Good Luck, Have Fun, Play Nice

Content creation is by far one of the most popular career paths out there. To the general public, it’s not often that you’ll see someone out there with “Twitch Streamer” or “YouTuber” as their job title. But in the world of gaming, they’re everywhere. Scheduled content posts keep both casual and invested gaming fans on the edge of their seats, while sponsorships and checkmarks give the creators the confidence and assurance to continue pursuing their passions.

I’ll be honest—I don’t really watch a lot of Twitch streams, let alone streams of people playing competitive games. However, I don’t have to dedicate hours of watching streams to understand that being a streamer takes a lot of dedication. They invest a lot of time and effort building a community and sharing their passion with the world.

And then, I discovered Tiffae.

Tiffanie, known as Tiffae, is a content creator who plays a variety of different games. She currently plays VALORANT and is often seen streaming and uploading her content onto platforms such as YouTube and Tiktok. She started playing VALORANT during closed beta in April 2020 and has continued playing since.

“I was a huge fan of both CS:GO and Overwatch, and VALORANT is essentially a forbidden love child between the two games. I think that’s why I’m such a big fan of it.”

Her favorite agent is Viper, known for her very sneaky and (positively) toxic play style. She’s really good with Viper.

And I mean, really good.

While the ideal world would have Tiffae instalocking Viper in every match, she does acknowledge that Viper is only viable in certain maps. Instead, she takes on the role of a team player, waiting to be the last person locking in to select an agent that complements her team’s composition. She wants to have fun when gaming with her friends, but even when someone (or even an entire team) gets toxic, she doesn’t let it get to her.

“At the end of the day, they don’t know you. That person, regardless of what words they’ve said to you, doesn’t know who you are—and they definitely don’t know your worth and value. So do your best to ignore them, mute them if you have to, but just play the game. Once the game is over, the chances are you don’t ever have to play with that person again.”

During her streams, Tiffae is typically seen duo queuing, with most of her duos coming from people she’s met in VALORANT—one of the many reasons why she loves the game so much. Despite the toxicity that everyone meets on a daily basis, a lot of really good friends that she’s made have come from her regularly playing the game. Some of them even become part of her squad when she’s casually playing.

“My most recent duo is my friend “E”. I actually started playing with him because he kept adding me to play with his friend—this adorable girl who’s insane at VALORANT. I used to play with her all the time,” says Tiffae.

“Anyway, he kept adding me and was like ‘Play VALORANT with my friend! Play VALORANT with my friend!’. And I was like ‘Okay okay, I will! I’ll try—I’ll give it a try!’ I ended up absolutely loving both of them and we’re always having fun when we queue up together.”

And that’s exactly how Tiffae is when she’s in the server—whether she’s on stream or whether she’s gaming with her friends offline. She’s there to enjoy the game, and she appreciates having good people in her community to join her squad. Competitive games like VALORANT are all about working together to complete an objective, and making connections throughout the game sessions are simply a part of the process.

Based on her past history of playing competitive games, it’s clear she not only enjoys playing games, but enjoys being really good at them, too. In her words, “It’s my only talent in life: being good at video games...and nothing else.”

While Tiffae loves playing FPS games and considers it her favorite genre, her general love of gaming has her playing all sorts of video games.

“I played League of Legends for over 8 years, I’ve played MMOs—I’ve basically played a lot of different kinds of games. Growing up, my favourite games were games like Runescape and GunZ, but I would definitely say FPS games are my favourite.”

To this day, she still enjoys playing games off-stream with her friends. From Apex to New World to co-op games like Pummel Party, it’s clear that the games she plays with her friends are more relaxing, something I realized that she and I actually had in common.

Her pathway into streaming started back when Twitch streaming wasn’t really a thing. This was WAY back—like, justin.tv back—where she enjoyed watching a lot of Starcraft streams. Once Twitch was released, she switched over to their platform and started watching streamers play a variety of games, even becoming friends with some of them.

“I used to watch people like Becca and Hafu back in the day, and I still watch them now,” says Tiffae. “Seeing them stream was something that was really inspiring, because it looked like they were having so much fun—and all they were doing was streaming themselves playing a game, which I also do all the time. That’s what got me to dabble into Twitch for the first time, and I've never looked back since.”

Given that streaming is Tiffae’s full-time job, she spends a lot of time separating “work gaming” and gaming for fun. Even then, finding a good work/life balance is still a challenge.

“I put a lot of hours into streaming, and after streaming I take a lot of time to hand-pick what goes onto the other platforms.” says Tiffae. “A lot of my time is actually spent working, even when I'm not streaming.”

“I’m...definitely still struggling with balancing life. There are a lot of times where I neglect things like my chores until the very last minute.”

Fortunately, Tiffae has plenty of interests that keep her occupied. When she’s not streaming or playing games, she loves spending time with her dogs and she also enjoys the occasional K-drama. But one hobby she truly enjoys is traveling, and has plans to visit many different countries around the world once the pandemic subsides.

“I actually grew up in Taiwan when I was really young, and lived there for eight years before I moved to America. My last trip was in 2019 and I typically like to visit every few years to see my relatives,” says Tiffae.

It’s through her love of traveling that she also learned of a hidden talent—the ability to fall asleep on a plane, only waking up halfway through the flight when offered snacks. “Don’t ask me how—I just...every single time I'm like ‘Yeah I want this snack’, and then once I put it away in my bag, I go back to sleep.”

There are so many reasons as to why Tiffae enjoys traveling, one of the main reasons being the beautiful sceneries. She recommends visiting the town of Jiufen, a beautiful mining town in the Rufang District in Taiwan that served as the inspiration for films like Spirited Away.

Besides visiting different places, Tiffae is a fan of street food and is also down for boba when she’s given the chance. She loves boba so much, in fact, that it’s one of her commands in her Twitch chat (seriously, you can go to her chat right now and type !boba)!

“My favourite go-to drink is Oolong milk tea, less ice, 75% sugar. I always get that religiously,” says Tiffae. “I do sometimes like to get fruit teas during the hotter days, but other than that, I swear on oolong—it’s my favourite and it’s so delicious.”

(Fun fact - this is also my (the writer of this article’s) go-to order. I wish I was joking when I tell you I was not expecting this.)

One of Tiffae’s future goals include hitting 100k subscribers on YouTube, but from a qualitative perspective, she wants to do something much more meaningful: pave the way for girls to have a safer space in gaming.

While she’s typically very relaxed and chill during her gaming sessions, she’s also known to speak up for herself and her fellow teammates when conflicts arise. This in itself has inspired other people (especially women) to follow suit and be more courageous and assertive while playing games that require communication between teammates.

“I think it’s a good message, especially with all of the young girls out there that are playing VALORANT. The game has a very young audience, and I want them to understand that as toxic as it gets, there are also really good people in the game, too.”

“There have been a lot of girls who’ve told me things like “You’ve inspired me to stand up for myself. You’ve inspired me to not take anyone’s shit and to speak up when I see something that I'm not happy with,” and I’m like, “Good! That’s good! That’s the way it should be. We shouldn’t be scared to express our feelings.”

The journey into content creation has given Tiffae opportunities to reflect and come to the understanding that being true to yourself and just being kind overall is the best piece of advice for anyone looking to pursue a career in streaming. As someone who typically plays casual games, learning about Tiffae and watching her content gave me a newfound love for competitive gaming. Who knows—maybe I’ll even pick up VALORANT one day.

For her, being a content creator isn’t just about being the best at the games she’s playing - at the end of the day, Tiffae enjoys what she’s doing. In her mind, it’s all about bringing joy to people and spreading the message to be nice to other people.

“Ever since I started streaming and creating videos, so many people have told me that my videos make them smile or that my videos make their day. That’s what I strive for—making people happy.”