offkai recap and being myself
Roughly two weeks ago, I attended OffKai Expo Gen 4, a volunteer-run convention focused on streamers and fans which both celebrates and educates about the subculture, technology, history, and performance art of VTubing. 1 It was the first time I attended OffKai Expo. 2 This post is primarily about how I’ve felt leading up to and after the convention, and how this resulted in my desire to become more authentically myself online. If you’re interested in hearing me talk in detail about the event, I talked about it during my stream on 2025-06-24.
meeting friends
I made a lot of streamer friends and acquaintances over the last few years that I was excited to meet, but I only learned about OffKai shortly after it was held, so I bought a ticket essentially as soon as they were made available. I should have also bought plane tickets at the time, but as it just so happened I ended up having to escape Texas and found myself in the Bay Area anyway. So, the convention was a lot more convenient to attend than I originally expected. It was also surreal to already be in the place all of my friends from all over the world were coming to.
So, I tried to make the most of it and meet as many people as I could. But, honestly, there were times that I felt depressed, lonely, and not part of the group. This is a common thing I struggle with (it’s even had a heavy influence on my username) and I felt this the most early on, leading me to not take advantage of the in-person time as much as I would have liked.
There was one evening that I just dejectedly spent at home by myself, instead of hanging out with everyone who had come for the convention. However, as I got more comfortable with everyone I started to have a lot more fun. I introduced several people to the card game Scout, finding out later that some of them had independently decided to buy a copy themselves since they enjoyed it so much.
I got comfortable enough that I started to ask the people I was meeting more questions about VTubing in general. I had conversations that were different and deeper than the conversations I previously had with them. These conversations, in addition to the talks I saw, made me feel inspired and motivated for streaming in a way that I haven’t ever had before.
You see, over the last year or so, I’ve started to feel like I should start taking streaming more seriously. I’ve been reluctant to put more effort into my stream, because I want to be a game developer and, as I sometimes joke, not a stream overlay developer. However, I really genuinely enjoy streaming a lot and I want to enjoy it more. So, I had been thinking idly on how to make the stream more interesting and entertaining.
development is boring
The only problem is that the Software and Game Development category is… well, boring. Indeed, discussing this with my other peers in the Software and Game Development category, we largely agreed on the following general points: 3
- People who are successful are usually doing one of the following:
- Don’t program and just yap
- Work on something ridiculous (for content)
- Don’t be a successful streamer and be a successful game developer instead.
- We think it’s possible to be successful and also work on things that aren’t just for content, but no one has really figured out how to do this yet
- The bar is pretty low for being entertaining in the software streaming space.
- The streaming space is pretty insular; to get more viewers, I have to draw an audience in from a different platform
And there was another thing that we agreed on that I had also seen other streamers bring up repeatedly during the event: Be yourself. Be authentic. Be who you want to be.
upcoming changes
I no longer consider myself as still being in hiatus like I had previously announced. However, I still don’t plan on streaming regularly for some time as I retool the way I approach streaming. There’s a few things I need to do:
- Make a new overlay that integrates screen capture, chat, and interactive features into a comfy virtual space
- Get a new, hot VTuber model commissioned
- Make a “season opening” to announce my new streaming approach and style 4
- Get all of my streaming hardware back by finding a more stable housing situation (all of my stuff is in storage right now)
I want to do all of this while still keeping the original reason I started streaming regularly — to actually just do gamedev, release games, and honestly share the process. I’ve returned to streaming on occasion, but for the foreseeable future my situation is tenuous enough that I can’t really schedule regular streams.
In general, I plan on being more true and authentic online. Certainly, I have not really tried to be a different person online, but there are parts of me that I’ve kept more hidden.
In particular, I think this change will involve me being more horny on main (my parents will hate this). While this is something I’ve done on occasion, I’ve generally avoided doing this in the past since I felt that it wasn’t relevant to the purpose of sharing my game development process and I’ve worried about how it could affect my ability to find a job. It will take me some time to become more comfortable with this, I think. But I want to do it. I just want to fully and unapologetically be myself online now.
I just want to enjoy being me.
