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Home Interview Why it’s okay to learn as you go: An interview with PotasticP
 * Interview


WHY IT’S OKAY TO LEARN AS YOU GO: AN INTERVIEW WITH POTASTICP

By
Nicole LaJeunesse
-
June 3, 2024

Four years ago, Jeannie, known as PotasticP on Twitch, was on her way to
becoming a doctor. One gap year, a pandemic and a detour onto Twitch later,
Jeannie is a full-time content creator with a dream job she never knew she
wanted.

We had the pleasure of talking with Jeannie to learn more about how she got
started, what she’s learned along the way and what she has planned for the
future.



potasticpyt
Subscribers: 52K
Uploads: 21
Video views: 583,235
Content type: Games
User created: Feb 24th, 2024




THE BIG PIVOT

Back in 2020, Jeannie’s boyfriend, Henry, already has a substantial following on
his YouTube channel, MxRPlays. “I was doing, like, YouTube videos with him on my
off time,” Jeannie recalls. As it happened, she was about to get a lot more
off-time as she entered a gap year in her progression to medical school. That
was around the same time the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

“During that gap year,” says Jeannie, “my close friend — she was like, ‘Hey,
since you’re not doing anything, why don’t you try streaming on Twitch?’” This
friend convinced Jeannie that her personality was especially well-suited to
Twitch, so she was willing to give it a shot.

Already accepted to medical school, Jeannie genuinely believed that the end of
her gap year would mark the end of her nascent Twitch career. At first, her
streams were nothing more than experiments to kill time.



From the beginning, though, Jeannie got overwhelming support from her existing
fans from MxRPlays: “That initial turnout … and people who were saying, like,
‘Oh my gosh, I’m so excited that you’re streaming’ and like, ‘because you’re
streaming and I tuned into the stream, my day got a whole lot better’ … I was
like, ‘oh, this is pretty awesome.’”

Looking back, Jeannie says this is exactly what she was chasing when deciding to
become a doctor. “I wanted to be of some help to people,” Jeannie tells us. “But
then I found there’s like this other avenue.”

In the end, what was supposed to be a single gap year turned into a pivotal
moment. Jeannie made the decision: “Ever since that pivot, like, yep, this is
now my full-time job,” Jeannie says, assuredly, adding, “And I hope that I
continue to do it for many, many more years to come.”




LETTING GO OF SUNK COSTS

“I was really terrified,” Jeannie admits, thinking back to that period of
transition. “I had invested basically, like my entire college life. And before
that, like, so many years into saying, like, ‘Oh, I’m going into medicine.’”

Jeannie wasn’t sure how the people around her would react to the sudden change
in ambitions, but her fears turned out to be unwarranted. “I was really scared
to tell my friends and family,” she says, “but when I did, they were —
shockingly — very, very supportive.”

Despite what one might expect, Jeannie’s parent turned out to be some of the
most supportive of all: “I think I’m very blessed to have a very loving family.
And so my parents were like, ‘Hey, our number one thing was that you’re happy.
And if you say that this makes you happy, then we’re more than happy.’”



At the same time, Jeannie suspects her parents and others may have had other
motivations for keeping her out of the medical field: “I think a lot of them
were actually pretty happy in that the pivot happened in 2020. That was when
COVID was spiking.” Obviously, it was a particularly risky time to be working in
medicine.


POTASTICP TODAY



Jeannie describes her content as “all over the place.” Category-wise, PotasticP
is a variety Twitch streamer. “I do cooking, I do gaming and I do IRL streams,”
Jeannie explains. She says she chooses what to stream based mostly on her own
self-improvement goals. Jeannie is always up for a new challenge, especially one
she can share with her community. “I would say it’s variety with Jeanie trying
to learn and improve on things,” she concludes.

“For me, I’ve been very, very blessed with having a community that at this point
they’re very like, ‘Oh, anything you do is fun for us.’” Jeannie does take
audience suggestions through the PotasticP Discord server. However, she
emphasizes that she has to care about the topic to include it on stream. “If
it’s something you don’t really care about, but then let’s say your audience
super cares about … because your heart’s not really into it, then people who are
watching, they’re going to kind of know,” Jeannie explains. This just leads to
disappointment all around — not the experience you want to cultivate on Twitch.



When asked why she chose Twitch over other platforms, Jeannie points to one key
factor: interactivity. For Jeannie, interactivity is crucial and the live
interaction on Twitch is hard to beat. As for other social media platforms like
X and Instagram, they’re more or less an afterthought: “When I think of what I
can do, it’s always stream-focused first.” It all comes down to the interactions
with Chat.

“For me, the key part is I want to keep feeling like there’s someone there,”
Jeannie reflects. “A lot of the things I do, it gets enhanced if I know that
there’s people there, that it’s either making them laugh or it’s getting them
engaged.”


HOW POTASTICP KEEPS IT GOING

For Jeannie and Henry, a lot of their income comes from Henry’s channel,
MxRPlays. It’s been around longer and has a bigger following. It also serves as
a driver for new PotasticP viewers.



“I do know a huge portion of my current Twitch audience are people who watch
those YouTube videos,” Jeannie tells us. “In terms of discoverability, Twitch is
not very good … getting new people to come in and watch. I definitely think
YouTube is where you get the newer viewers — and just a lot more viewers.”
Comparing viewership on Twitch versus YouTube, it’s easy to see that YouTube
gives creators better reach and discoverability. As a result, Jeannie says it’s
critical to have a presence on YouTube to accelerate growth on Twitch.


THE SETUP

In terms of hardware, Jeannie runs a dual-PC setup — one for gaming and one just
for streaming. Beyond that, her gear includes a camera, some lights and a good
microphone. “I know some people rock the [Elgato] Stream Deck and all that
stuff,” Jeannie says, “but I’m just like, ‘it’s okay, I’ll just push buttons on
my keyboard. That’s fine enough for me.’”

There are only a few gadgets in Jeannie’s setup, and her microphone is one of
the essentials. “I think mic is very important as a lot of times people won’t
even be watching,” Jeannie points out. “They just play it in the background. And
if your mic isn’t very nice … I think it [makes] people tend to click off more.”



Jeannie sets up and runs her own streams, but she does have a YouTube manager
who handles all the editing and promotion for the PotasticP YouTube channel,
“which is really awesome,” Jeannie says, “because then I just need to handle the
streaming side.”

As for the stream: “It’s just me, and I kind of like doing that because my
stream appreciates, for some reason, like the fact that I’m doing this all by
myself … my Chat is surprisingly very entertained to see how I try and figure it
out live and how I try to fix it.” For advice, Jeannie turns to her friends in
the streaming world along with online guides.


LONG-TERM GOALS

When asked about her long-term goals for the PotasticP channel, Jeannie’s answer
was simple: “Keep doing this forever.” She says that as long as PotasticP
viewers get value out of her stream, she’ll keep going live. Other than that,
Jeannie just wants to keep improving, both as a streamer and as a person.



Luckily, those goals seem to go hand in hand. Jeanie gives an example: “I’ve
been doing cooking streams and that mainly is because I was horrible at cooking.
Like, I didn’t know how to boil an egg, almost, back then. But, now that I’ve
been doing cooking for like four years, I’ve actually improved on it quite a bit
… I want to keep gaining skills in that manner and keep improving on stream and
that way, and using stream as kind of like an avenue to document my
improvements.”

Jeannie admits that this kind of learning in public isn’t always easy. “I can
understand people who are like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to document [this] because I
feel very vulnerable,’” Jeannie says, “but I think it’s actually a lot more
friendly.” She explains that leaning into the fact that you are a beginner
practicing a skill can be extremely beneficial. ”It’s more of a comedic thing,”
Jeannie observes. “They tend to give more advice and be helpful and be
encouraging rather than demeaning.” She also emphasizes the fun of learning in
community: “Let’s say you’re just doing it all by yourself. All you have is you,
yourself — you don’t have any of that feedback or advice.”


YOUTUBE RESTART

More immediate goals include reaching 100K YouTube subscribers on her new
YouTube channel, potasticpyt. It’s a relaunch, and you can learn more about the
unfortunate circumstances here. Aside from having a home for her stream clips, a
YouTube channel will also give Jeannie space to try out some different types of
content that might not work as well in a livestream context. “I do have some
ideas — let’s say, like a room tour or there are some like challenges that I
want to try out — but it would be kind of difficult to do on stream.”




FINAL ADVICE

“If I went back to 2020 Jeannie, I think I would tell her, ‘Don’t worry too much
about the numbers.’” Jeannie goes on to explain that it’s essential not to let
shifts in viewership dictate what you stream. She reminds us that you will
always have a core viewership that keeps coming back for your streams. You can
build your audience on that foundation.

“I think it’s more important to focus on the content.” To Jeannie, that means
focusing on what she finds interesting first and foremost. “When I first
started, I kept switching games … I never finished one because I’d be like, ‘Oh,
wait, … maybe they’re getting bored.’ Then I just switch and I switch again.”
Eventually, Jeannie realized this pattern meant she never got fully invested in
a game — and it showed in her streams. She decided to switch it up and stick to
games and activities she found engaging. “I find the most joy is if it’s
something that you’ve been super passionate about or something that you’ve
always wanted to learn more or improve on and share. And if you start off with
that and focus on that … I think people will get magnetized towards it.”

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Nicole LaJeunesse
Nicole LaJeunesse is a professional writer and a curious person who loves to
unpack stories on anything from music, to movies, to gaming and beyond.




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