Retro game streamer AshSaidHi built a lively community out of nostalgia

Surrounded by a large, colorful waterfall of cuddly toys – much of it with a Nintendo theme – and an impressive collection of retro games, Ash goes live on Twitch five days a week. She’s played everything from Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion at Sierra Entertainment Quest for glory, focused on games that evoke a sense of nostalgia. The only thing that stays the same every stream is the way Ash ends them, with a message to her viewers: “Don’t forget to tell your friends that Ash said hi!”

When Ash, who goes by the online name AshSaidHi, first envisioned her Twitch channel, she started with the name. “I knew I had to have a slogan or a call to action,” she told Polygon. “That’s where the name AshSaidHi comes from, because I wanted it to be like this: Oh, that friend, they told me to say hi. It kind of sticks in your brain.”

Since Ash started her Twitch channel in 2019, she has worked over the years to build a community and a business that aligns with her values ​​– a place where she could find a work-life balance that her previous career didn’t make possible, and a community of the support Twitch can provide.

“People go to Twitch to connect about the things they love and find other people interested in the things they love,” Ash said. “This is how I built an interesting community.”

Ahead of TwitchCon 2023 in Las Vegas, Polygon spoke with Ash about how she created her own space on Twitch.

(Ed. remark: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

Polygon: First of all, I want to let you know that I love the collection in the background.

AshSaid Hello: Thank you! That’s years and years of work. My parents introduced me to video games at a very young age. Even my mom still plays video games. I texted her the other day and said, “Did you download? Lies from P?” and she said, ‘Yes, but I really like it Lords of the fallen.” And I thought, “What?”

She’s a big Soulsborne, like Elden Ring, player. She just bought a PS5 and said, “When are you getting a PS5?” I was like, “Mom, I play retro games on Twitch. OK?”

I know you started your Twitch channel in 2019. What prompted you to start streaming?

I worked in an industry where I had no work-life balance. And after I left it, I thought: Oh, I want to start creating content. And I ended up in a different industry. It gave me time to create content. So I was like, I think I’ll start on Twitch. I have a degree in advertising. The first thing I wanted to do was create a concept for my channel. And I knew I had to have a tagline or a call to action. So that’s where the name AshSaidHi comes from, because I wanted it to be like this: Oh, that friend, they told me to say hi. It kind of sticks in your brain. And so it’s like, “Oh, don’t forget to tell your friends that Ash said hi.” This is how I always wanted to end my videos.

I started further Tetris 99 And Breath of the wild. Those were the first games I broadcast on Twitch. But I have a big backlog of video games. Why don’t I start with retro games? And so it really snowballed. I got involved in retro games and the community was great. They taught me the tricks of the trade, I met many friends, friends that I still have to this day. It has changed my life for the better in so many ways.

I really enjoy being a creator on Twitch. The magic is in the sense of community you get when you meet people and they share a love for the same things. I met people who were into Amiga 500 gaming, and Commodore and NES and Super Nintendo and all that stuff. I knew I had found my people.

Do you stream full time?

That’s what I mainly spend my time on. It’s always a funny question because when people say “streaming full-time on Twitch,” they think it means eight hours a day, five days a week. But I guess it means I focus all my attention on it. I do a lot of sponsorship work and a lot of offline work for my channel. So technically yes.

How long did it take you to get to the point where you could dedicate that time to Twitch and the company behind it?

I started in 2019 and became a Twitch Partner in November 2020. And I thought: Okay, wait a minute, people really like what I’m doing here. I have an engaging community, I try to never miss a message in chat – I literally chat on three or four screens.

Once I clicked Partner, I discovered the Twitch Ambassador program because I saw someone with a check and clicked on it. I applied and talked about all the skills I had learned. And I talked about why I am passionate about what I do. They called me back a few months later and said, “We want to invite you to the program.”

I was announced in March 2021 and at the time they also had a billboard in Times Square. I’m originally from New York, but I no longer live there. They put my picture on that billboard. And at that moment it kind of gave me a feeling that there is credibility in what I do, which is very important to me. I flew back to New York from where I live, and I told my mom and she freaked out. It was such a surreal moment. For me, in my hometown – the crossroads of the world – here is a photo of me. Then it snowballed from there. I knew I wanted to take it seriously.

One of the things I do to support my business is sponsored broadcasting. Because of my professional background and the way I communicate, I try to build good relationships with developers or marketing people. I make sure I do my due diligence, am on time, attentive in the moment and professional. When I am called upon, I am very proud of what I do. I knew things were getting serious when people started paying me to play video games.

I love that this gives me the freedom to be able to travel to things like TwitchCon. And it allows me to spend time with my mom, or just take time to relax, like I can have that work-life balance and not have to request this time off or things like that. And my mother is really proud of me. When I talk about it with my family members, they are always so happy with the things I do.

It’s cool to hear you talk about work-life balance because sometimes I think when you hear about people doing Twitch, it can mean like 12 hours of streams. It’s nice that you can find a balance.

That’s the key, right? I can’t do my best if I don’t take care of myself. I understand why that’s the mentality of constantly streaming, like sometimes if you’re not live you can’t be found. That’s the riddle. But I feel like if you put your time and effort into things like: I’m going to start writing a littleor I’m going to make short videos to post on social media so people can get an idea of ​​who I am. Even when I’m not broadcasting, people can find AshSaidHi. When I wasn’t live, those things helped me bridge the gaps.

What have you learned since you started streaming about creating that engaging community you mentioned earlier?

I have learned to be authentically myself: to be present in the moment. I always tell people this when they meet me in person, that you meet the Ash you see on camera. I always talk about my mom and my dad and how they got me into video games. I feel like I’m sharing the best parts of myself: what I grew up with.

I talk about food all the time on my channel. If you meet me, I know all the places in New York where you can eat good food, you know what I mean? Like, that’s a big part of who I am. I love Star Trek, I love Nintendo, I love drawing, I love all that stuff. And I like to share those things with people. Being excited about the things we love… I think that’s the key: if you can share the things about yourself, you can connect with people.

I think that’s also the magic of Twitch: connecting with people. For me it is first and foremost a people platform. We go on there, we play video games – whether it’s playing video games or cooking, exercising, ASMR, chatting or whatever it is on Twitch. People go there to connect with people. People go to Twitch to connect about the things they love and to find other people interested in the things they love. This is how I have built an interesting community.

What should people know about your career as a streamer, or about Twitch itself?

I would like to share the power of the community on Twitch. There’s the Twitch Women’s Guild, which is incredible because not only does it connect women and empower women to be who they are on Twitch, but it’s also a place where we encourage each other. It’s a safe space for us to talk about the things that impact our daily lives as broadcasters.

I did a Creator Camp with some women from that group and it was incredible. And I also did a show called Streamer strategies. I try to do a show once a month where we talk about different strategies that you might be thinking about for streaming. The first one I did was generate creative income. But the next thing I did was collaborate. I feel like there are a lot of wonderful opportunities that come from being able to connect with other people in this way. And it’s such a great program. It’s one of the best things Twitch has created because it gives us the space to learn. And it gives us space to talk about our experiences. They also give us many tools to help us expand our skills.

Especially for women, black people, people of color, things like that reinforce the fact that we belong in this space. And I think it’s so important to inspire people who feel like they don’t know if they belong, right? Because we see so much of that. I am very grateful for all the opportunities I have been given. I just want to make sure that people know how great these kinds of tools and resources are, because without things like that you wonder whether or not you can do it.

How many times have you been working on something and people say, “Oh, you can really do it?” They doubt your intelligence, or they say, “You were able to get by just because of certain qualities.” But no, there are so many hardworking individuals who get a place because of things like that. I just love that space in front of us.