Pride Month Streamer Spotlight: TaylorRynai on Twitch | Game Rant
As June comes to a close, it’s also the end of Pride Month. Pride is a time to celebrate the LGBTQ community and all their accomplishments, as well as recognizing how much more work there is to be done to help every member of the LGBTQ community. It’s also important to strive to constantly highlight LGBTQ voices not just during June, but all year long. LGBTQ folks are making important contributions to the gaming community all year long, not just during Pride Month.
In an effort to celebrate Pride and highlight LGBTQ voices, Game Rant has conducted a series of interviews with LGBTQ Twitch streamers. The final entry in the Pride Month Streamer Spotlight is TaylorRynai, also known as Taylor, a Twitch streamer who cultivates a garden-inspired community with her part-time streams.
Taylor will be celebrating her one-year Twitch anniversary in August, as she started streaming in mid-August of last year. She decided to start streaming on Twitch to combat the loneliness she felt during the lockdown, especially after watching other streams and feeling their sense of community. She wanted her own community and friends to turn to, and now she’s met some online friends that she talks to on a regular basis.
Taylor’s username is pretty straightforward, as it’s her first and middle name combined. Her brand, however, is garden-themed and brings a sense of calm to her streaming space. It’s not hard to see how much Taylor loves plants, especially because they’re in her Twitter header and surrounded her during the interview.
“My brand is centered around a garden because I'm really into plant life and gardening. They give me a sense of like, I'm putting life back into the Earth because the Earth gives us so much, so I just centered my Twitch around that. Like we're all in a garden, these are my garden friends and we're the Garden Gang and it helps me bring a sense of what my calm is offline into online.”
Taylor loves the Kingdom Hearts franchise but admits that Kingdom Hearts 2 is her favorite of the games released so far. She loves Kingdom Hearts 2 because it’s a “deep and personal story” about facing different darknesses, which is a pretty much universal human experience. Kingdom Hearts 2 also highlights how these issues can be navigated alone or with a group of friends.
As for streaming, Taylor tends to stream The Sims franchise the most, especially The Sims 4. She loves The Sims because it allows her to create her own stories and “soap operas,” especially with how much drama and lore she packs into her Sims’ stories. Taylor works a 9 to 5 job, so The Sims allows her to use her imagination and run wild in a way that she can’t in her everyday life. When asked about The Sims most recent inclusivity efforts, Taylor said:
“One, I think they're wonderful. I think that everyone should be striving to be more inclusive all of the time. I think there are a lot of arguments about how it could have happened a long time ago, and I think those arguments are fair, but I also don't want to take away from the fact that they're happening now. Yeah, maybe they should have happened a long time ago but the fact of the matter is like, my skin tone is better represented in the game now. We can't take away that that is a good thing.”
While Taylor has played The Sims since its first game, she thinks The Sims 2 is the best overall out of the main four entries. However, her two favorite specific iterations of The Sims are Bustin’ Out and The Urbz. Besides playing The Sims on stream, Taylor has recently gotten into Life is Strange 2 as well.
Taylor’s favorite part of being a Twitch streamer is the community she’s created. She couldn’t speak highly enough of those who visit her stream, especially the regulars, and how they never fail to make her laugh and smile. Her community isn’t “super huge,” but she knows that those who do come regularly are people she’d go out and get drinks with.
“They're hilarious and it always brightens my mood to talk to them.”
Taylor is still quite new on Twitch, but she’s still had to deal with some trolls, especially being a Black woman on the platform. She knows she’s built a community that supports Black women, but she’s also had some trolls who are “anti-Black women” come into her chat. When asked about her experience as a Black woman on Twitch, Taylor said:
“I've started using the 'Black' tag, and since I've started using that I've [gotten] a lot more randoms coming in and saying terrible things. It is part of my Black woman experience on Twitch, but I don't want to deter people. People talk in general about how being Black on the internet is really hard, and I agree, being Black in general is kind of hard especially in society. But I feel like when we talk like that it kind of deters people from going after the things they want.”
She wants people to know that they’re always going to come across “people who are terrible,” but that shouldn’t stop anyone from pursuing what it is they want to do. To her, being a Black woman can be difficult in some situations, but in others, it can help her meet “other awesome Black women” who become friends and even teachers.
As for how Taylor deals with trolls, she said she’s good at ignoring them and she’s “really swift with [her] block button.” She notes that it’s also important to her to surround herself with people who believe in her and can help her come back to herself if something shakes her confidence or makes her doubt herself. The most difficult part of being a Twitch streamer, in Taylor’s experience, is wanting to see her numbers move faster than they are.
“One of my biggest battles has been fighting with myself being like, 'Oh you're not good enough to do this, you just need to quit.' Because it's not really about 'being successful,' it's about having a good time, for me anyway.”
Viewers looking for a fun yet relaxing stream can check out TaylorRynai on Twitch as well as YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram. She mainly streams The Sims, but will also venture into other games when the opportunity strikes. For her birthday, she hosted an Animal Crossing party and is planning on doing another similar event soon because it was so much fun. Anyone looking to join the Garden Gang would be welcomed by Taylor and her mods.
Post a Comment