Chrys Weedon | Entertainment Editor
According to the 2016 census, Monmouth’s population is about 10,000 people. The Girls Play Youtube channel’s subscriber count currently sits at about 246,000, which is 24 times more people than the population of Monmouth.
Girls Play is a channel that has been building a following for six years. The group also has a considerable following on Twitch, a streaming channel where viewers can interact live with streamers. Many women have joined and left the channel over the years, but the current team is about 10 people. One of the original members, Larson, was working at Target and attending Western when the channel was born.
“One of my friends realized ‘hey, there’s no girls in this platform, and especially a group. How cool would it be if we could get a group of girls in this niche that’s starting to grow and see what we could do with it?’” said Larson.
The channel started in a bedroom, and in the beginning it was just a hobby. Larson commented that for the first four years, she was only recreationally making videos while also working and going to school. But as their following grew, it became a full time job.
“I’ve only been full time two-years with this,” Larson commented, “it was very hard. Even though we look big and professional now, it’s still a struggle and I don’t think a lot of people ever realize that the struggle at the beginning is real.”
Natalie Doerfler, a junior theater major at Western, joined the channel about a year ago.
“Now people are recognizing Youtube and Twitch as actual jobs and you get paid to do them,” Doerfler said.
Although maintaining the channel takes a lot of work, Natalie enjoys being able to do something she loves.
“It’s become about just hanging out with friends on a Youtube channel and on Twitch, and just being able to play video games,” commented Doerfler.
The Girls Play channel has videos on a diverse group of video games.
“We’re… variety, which was originally why we liked the idea of the girl group,” said Larson, “because you have so many different personalities, whereas a lot of channels especially are very solo focused.”
Specific challenges come along with being a group of women online in a Youtube genre that is dominated by men.
“There are gonna be the men who come into chat and talk about how much makeup you’re wearing and how distracting it is,” said Doerfler, “and then you’ll have another guy come into maybe a different stream where you’re wearing a little bit less makeup and they’ll judge you for how little makeup you’re wearing.” But, in the end, the girls say that the community they’ve built is worth everything.
“We are completely relying on the community to keep (the channel) going,” Larson said.
Doerfler said the most important thing about the channel to her was to engage with other women within the gaming community.
“I think it’s important to show men that, hey, this is happening and it’s okay for you to enjoy this as well,” said Doerfler. “I just want people to see that women are having fun with video games just as much as men.”
Contact the author at howlentertainment@wou.edu
Video courtesy of Chrys Weedon
Photo courtesy of Paul F. Davis
