 What's up, guys? It's S-Van here. I'm making this video, and this is something that I thought maybe I should tweet about. Maybe put up a Facebook post about. But I was literally speechless. I didn't think words. I didn't think text and a tweet could really do justice to how I feel about this and what this really means to me. So I thought a video would have to suffice. But I just hit 1,000 subs. A few days ago, I hit 1,000 subs on Twitch. And that is a really, really, really big deal. And I kind of want to do a little bit more of a sit-down, real talk type of video to talk to you guys about it and let you guys know how I feel and kind of how this whole thing kind of happened. The channel has grown quite a bit since the beginning. And not everybody really knows the whole story on where I've been, where I'm at, where it was. So I kind of want to start with that. I never really thought that I was going to be a streamer. I never thought that I was going to be a streamer. I never thought I was even going to play wow again, honestly. I never thought I was going to play wow again. I thought that I was going to be a football coach. High school, college, played a little bit of football. And whenever I got to college, I got hurt and I couldn't play. So I didn't do anything for a little bit. And then I got back involved when one of the new coaching staff came in. And I worked with that staff for maybe 12 to 16 hours a day for about two years straight as a student. And I was severely underpaid for what I was doing. But it was kind of under the stipulation that, hey, you're going to have a full-time job. You'll be good. Don't worry about it. We'll get you covered. But what happens a week before graduation is that stuff kind of falls through. Things don't work out. And I'm told that it looks like they're not going to be able to make a position for me when I graduate. So here I am a week out from graduation. No work. I was injured. I had some injuries. And so you guys have heard about my back injuries in the past, had to get some surgery. And I didn't know what I was going to do. And I heard about Elysium. It was the first time I heard about Elysium. I could play vanilla a while again. And I was like, OK, well, I might frickin' screw around on there for a little bit, make some videos just to kind of stay fresh while recovering from an injury. So I make some videos. And over the course of the next about three months, three and a half, four months, I decide to start streaming. And I remember I peaked at about 50 people on my first-ever stream. And this was back on YouTube. And people, they see this vanilla wrap palette in. I had been playing for a lot of years. And it wasn't like a longtime private server player or anything like that. But I just happened to retain a lot of my knowledge, a lot of what I knew about red and what I knew about paladins from back in the day. And I was performing pretty well. So people are interested in what I see, like I said, about 50 people on my first-ever live stream. And my stream ends up growing to the point where there's like 500 or 600 people watching a stream. This is after the classic announcement. And this is on YouTube. This is some vanilla wrap palette, right? Getting 500 or 600 viewers. And I got to the point where I thought I was approaching full-time, where I was like, you know what? This might be a legitimate thing for me in the future. This might be something that I can really do. And right when I think that, hey, like this is starting to pay off, this is starting to work, I get banned. So I get banned as a DMCA copyright ban. I got copy-striked for streaming vanilla and a lot of private server, it's, yeah, it's illegal. So like, yeah, I got banned for streaming it. Over the course of the next two months, I kind of farted around. I didn't really do anything. I didn't know what I was gonna do. Do I wanna make videos? Can I do this? Can I do that? I didn't even know what I could do, right? In that time, I had actually made friends with McConnell and Asmongold. And we used to play PUBG like every night. Every night we used to play PUBG. And one night we were talking, and I was telling them that I was kind of considering going back to YouTube after I got unbanned because I couldn't stream vanilla anymore. And they basically sat me down and told me just to keep grinding, even though my viewership was basically like a fraction of what it was on YouTube. Like I was getting no viewers compared to the 500 plus that I was getting on YouTube. And, you know, they just told me like, hey, like you gotta keep grinding. Like, you know, you'll get there, you'll be fine. And not to put words in his mouth, but that night, Asmongold actually told me that he thinks that myself and a few others could actually be some of the fastest growing streamers in their section in 2018, this year. And Asmongold's a lot like me where he's not really one to like pander. He doesn't like to like blow smoke up people's butt just to like make them feel good or whatever. But despite that, I thought he was just wrong. Like I thought there was certainly no way, not for me, not without classic. There was no way that I was gonna, I was really gonna be able to take off as a streamer without my game, you know, without a game. So I just, you know, not about other people, but about me, I just thought he was flat out wrong. And I don't know, you know, I went from not making really much money for my first few months of streaming. I didn't even have like a sub button or like a, I didn't have a sub button until like right before I got banned or sponsored button on YouTube. I didn't have, I didn't have a super chat button. I didn't have PayPal donations or anything set up for a long time. So I went from really not making much, if at all, like any money from streaming the first few months to almost being on the brink of full time for about a month, a month and a half and you know, right before my DMCA ban for streaming vanilla private server. And I go from that where I think I'm gonna get there. I think I'm this close to being like, you know what I can say I'm full time to all of a sudden losing my stream and basically just not making any money for the next four to five months, making very little money for the next four to five months so much so that I ended up here where I'm shooting this video at 3 a.m. on a Monday night back at the full ball stadium. So around project 80 time, I was having a lot of trouble making ends meet and I wasn't making much money like I said, I just gotten denied Twitch partnership. So that was a real, real shot in the nads to me because they've updated the affiliate agreement since but being an affiliate versus being a partner is a big deal. And I was just in a real bad spot. So much so that the new staff, this is now the third staff here at SMU heard about what I did with the old staff and they basically contacted me about coming back, coming back and helping out with football practice. And they said they couldn't really offer me much as far as like a full-time job or anything like that goes. But it was basically like an opportunity, right? It was an opportunity for me to help make ends meet and I kind of had to take it. I didn't really, I couldn't say no, but I couldn't say no to it because I thought there may be a point where I basically, I'd have to bow out of streaming to be able to pay for my expenses, to be able to take care of myself. Despite being in such a bad spot and kind of preparing a backup plan, right? Just in case things like hit the fan. I listened to McConnell, I listened to Asim Gold and I just kept grinding, just kept chopping away. And it really was not easy but people started to take notice of me and my channel on Twitch. And they saw how serious I was. They saw that I wanted to stream. I was serious about streaming. It's just that I was growing slowly, right? I didn't really have a game, right? My main game is vanilla WoW, it's classic WoW and I can't even play my game. Like I don't have like, okay, so trying to grow a stream or like a channel on like, you're streaming games, the gaming platform and without having like a game, it doesn't really make much sense. But you know, I'm playing quite a bit of retail nowadays. It's like, you know, at least half the time, if not more, I'm playing retail now. I play other stuff too, but that's because people that are the most interested in classic and what I have to offer to provide knowledge wise and share my experience with, the people that are most interested in classic are the same people watching streams in the WoW section. So, you know, I do stream other games as well, like I said, and I'm gonna continue to do that because I don't think that I have that opportunity when classic comes. It's just kind of going with that growth, kind of keep pushing that, kind of keep chopping away, just like I said. At the beginning of this last month, I went to DreamHack in Austin. I got to go to DreamHack in Austin. And I remember showing up to Austin, I went to Austin with 8,700 followers and about 400 subs, 8,700 followers and about 400 subs on Twitch, which are, I mean, just fine numbers, honestly, that's just fine numbers. I'd been grinding, I'd been chopping away and I had been growing my channel at a slow but steady rate. Not really even that slow, to be honest. Not really even that slow, but at a steady rate, it just wasn't like, it wasn't there. It wasn't where I was at YouTube yet. And I was finally getting the point of feeling on the brink of being full-time again, which I started getting that back after like six, maybe seven months since my band. Trying to get that feeling in where it's like, hey, I can get there, I can be full-time. And sorry, got distracted. But yeah, since then, my channel has absolutely exploded. The outpouring of support I've gotten from viewers, from other streamers, just from the Twitch community in general, has completely blown my mind in about two and a half weeks. It's been about two and a half weeks since I came back from Austin. And in that time, I've gotten partnered. I've been on allcraft. At the time of this video, I'm just under 1,500 followers, excuse me, 15,000 followers on Twitch. So I've almost doubled in almost three weeks, right? And like I said, at the beginning of the video, I'm over 1,000 subscribers. I never, never, never, never in a million years thought that this was gonna happen before my classic. I certainly did not think this was gonna happen before classic. And yeah, I don't really have a game. Like I said, I don't have my game. And even with that, here we are. I'm averaging 500 to 600 viewers a stream again after eight months since my ban. And I have over 1,000 subs. In the next few months, as a good time to say, so in the next few months, I'm gonna start looking at the things I need to do, the things that are necessary to be able to move. I wanna move down to Austin, focus on content creation and streaming 100%. That's gonna mean getting a car. That's gonna mean figuring out a housing situation. That's gonna mean, I mean, just whatever, right? Whatever I need to do to get that figured out and within the next few months, kind of save up enough money to be able to take care of what I need to take up here at home and then move down to Austin. Man, one thing's for sure, right? So, like I said earlier, I'm not big on trying to pander to people or anything like that, but this really, this wouldn't be happening without the support of some guys who've really been pushing me, promoting me, giving me opportunity to do the best that I can do. And it'd be kind of ignorant, right? It'd be kind of ignorant to act like these guys haven't had a big impact on me or my channel. So, I just wanna talk real quick. I'm gonna keep it short, I'm gonna try and keep it short. Professor Akali for one. Professor Akali's actually watched my stuff since like the very beginning. Like one of my really, really old videos that I did with Trokova, I remember Professor Akali commenting on it and I think he had like 60 or 70,000 subs at the time. You know, his own channel has grown like, you know, five times the size that it was then. And, you know, he's always had my back. He's always been there to give me advice, be a positive force, make a positive impact on me, and crap, he's nice. Even give me a cash to sleep on. Whenever I go down to visit Austin to do IRL streams with everybody. And speaking of IRL streaming, that leads to Trainwrecks. And, you know, Trainwreck, who was a hundred Andy dude. I didn't have any viewers and he still brought me into his community with cooking streams. It started with his comeback stream that he had after being sick for like almost a month. He had his big comeback stream and you know, eventually other IRLs too. That's been huge for me and it's been huge for my channel. And another thing with Trainwrecks too is like, Train, he is so, he's a guy who's just, he's very, very generous, right? Whether that's with his giveaways or whatever, but even to other streamers, like he's somebody who's very down to earth and willing to help other people out and I benefited from that a lot. He's been a really, really big time and helping me out and helping me grow for sure. Soda Poppin'. Soda Poppin', I actually, Soda Poppin' I actually met, first met on the vanilla server whenever I had like 500 subs on YouTube and there's kind of a funny story with that where basically I told Soda, I didn't know it was Soda Poppin'. Okay, I had no idea it was Soda Poppin'. I told him that I'm a streamer. If he wants to join our guild, he can check out my YouTube channel, he can check out my streams. He's like, oh, I'm a streamer too, right? He's being cheeky and I tell him, I'm like, oh, okay, that's cool. Well, da, da, da. I got dibs on streaming the raids though. So like, at the time, Soda I think had like one and a half million followers on Twitch. So the guy with 500 subs on YouTube told him that he couldn't stream because I'm already streaming, right? I don't know, it's just, it's really funny how that worked out. Now he couldn't stream it anyway because the DMCA and all this stuff, just inherently, it's just really funny. I had no idea this was Soda Poppin' until like a few weeks later. He ends up joining my guild, raids MC with us and after the classic announcement, he actually, he quit for a while after that. And after the classic announcement, he came back and he streamed with me for a few days and he, or maybe it was a couple of days, but then he name dropped me, like I think a couple of times, on Allcraft, which I'm pretty sure to date is the most viewed Allcraft episode so far, which is, you know, they were talking classic after the announcement and he was like, oh yeah, I was on stream with S-Fan, he's a rep paladin, does this thing and this and that and my Discord DMs just exploded, just straight exploded. And I just remember it was like a holy crap, dude. I just got mentioned on Allcraft and I'm a private server memeber, dude. Like what the crap is going on? And he's just been incredibly encouraging, man. I've literally, in person, I've literally been standing there in person and seeing Soda Pop and Vouch for me to other big time streamers. Like, just, that means so much to me. I think somebody's word is one of the most valuable things that you've got and if somebody's willing to, if somebody's willing to use their word to give you favor, that's a really, really big deal to me. That means the world to me. Of course, of course. Stay safe and tips. For so long, like hating on Blizzard and trying to break the rules was kind of the cool thing to do and after doing our due diligence, right, this is after my ban, trying to do our due diligence, spend the time trying to figure out like what we could do, which is nothing. Stay safe and I kind of teamed up and stay safe and I had already been friends for a little bit now and we kind of teamed up to say like, okay, look, this is something we want to make a future for ourselves and if we want to make a future for ourselves, we need to do things the right way and create content for like in order to create content for vanilla wow, like full time, right? Whenever it's finally going to be official and even though we've been private server content creators, you know, it's just like a lot of the people who play on and a lot of the people who even develop private servers, it's just happenstance. Like, there was no other option, there's no one in sight and they're just the only way to do it. So that's where we had been and then all of a sudden that changed when the classic was announced, all of a sudden there wasn't an end in sight. There is going to be a real classic. So then as a content creator, you're stuck and you have to do things the right way in order to do what you really want to do for your future. And I also think that's part of being an adult and part of growing up and it's like, as much as this is a game and we have a lot of fun doing it, it's also, if you want to do something as part of your career, you have to be an adult about it too and that's the thing that's kind of the conclusion that we came to. Tips got into content creation after the classic announcement and he bought into what we wanted to do and he joined us for classic casts which to now has become, it has become the premier classic podcast. It's growing every week and I had a football coach, I had a football coach in high school who he always said, good things happen to people who work hard and do things right. I literally, I haven't written, I've written on a sheet of paper and I think it's in my room somewhere. Good things happen to people who work hard and do things right and I think as long as we can do that, the class cast crew, it looks like things are looking up for all of us and it's been really, really good, really, really, really good for all of us. Of course, and I mentioned both these guys. I mentioned both of these earlier, Asmongold and McConnell. Asmond's been there supporting me, giving me advice, hosting me, promoting me on a streams, pretty much from the moment he realized I was streaming on Twitch. The day I first talked to Asmongold, we were actually in a discord together and it was a discord of a certain other YouTuber who had gotten banned right before I did. And basically came to the conclusion that I was just about the only person, I was just about the only other person speaking in that channel who had any sense about them and I really didn't, I didn't really reach out to Asmongold at all when I started playing retail. I just started playing it and streaming it and doing my own thing, but one day I'm sitting in Dalaran trying to figure out how to play Legion and I run into Asmongold while he's just jumping around on his mouth and I was like, oh, okay, it's Asmongold, I click on him, slash wave, he sees me, he clicks on me and he's like, what the F? N-E-G invites me, he invites me to his guild and here we are, you know, so that was the first time I talked to Asmongold and met him in game and the first time I met McConnell. The first time I met McConnell, kind of similar, I was sitting in a discord by myself and he hops in and asks if I'm the S-Fan that makes like vanilla rat videos and he's like, dude, I'm literally watching one of your streams right now and from day one, dude, from day one he's been shouting me out on his own stream, he'll even go into like other streams that I'm on, like I'll be streaming with train wrecks or whatever and like I'll be on screen and something will happen and people will ask like, who is this? And it's like, he posts my Twitch, he posts my Twitter and he posts my stuff in their chats when I'm on, like just like shilling for me super hard, dude, he's been so big time, so, so big time. Actually, dude, he was on Asmongold's stream the other day and this is the day after I got a thousand subs, this is the day after I got a thousand subs and he mentioned it on stream to Asmongold, and I was like, oh, okay, that's awesome, man, congratulations, because Asmongold didn't know yet and I kind of, I kind of, dude, it hit me in the feels because I look at the chat and the entire chat is just littered, just overrun with S-Fandom Outs, like you can't see a thing other than S-Fandom Outs and just to see like, I don't know, just seeing how supportive everyone is, even in somebody else's stream, I just did not expect that at all and that really put a smile on my face. So other than that, there's one more thing. There's one more thing, one more, actually it's one more group and I don't think I wouldn't be, without this, I wouldn't be here doing this or having my channel grow as much as it has at all because I wouldn't be here without my guild and that's raid three, right? Those of you guys who've been watching for a long time, you guys know all about raid three. You guys remember Nirvani and Kamiko and Debbie and the whole gang and I could talk about everybody that'd be an hour long video. This is, I don't know how long this is, but one guy that I really want to single out, outside of the guild that, I mean, basically trusted me, I was a pug, I was a pug, whenever I joined the guild became a raider, eventually became an officer and eventually was given guild leader and I led a raid, I led the guild and I put my heart and soul into the guild, I put everything I had into it and I remember the day that we basically, we got stuck and we had to disband the guild. We were eight out of nine, eight you 40, I had basically, I had dumped the entire guild bank pretty much into buying consumables for raiders, for pugs, for everybody to try and push the guild as hard as we could but that was at the point where my stream had died. I couldn't stream on YouTube anymore, it was hard to recruit, people were quitting the game, we had a lot of people have real life stuff come up and I remember being there in, dude, I was like, yeah, I mean, I was teary-eyed, I was not happy, I remember when we had to disband the guild, like I was, that's one of the most sad moments that I had felt, which sounds so ridiculous, like okay, your guild disbanded boohoo but like, your guild in Vanilla WoW is like your family and those people in that guild and everything that we accomplished meant so much to me and I mean, I would love to play with so many of those guys again but yeah, just getting the opportunity to lead that guild and for people to trust me, to listen to me and to accomplish as much as we did really, really means a lot to me and if it wasn't for me being in that guild and getting to lead that guild, then my stream wouldn't be anywhere and I'm gonna single one guy out, everybody loves to hate him but to an even greater extent, it's deputy because really deputy and if you guys have seen my video, Vanilla Rat Paladin, number one red DPS, deputy's a guy who doesn't listen to anybody and that can be really good and really bad and I remember whenever I was a pug and he was looking to recruit for Raid 3, Sanctum Raid 3's Molten Core and I'm like, hey, I'm a Rat Paladin, I know what I'm doing, is there any way I could join your MC as a pug? He asks and the guild leader Sanctum says, hell no, you guys can't take a Rat Paladin, it's not his Raid, but he says Raid 3 can't take a Rat Paladin. He's like, sorry, man, the guild leader officers are saying that I can't take you, right? He inspects me, he's got my Lionheart helm, I got my Arcanite Reaper, I had pretty best close to and a few minutes later he's like, you know what dude, like after these guys, we don't have enough people to feel the Raid anyway, like I'd be an idiot to not bring you. So we go in and I decide to record it, I decide to record it, that's not a stream, I decide to record it and I make that video and he's like, man, the whole point of this Raid is to beat this Rat Paladin and all this and he hams it up and I eventually, I get in the guild, right? I get in the guild, I get a G invite and I become a Raider and it's as much crap as I may have had to deal with, with having him as an officer while I was a guild leader. None of this, like period, point blank and a discussion, none of this would have happened if deputy would have followed directions and not invited me to that Raid. So people would ask me all the time, like why is deputy still an officer? I'd be like, you guys, I literally like I, like deputy, I mean, he's the reason why I'm even able to do all this. So that's why like, just like McConnell, deputy's another guy, like I'll always have his back. No matter how much, no matter how much he irritates me. But yeah, so anyways guys, it's like 3.30, how long was this video, Jesus? It's 3.30 AM on a Monday night and I'm sitting here in a football stadium and I could not think of a way to express my gratitude and how much your guys support your views, you know, with donations, bits, subs means to me. And to get a thousand subs before classic has even come out absolutely blows my mind. Just again, I want to say thank you guys so much and I will see you guys on stream.