A Crow's Calling: Building a Career through Community

A calming purple glow lights the back wall of the closet-sized studio. The slim wooden desk holds two monitors and the PC on one side of the room, while a fuzzy cat tree takes up the other. The cork board on the back wall is decorated with affirming phrases, fairy lights, and dried lavender.

Sarah Luciak, aka Crow, on the aCuriousCrow twitch channel

Not many people have an office as cozy as the streaming studio of Sarah Luciak, known as Crow on her twitch platform aCuriousCrow. Streaming started gaining traction as a career path back in 2011 with the creation of the platform Twitch. For Luciak, the switch to a more creative field comes from a place of passion. “I mean, I love playing video games.”

The welcoming, bubbly Luciak that you see on stream has the same positive energy behind the scenes. She acknowledges that while the version of her on stream may be a kind of persona, with strong black eyeliner and a bold lipstick to compliment her brand, it’s authentic to who she is. “It’s nice because [the look] brings me confidence. I'm in a room that I cultivated. I'm playing a game, and I'm interacting with people, and I'm actually just generally that happy on streaming.”

For Luciak, building her community is a huge part of why she loves streaming. She has formed friendships with people all over the world and often turns to her community for their input. Their opinions hold powerful weight when deciding what games to play on stream. Analytics also have an important role in daily operations. If too many streamers are playing the same game then there’s too much competition, but if no viewers are watching that title then there won’t be much of an audience at all.

Deciding what to play is just one of many challenges that comes with streaming. It requires constant multi-tasking, monitoring both the technology and live viewers while also playing the game in a way that’s engaging for all, for hours on end. “As chill as it looks, you have to be on and you have to kind of be ready for everything,” Luciak explains.

With a so many factors to learn and very little return on investment in the beginning, it might be hard to understand why someone would take the leap into online streaming in the 2020’s. With approximately 7.2 million active streamers on Twitch, building a following that will contribute regular subscriptions and tips is a slow and sometimes unrewarding process for small channels. “It’s definitely not for the money,” Luciak says. For her, streaming combines her love of performing with the joys she finds in building a community.

And when it comes to pursuing a creative career, her advice could apply to any medium. “I find that a lot of streamers who focus on the income, unless they get really lucky, tend to burn out after a year or two, because it's a grind, and it stops being enjoyable.” She starts up Sims 2, the game for today, with a smile ready for her audience. “If you are streaming for the fun of it, to build community, to de-stress, to show a game or your skills off, then I think the experience is going to feel that much more rewarding.”

And considering how many hours streamers put into their careers both on and off screen, building a sustainable business model is important for longevity of both the brand and the creator’s mental health. As Luciak kindly reminds hopeful streamers, “It is totally okay to take a break from it, and you can always move on to something else if you realize one day that maybe streaming isn’t for you. Honestly, that goes for anything in life.”