How gaming changed my life | Shanna Zwart | TEDxHilversum

When her father took his own live, Shanna slipped into a dark place. Struggling to find her way back, she played video games all day, ‘not dealing with the situation’.
But gaming slowly turned things around when she started sharing her gaming sessions with others. Her fan base kept growing; today she is one of the most trending and successful shoutcasters of the Netherlands.

Some people – of a certain generation – might think that gaming is an antisocial event, is T O T A L L Y wrong. For Shannanina gaming was her way out of her depression at the age of 19, in the aftermath of her father’s suicide. She spent two months in bed gaming, ordering in pizza and basically just ‘being’. She was following a streamer [red. someone who has a webcam operating on him/her while gaming] and thought: ‘I can do that’. At first it gave her a reason to wear something else than pyjama’s and put on some make-up. For some time she was only the lonely on the webcam, but one day she spotted her first follower. And then six and then …. the hundred thousands she has now. Her singing during gaming became one of her unique characteristics, at the point where followers now have requests for certain songs. And donate money for her performance as a gamer/singer. On Twitch – a gaming platform – she is hot. She is the hottest female streamer in the Netherlands.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx