Breakdown

Why one creator switched from YouTube to Twitch

March 27, 2022

SUNDAY STORY

Ryan Higa Pivots Content to Combat Burnout

HigaTV / YouTube

The YouTube vet stopped uploading to his 21-million-subscriber channel two years ago. Now he’s uploading to Twitch. Why did he leave? Let’s start at the beginning.

  • In 2010 Niga Higa became the first channel to reach 3 million subscribers on YouTube.

  • The creators behind the channel, Ryan Higa and Sean Fujiyoshi, were averaging 15 million views on their comedy sketches, reaching as high as 87 million views and posting once every three weeks.

  • Once they hit 5 million subs in 2012, they hired a production team and increased their upload rate, posting more than 30 videos a year.

  • In 2018 Fujiyoshi left the group for unknown reasons and two years later the rest of the group disbanded. Higa continued to upload to the channel himself, averaging 2 million views a week at 21.5 million subscribers.

  • Then, in April 2020, when the channel had 407 uploads and the same 21.5 million subscribers, he stopped cold. 

TL; DR–he got burnt out. After eight years of creating comedy videos with a team, Higa found it hard to continue story ideation, filming, and editing by himself.

He then took a break from comedy and the channel he built with his friends but continued to create elsewhere. In 2020 Higa started a Twitch stream, uploaded clips of it to a separate YouTube channel, and started podcasting.

Today, he’s redefined himself and found a new stride. “I’m enjoying streaming,” Higa said in a recent stream. “The proof is I do it every day and I look forward to it because it’s so different from what I used to do.” 

Our Take

Being a creator comes with the paradox of permission. Social media has made creativity permissionless in terms of who’s allowed to create and what they're allowed to make—which is great as there are fewer gatekeepers to get your ideas out there. But on the flip side of that, there's also no one to give you permission to stop. 

We think it’s best to take a break and find a sustainable workflow, something that you could be comfortable doing for a long period, and create content that evolves as you evolve.

 đź¤ť CREATOR SUPPORT

Publish Press readers share a problem they're facing and creators and Colin & Samir respond with their advice.

Q: What’s something education has to change? And what do you guys think education can learn from creators? 

–H. van Doezum

A: Samir here. I was a pretty bad student. I had a hard time focusing in class, I didn’t really want to do homework, and I got nervous taking tests. It wasn’t until college when I got to pick my classes and play to my strengths that I actually started to progress. As a film major, making movies incentivized me to work harder than writing essays ever did. That experience taught me four things I think great education needs to have:

Entertainment: Creators today are picking up where some of my favorite professors left off. With YouTube and TikTok, I find myself learning things I didn’t even set out to know. 

Relevance: Do lessons react in real-time and turn the culture of the moment into curriculum?

Action: Courses should include prompts to put the curriculum to use. 

Community: Provide a space to connect with others and learn from those who are also taking action on the curriculum. 

–Samir

Facing a creator problem you want help with? Share it here→

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