Streamer Spotlight: EFFYlives
EFFYLives is a professional wrestler, streamer, and now a voice actor in Season 2 of Dead End Paranormal Park, playing Asmodeus.
In our latest Streamer Spotlight, sponsored by Sneak, we got to chat with him about how he got into streaming, wrestling, voice acting, and a whole lot more!
When did you first get into wrestling and what first got you interested in it?
I watched from childhood in my household, mostly southern and 80’s wrestling, but lost a little interest later in high school. After college where my passion for both performance wrestling were reignited by certain friends, I moved to Florida and took a corporate job. I dipped into too many substances and ended up getting sober and needing something to fill the time and use my energy so I started going to wrestling training and fell in love with the performance. Violence, physicality, character work, vaudeville, comedy…wrestling had all of it and I felt more comfortable in wrestling than I had ever before.
How did you get into video games/streaming?
When the pandemic hit, my life as an in-person wrestling performer was on hold. I had to find a new way to connect to my audience and also get back a sense of community in a time where most of us were alone in a house. I started showing wrestling matches I liked on twitch and found lots of my current fans and tons of new wrestling fans were interested.
What is your favorite thing to stream?
Pro Wrestling every Monday night at 8pm EST for 3 hours at least – Hot BF Simulator Dating games are another favorite.
What can people expect from your stream?
Chaos. I’m usually streaming after long weekends of wrestling and people want to hear all the wild stories about the wrestlers we show on the stream. Also, if I’m streaming video games, expect that I may need some assistance as I am terrible at them even though I’ve been playing them my whole life.
Why do you think it’s important to represent kink/leather in your streams?
I don’t want to just be gay, I want to be aggressively gay to force those who still give us trouble to not only “accept” us but be nervous of the consequences if they don’t. Hard kink and the leather scene has been at the core of PRIDE controversies and now is the time to stick to our metaphorical guns and show people that your idea of “perversion” and “too much” is tiring and incorrect.
How has your experience as an out LGBTQ+/QTPOC streamer been?
Finding the safe space for people to come into and be themselves has led lots of new people coming in and feeling more open about themselves. I hope people see our stream as a place of safety and assistance in queer questioning as many of the people visiting the stream have shared experiences. The community support for each other is very cool to see, even when I don’t have all the answers.
What have you learned about yourself through streaming?
I have learned that I wear everything on my sleeve. There is no faking it when you stream live and things happen all the time that require recalibrating and thinking on your toes. I’ve learned that I’m adaptable but I can’t keep things secret very well in a live setting. And I’ve also learned to be patient with myself because sometimes you can’t win against technology no matter how much you think you know.
What do you enjoy the most about streaming?
I can connect with all the people who love EFFY without have to go back to the airport again. I love meeting people in person but this has made me more accessible to those who are home or may not have the opportunity to come to a real live show and see me fight people.
How did you get into voice acting/Cameo?
Cameo came first, with lots of people wanting me to do the typical birthday and pump up speeches. I started getting requests for movie scenes and would bust out these one take tries of famous scenes. I have always been a man of silly voices and I think this came across on my twitch. Hamish Steele, the creator of DEAD END on Netflix, found my stream and told Netflix he’d like to see me audition for the new show. Luckily, I didn’t suck and got the part! I hope to continue with more of this work because as you can imagine it’s way less painful than being dumped on your head in a wrestling ring.
What’s your main goal as a streamer for the future?
I want to keep using streaming as a way to connect to people and give a secondary way to create discussion or ask questions that are harder to do in person. the long form casual fan interaction builds a stronger bond than just a quick picture and hello at a show.
What are you looking forward to most this year?
I was just a part of Dead End Paranormal Park season 2 on Netflix as the demon wrestling champion Asmodeus. I’d like to do more voicing and character work outside of EFFY and I’d like to become the GCW Champion and keep carrying the torch for independent artists in our strange wrestling world. I’m also looking forward to doing more EFFY’s BIG GAY BRUNCH shows because I have seen so much expansion with our talent and audience.
About The Author
