Streamer Spotlight: Devon Bumpkin

Real name Aden, Twitch streamer Devon Bumpkin began his online career with a YouTube channel focused on building homes in The Sims. He’s now known for his expert builds and creation tips, all delivered with a healthy dose of British humour!

Moving from YouTube to Twitch allowed Aden to focus more on real-time interaction with his community. But outside of online content, he’s a keen gamer with hugely varied taste owing to a lifetime of gaming.

Read on to find out more about his love of The Sims, and why it’s always best to just be yourself…

When and why did you start streaming?

I started in 2017. I started mainly because I was inspired by my community on YouTube. I’ve got a YouTube channel and that was where I first started uploading content and communicating with people from around the world. I remember watching MANvsGAME when Twitch was Justin.tv so that’s quite a few years ago now. I was inspired from his interaction with his community, how he talked to them like friends. That was where my streaming love came from and I decided to give it a go and haven’t really looked back. I did take a bit of a hiatus from Twitch for about 18 months. I was working a full-time job, uploading to YouTube and streaming and it all got a bit too much for me. This last year happened and I couldn’t work and it allowed me to go into full-time content creation from home. So this is my job and I feel so lucky. I only have my community to thank for that.

How has streaming been since coming back from that hiatus?

I feel like the pool has got a lot deeper. I’m noticing so many more streamers with the LGBTQIA+ tag and I love that. Beforehand there were some but even more so now. I love seeing it in the mainstream rather than this back catalogue of people. 

So do you prefer Twitch streaming or YouTube?

I prefer streaming. I love to stream because of the real time interaction with my community. It’s so important to me, it’s the number one thing for me. Whereas with YouTube it allows me a bit more creative freedom with the editing process and what type of content I want to bring up and make my own. 

Where does the name Devon Bumpkin come from?

Well I live in Devon, very near the countryside so I thought Devon Bumpkin sounds perfect. And I always second guess “should I have chosen that name?!” because people are always tempted to say my name’s Devon and my surname’s Bumpkin which would be semi-unfortunate I think! 

What games do you prefer to stream? 

It’s The Sims 4. Main reason being it’s the game I’m known for on my channel. But I do mix it up now and again with shorter story-based games and management games. I’m going to try a bit of Planet Zoo on stream soon and some little world building things. But it is mainly The Sims because that’s where my community comes from, it’s what they like to see on my channel and I’m more than happy to provide that because I haven’t got bored of the game yet and it’s six years out already!

How do you keep interest going and stay inspired to keep playing?

I’m not so much inspired to play the game itself, I’m more inspired to create and build things in the game. That’s my forté and what I love to do. The Sims 4, compared to the previous iterations, is a little bit lacking in depth and personality and I always found that a little bit difficult coming from The Sims 3. It just doesn’t feel as open, it doesn’t feel as if it has as much personality. But with building, it just allows me to be creative in whatever I want to build. So I could never get fed up with building in The Sims.

Where does inspiration for building come from?

Probably my deep love of architecture. I love architecture, I always have, and The Sims allows you to be your own architect. Plus I’ve played The Sims since it was first released back in 2000 and that came from the love of playing SimCity before that. I remember seeing an advert on the TV of a cityscape of SimCity and then the camera zoomed in on this one little house and this one person waving outside, speaking in Simlish, and I thought “what is this?! I need this!”. My dad, who is a huge gamer and where my love for gaming came from, bought it for me for Christmas and I’ve never looked back!

What is it about building/strategy type games that you enjoy?

I think it might be the resource management. I’m a hefty Virgo I like to say, I like to keep things in order. It allows me to stifle that need, without trying to play god too much! I’m not one of these sadistic players that kill off their Sims in pools and fires and whatnot!

What can people expect from your stream?

They can expect a bunch of inclusive, hilarious people that will always make you feel welcome. We lift each other up: if one of us is feeling down you’ll see the community band together and bring that person up. People can freely speak, there is a lot of filth, we’re definitely not a PG community! My community is full of absolute filths as I like to call them! We’ve just got this understanding with one another and it never started that way. I was very much inspired by other The Sims creators in the beginning where I thought I need to keep this PG and that’s what I did on YouTube for a couple of years, and then I started streaming on Twitch and you can’t edit yourself out! So people got to see how much I swear – I’ve got the biggest potty mouth! – how much things annoy me. I’ve done it on YouTube now as well. I thought ‘bugger it, I’m just going to be myself, no filters,’ and it’s only ever done good things for me.

Why is community important to you?

I think people always need a place where they feel they belong. Especially if they’ve got maybe a broken home life or bad family relationships or they’re just lonely. And I think an online community can dispel that and allow people to feel like they belong somewhere. I think that’s so important.

How do you find being an out LGBT streamer? 

The weird thing is, I used to get a lot more negative trolls when I was trying to filter myself and not be my true self. I’m not sure if they think I’m a bit of a sassy bitch?! A nice one, I’m not evil I promise! I think having a little bit of inner confidence, people step back from that and get a little bit scared I imagine? They think maybe this person might give me a bit of lip back. I don’t know if that comes down to sass or something. All in all I’ve had positive experiences, and more so recently in the last couple of years. Even from straight guys – I’ve got comments on YouTube from straight guys saying “I watch your channel with my girlfriend” and I just can’t picture this straight burly guy sat there watching a little gay guy from Devon build in The Sims, it’s absolutely hysterical to be honest!

There’s definitely a message there about being yourself then!

Yes! It really is, just be yourself. I wish I knew that in the beginning. I wish I didn’t put any filters in the beginning because the only thing that has ever done for me has been positive.

So what advice would you give to gaymers wanting to start streaming?

Be yourself! No filters. Don’t care what anybody thinks about you. Do not give a crap about Julie 2,000 miles away in America or somewhere who has something bad to say. You’re never going to meet Julie, it doesn’t matter! As long as you’re being a good person and you’re surrounding yourself with good people, just be yourself!

What’s your main goal as a streamer for the future?

At the minute I’m chasing my 100k subscribers on YouTube and I’m about 2,000 subscribers away. I’ve never been a numbers person, I find that a bit tacky, but for some reason the closer I’ve got to this I’m like “oh my god, I have a need now!” I think creative freedom as well, I’ve got so many ideas I want to try out and see if it’ll work. So this year is going to be all about learning in my new full-time job!

What’s the best thing about being a streamer?

Community, without a doubt. The humour that these people have who come into my streams. I have to stop so much because I’m literally pissing myself with laughter at what these people are saying in my chat. I love seeing them interact together, not just in Twitch chat but in my YouTube comments. I love seeing humans being good humans to each other.

What’s the game that defined your childhood/got you into gaming?

My dad’s a huge gamer so I’ve been gaming since I was about 3 or 4?! I think it has to be Double Dragon 2 on the Atari 2600, main reason being I remember being infatuated with that game, I loved it. Also the first Tomb Raider I remember being floored by the amazing graphics it had, I felt like I was in a proper world. Oblivion was also a massive one for me when I was young. So lots of them!

What games are you looking forward to in 2021?

Oooo there are many. I think it has to be the new Resident Evil. I’m really excited for the new game. People are always shocked at how broad my gaming is outside of content creation, I love all sorts of games. I’ve been looking more into it and I’m really excited for it to come out. I played VII in VR and it was so scary!

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To find out more about Devon Bumpkin, catch him streaming on his Twitch channel.

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Streamer Spotlight is a weekly column from Ed Nightingale about highlighting LGBT+ streamers who are creating communities that are diverse and progressive.

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