trying to cope with it my Dad died, and that was definitely the worst period of my life but even then I knew I would be okay, it'd just take a lot of time to recover.

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My take-home point is a lot of people feel like they don't 'deserve' to be depressed. It's not about that. If you have more problems than you do coping resources, then ask for help. If you feel it is too much for you, do not beat yourself up for feeling it is too much for you. You can be surrounded by people who love you and still feel alone, and often that is the worst kind of feeling there is. You don't need some 'grand event' to know what depression is like. I know I took this way more seriously than you probably expected but yeah. I am acutely aware a lot of people asking this type of question are desperately looking for someone to relate to, I guess

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I predicted before it started that I'd take an early lead, Yuki would have early bad losses, I'd beat the Elite 4 first and then lose the race. I took a lead as early as my starter, Yuki has taken early losses (in particular Lapras and Raichu) and I am on track to beat the Elite 4 first. If my prediction's right I'll still find a way to lose.

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HOWEVER, logically speaking, I should have this. I mean let's look at it this way:

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Levels: I am ahead. This is easiest to measure coz it's straight numbers. My levels are just straight up better than his

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Quality of team members: I am inarguably ahead here, I think. I think a case could be made for my team being better even BEFORE he lost Hamtaro the Raichu in the most recent stream but without it I feel like I'm quite a bit ahead

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Pokemon typings: Infernape has 2 weaknesses, 5 resistances and an immunity. Snorlax has 2 weaknesses, 11 resistances and an immunity. Ampharos has 4 weaknesses, 7 resistances and 2 immunities. Meganium has 2 weaknesses, 5 resistances and 2 immunities. Mismagius has 2 weaknesses, 2 resistances and 2 immunities. Swalot has 4 weaknesses, 7 resistances and, tragically, no immunities. I am not gonna go over Yuki's team extensively but it's basically all bug and ice and rock types. I have him beat here. Not to mention Swalot, Meganium and Snorlax all have some bulk to them as well, whereas other than Miror B the Ludicolo, Yuki has basically never had anything bulky, I think

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Back bench pokemon: Neither of us have AMAZING back bench options but mine are certainly better, pure flying Pigeot/Magnezone are both nice options and Quilava could be great if it evolved into good typing. Yuki's back bench is at the point where, with 20-something options, he was legitimately considering not having any of them because none were good enough

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TMs: Yuki undeniably has me 100% crushed in this department

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Other items: I have a choice band, a focus sash, yache berry, and MULTIPLE power items to EV train with. However Yuki has multiple experience shares. I think experience shares are honestly good enough that Yuki's beating me on items but it's by no means a big margin at all and if you wanted to make the argument that mine are better that'd seem reasonable. My logic is that the experience shares are basically keeping Yuki in the race despite everything else of his being kinda bad, and while my items are good, they wouldn't be good enough to keep me in the race if I had a disaster

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By basically every metric other than TMs, I'm either winning or at least have an okay matchup. And TMs are debatably the least important thing listed because each one can only be used once. And I am starting to get moves naturally that make up for my bad TMs (close combat for Infernape, Discharge for ampharos, etc).

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Having said all that, the Elite 4 will be a real beast, we're less than halfway in the game, Yuki's pokemon knowledge is way better than mine and we have so many encounters left to go. Still anyone's game though

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No!

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Kids are idiots and you need to build your life and schedule around them. You need to know in advance how you wish to bring them up because you can't expect them to change your mind as you do, and I change my mind lots. I can't imagine being selfless enough to raise kids. I can't imagine finding someone who I love enough to have kids with them but at the same time wishing to have to spend less time with that person as we both raise kids together. I can't imagine being non-independent. I can't imagine being half a good a parent as mine were, and as someone who both fiercely loves his parents but also someone who is competitive and methodical, that would drive me nuts. I can't imagine always being 'on' like you must be with kids. I can't imagine spending that much genuine time with people and not getting burnt out. Some people were not meant to be parents, I know for a fact I am one of them. However in my (arrogant) opinion I am pretty good with kids when I have the energy. LIke I'm a good Uncle and Godfather, but the idea of being that 24/7 among all the other stuff is tiring

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