Womenize! – Inspiring Stories is our weekly series featuring inspirational individuals from games and tech. For this edition, we collaborated with ESBD – eSport-Bund Deutschland e.V. and talked to Moira (Meeix) K., Esport Shoutcaster & Content Creator. She speaks about her relentless drive for improvement, the unpredictable yet rewarding nature of freelance content creation, and the ongoing risks and challenges of building a sustainable career in esports. Read more about Moira here:
Hi Moira! Looking back over your 10 years on Twitch and in esports, what personal mindset or value has been most essential to your long-term growth and resilience?

There’s one thing I credit partly to my German upbringing and partly to my (very apparent) stubbornness: I always operate on a “it could be better” mindset. We just had a great show? I’m sure there’s still room to improve. One of my videos or streams did really well? I’m already thinking about how to facilitate more growth. I know it sounds a bit exhausting, and sometimes it is, but it also keeps me evolving alongside a scene that never stands still. And to be honest, I think it’s a great approach to life in general. It also leads to me giving a loooot of feedback, which sometimes can be hard especially when working with US companies – but if the product is better in the end I’m very happy to have a few uncomfortable conversations.

What does a typical day look like for you as both a caster and content creator and how do you stay creatively energized while juggling freelance life, prep work, and community engagement?

Hah, that’s a bit of the beauty of my job really – there are no “typical” days. Every day is somewhat novel and I try to take the freedom of being self employed to put certain tasks, like taxes or prep-work on lower energy days to be able to keep up with the more draining days where I stream or cast. I’ve been dabbling in IRL streams recently and it has really helped with doing things that aren’t just sitting or being in the house while still being able to connect with my community. A lot of what I do behind the camera is taxes, book-keeping and researching players, plays and meta as well as answering tons of emails on the daily. I will say that I’m pretty much always “on call” – even on holidays I absolutely cannot leave my emails or my social media alone, which probably isn’t the healthiest but I do try to reduce it to a minimum.

Was there a moment in your career when things “clicked” and you realized you could turn your passion into a profession? What did that moment teach you about taking risks or backing yourself? 
I used to “only” stream and work a normal job. But I was decent at my main-game and hence was asked to cast for the first time. It was for the German Race to World First in WoW and I remember doing it and absolutely loving the experience. I was really eager to do more casting work and it was something that grew slowly with more and more people approaching me to work different events over time. Even today I’m sometimes doubting the risks of it all. Esports sadly is not a stable industry and I wish it was. I would love to have a family and kids one day and with how the industry is looking right now that feels impossible. A part of that is also the lack of care on the side of German politics to care for female entrepreneurs and coverage for pregnancies, but a lot is in “how much can you really afford to say no” before people stop asking you for their shows. I guess the truth of it is, that it’s not a single moment where you have to take a risk, but a daily occurence that continuously tests you if you’re still willing to take that risk again and again.
Thanks for this interview, Moira!

Moira’s links: LinkedIn, Twitch

 

Womenize! – Inspiring Stories Feature by Madeleine Egger