Before she joined the popular streaming service Twitch, freshman Sahana Murthy originally aspired to become a YouTuber. The idea of streaming came to her during quarantine, and she started a YouTube channel in May. 

However, she says it did not get many views and the majority of her subscribers were people she knew, like her friends and family. “I ended it in early October because I was fed up. I was in the middle of editing a video and I was like, ‘I’m done,’” she explains. 

She had planned on starting Twitch later on in her YouTube career, but decided to start it sooner. “I don’t have anything else to do, maybe this will actually be successful,” she recalls telling herself. She was right. Murthy, who primarily makes Fortnite content on Twitch, gained a  following on her streams that eventually led her to get affiliated on the platform. 

To be affiliated on Twitch, a streamer must have an average of five viewers per stream and around 50 followers. The streamer must also stream consecutively for seven days and have at least 30 hours of streaming in a period of 30 days. That proved to be easy for Murthy, as she met those qualifications in December and received her Twitch affiliation on February 23. 

However, not everyone was very supportive of her newfound passion, namely her parents. “They  thought it would interfere with school and that I wouldn’t get an actual part-time job and that I wouldn’t go to college.” It wasn’t until she wrote a persuasive essay about streaming that they “finally caved in,” allowing her to stream.

She adds that her parents also didn’t provide her with the resources she needed to help her achieve her goals. “I am the one who downloaded the software, and ever since I started my YouTube channel, they were pretty unhappy about it.” How was she able to convince her parents to let her stream? “I told them how much money I was making over the course of 3 days, and they were finally a little supportive of it.” 

While she was very excited to get her Twitch affiliation, she says that it hasn’t necessarily helped her grow as a streamer in terms of gaining more followers. The main difference is that she’s getting paid to stream. Currently, Murthy uses an old PC for her streams, but hopes to invest her Twitch earnings in improving her set up and stream quality.

For Murthy, being an affiliated Twitch streamer is a responsibility. On top of streaming, Murthy also juggles maintaining her grades in challenging courses while also being involved with robotics, tennis, and viola lessons. Usually, she starts streaming at 8:30 PM. On weeknights, she’ll stream for an hour, and on weekends, she’ll stream for around five hours. 

Another thing that Murthy has to run on her own? Social media. To promote her streams, she started many social media accounts to let her followers know when she’s about to stream. She has her own Discord server with a bot that automatically alerts people when she’s streaming, and occasionally, she’ll host giveaways on her Instagram to win prizes such as gift cards. 

Despite the setbacks she’s faced along the way, Murthy says that her favorite part about streaming is interacting with her community. “You just make so many friends, especially if they like playing games while streaming, so that’s pretty fun.” 

You can check out Murthy’s content by visiting her Twitch at twitch.tv/loudgir1 and her 

Linktree at linktr.ee/loudgir1