How Storymodebae Went From College Student To Twitch Sensation

Briana "Storymodebae" Williams is one of the most popular streamers of color and a new-ish face to the platform. Williams isn't a multi-million dollar streamer like Pokimane but still a considerable success for a rookie. She started from a modest place, too: a mere college student. 

In an interview with The Verge, Williams shared that she started streaming because of inspiration from YouTube Let's Plays. It was about a year before her college graduation and started streaming as just a hobby. "I was like, 'I mean, I like playing video games and I think I can crack a joke on occasion. So maybe I should give this a try,'" she said. She started her channel in January 2018. Her interview with The Verge fell around her third-year anniversary, when she was already a full-time streamer and host. 

Her username "Storymodebae" comes from her love of story-based games. While that seems to be her focus, she does expand into others like "Fortnite" like any variety streamer does. When she spoke with The Verge, she confessed she had a hard time getting into any story-based games at that time. "It's like, the last game I was really excited about was Spider-Man: Miles Morales. And then I thought I was gonna be excited about Cyberpunk. And I wasn't."

Here's how Bri has been faring with her streaming career in recent years and her inspiration to stream.

Williams confessed that 2020 was hard on her on a personal level. She experienced impostor syndrome, depression, and the added baggage of COVID-related worries during an otherwise fruitful year. Business-wise, it was the most profitable year to be a streamer. At this point, she's been going four years strong despite the effects of the pandemic. One of her reasons for staying is the drive to succeed in the gaming space for others like herself.

One of her main missions is to inspire others, especially women. "I want to inspire people that look like me, specifically women that, you know, they can do this too. And there's room for them as well," she told The Verge. "As we know, the gaming industry is a very white male-dominated and, as we saw with everything going on with the PogChamp emotes, people will make it clear that they don't want people of color, specifically Black people in this industry."

Her attitude might be part of the reason for her spot in InStyle's list of bad*ss women that "make the world a better place." She isn't looking for fame, just impact. Her blurb in InStyle's list reveals that she'd like big brands like Fenty and Nike to collaborate and promote female gamers.

She also has plans for her future. Here's what we should expect from Storymodebae going forward.

Williams has a high level of awareness when it comes to keeping her content fresh and her brand's longevity. She has a few tricks up her sleeve, like knowing when to utilize hashtags in her favor and team with others on the same mission as her. As per InStyle, she's a part of the Black Girl Gamers group. After all, effective branding is essential to have as an online personality. 

She also plans on expanding to other social media. Williams told The Verge that she planned on diversifying her output on YouTube and TikTok because of what happened with Mixer. She doesn't want to be stuck with nothing if something were to happen to Twitch. Plus, Twitch might be better for discoverability, but YouTube has its own advantages.

At this time of writing, Williams is still streaming. She's not only a full-time streamer and Twitch Ambassador, but also a host. Some of her most famous appearances include three shows for Twitch: This is Dope, Follow Fridays, and The Weekly. Her follower count is over 32k on Twitch and even higher when including Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.