The first exposure that I ever had regarding the online gaming community was back when I was younger. If memory serves me correct, I faintly remember that my brother used to play games on his computer until the dead of the night. “Why’s he willing to get chided by mum just for some games?” was what little me thought but oh how the tables have turned. The old classics that we grew up with such as Super Street Fighter or World of Warcraft has been replaced by new games like Apex Legends, Valorant or even Genshin Impact. People had become more passionate about playing games, so much so that some decided to make a career out of it. An online streamer is one of those, and I’m going to discuss the biography of a soaring sensation of the online gaming community, Tuonto.
Becoming an online figure is not an overnight matter. Before he was known as Tuonto, he was just Jake, enrolling at Portland Community College and living with his best mate, Elly the dog. Not much is known about his private life before becoming a Twitch (an online streaming platform mainly used by gamers) steamer as he intends to keep it confidential and it is understandably so. It was by chance that one day, I came across one of his YouTube videos that intrigues me to watch his twitch streams. I find his demeanour to be very humorous and relatable, so I stayed watching and I was glad I decided to.
It seems like an easy job, being a streamer, I mean, you just have to sit in front of a running camera and play games like usual. What most people took for granted is the amount of criticism streamers or online figures in general face each day. It’s saddening to note that getting criticised is old news for them. “Why do they have to go through this?”, the reasons are ridiculous, to say the least, some were criticised just for being a specific race or gender. Jake was no exception in experiencing these hurtful words, though he doesn’t really show how much it affected him on screen.
Aside from being a Twitch streamer, he is also a YouTube sensation. He began uploading videos on April 13th, 2020 on his channel Tuonto, where his gaming contents is constantly gaining recognition by the community and has reached an astonishing milestone with 1.03 million subscribers. This is a huge leap on his career and the infinite joy it brought was not only felt by Jake alone, his friends and followers, including me rejoiced in his success. On account of the event, he tweeted “I know this would make 10-year-old Jake happy, he always dreamed of it”. From that, we could see that he is committed to fulfil his dreams.
Not only that, but he also has a TikTok account where he broadcasts videos about other content creators, playing the piano and more gaming contents is also noteworthy. He is also an avid user on Twitter and Instagram, these are brilliant ways to promote your influence further on a broader level, so people will not only see him as just an average streamer and to promote the gaming community to others. Apart from that, he also makes collaborations with his friends to gain more attention from people in the community. It’s a thing to look forward to whenever a collaboration is happening, and I believe it is so because of the refreshing feeling it gave seeing people having fun with their friends.
Though it was mentioned that he first started streaming for fun, it has now become his priority and beneficially, a source of income for him. You may wonder “how is that so? Does people literally pay to see him play games?”, it’s not exactly the case. Getting brand deals, partnering with other creators and income from subscriptions are some means of getting compensate for him. From an opiniated point of view, it is a dream come true to have one’s passion as a career as most were forced into doing a job just for the sake of surviving.
But perhaps it could be quite taxing sometimes because other than some extra help from others, all process in producing a video or setting up equipment was done by him alone, added with the criticisms, it could be said that not everything comes easy. However, it is a relief that he will not go through a hard time all by himself as the friends and supporters he made along the way will continue to support him. It is admirable to see how far he has come from a nameless guy streaming games to the Tuonto who has reached an undeniably incredible point in his life, evidenced by the number of followers and supporters he gained, brand partners and events he attended to represent the community. For that, the name Jake or Tuonto is a name everyone should keep in their mind as one of the many faces of the gaming community.
By: Hamsa Kamala binti Zen
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