Our special article series continues with an interview with Snakes On Snakes – a Canadian Minecraft streamer and speedrunner.
Who is Snakes On Snakes?
“Speedrunning is my biggest passion,” Snakes tells us. “My goal for this year is to achieve a sub-20 minute speedrun – I’m currently at 21:42.”
“My proudest achievement from my time in the Minecraft space is when I finally achieved my sub-30 speedrun time after training and trying for almost three years. It was a huge milestone and a tangible achievement of all of my hard work.”
However, Snakes’s content isn’t exclusive to just speedrunning. “I’ve also run the gamut of all things Minecraft from hosting multiple community SMPs, to participating in events, to Bedwars, to modded Minecraft, to being a part of creator SMPs, to just plain old playing,” Snakes says. “I love Minecraft because the possibilities are endless! I also dabble in other content such as IRL streams, art and crafts, Pokemon card unboxing, and occasionally some games other than Minecraft. I am also very proud to have recently joined the Twitch Women’s Guild!”
“I’m working on bringing more variety into my streams, and working more on streaming the things that bring me the most joy, rather than focusing on what I think people want to see. This is the first time in my streaming journey that I do not have a big project planned or in the works, and it is refreshing.”
On being a female speedrunner and streamer
“Being a woman in gaming, I still face negative comments almost every day just about my gender,” Snakes says. “Luckily, the Minecraft community has a huge amount of amazing female creators and is definitely one of the best communities for women in gaming, in my opinion. There is a lot more vitriol towards women in other game communities, and while things have changed a lot in the last ten years, there is still a long way to go.”
“For International Women’s Day one year, I made a collage of all of the woman-specific hate comments I got. There were so many comments that I had too many to include in the collage.”
“Inside the Minecraft speedrunning world, I am definitely inspired by Krystl_,” Snakes says. “She is one of the first incredible female speedrunners that I got to know, learn from, and play with. She is a million times better than me at speedrunning and I hope to one day be as amazing as her!”
“I also really admire so many of my amazing female and non-binary content creator mutuals. To name just a few, I have been inspired by OnyxiLive to do different things on my stream because she has the best original stream ideas and makes it super fun and engaging for the viewer. magatha_undead was actually my first content creator friend and it has been amazing to see our journeys over time. Magatha has the most amazing community and it has inspired me to try to make my community even a fraction as wonderful. Together we launched a community Minecraft server (now defunct) and it was a great project that brought our communities together! Lastly, canngov has inspired me with her creator interviews (some of which I have participated in) on a range of important subjects and making sure that small streamers are having their voices uplifted in this space!”
Snakes’s advice for women who want to get into making content? “My biggest recommendation is to just go for it!” Snakes says. “Don’t care about what other people think and do what makes you happy. Before I started my content creation journey, I had always dreamed of being a YouTuber and I would even record videos, but I never posted them because I was too afraid of being bullied at school. Luckily, nowadays content creation is so normalised and there are so many amazing female creators, that I hope it isn’t as much of a worry for those who are just starting out.”
“I do however feel very strongly about the importance of internet safety especially for women – so please make sure that you, and the people in your community, are not sharing any personal information online whatsoever.”
Snakes stresses the importance of uplifting women who are trying to pave their way in what is still a male-dominated field. “Make sure you support and uplift other female creators with your words and actions! Every bit of effort from women today is paving the way for future young women to have a better experience than we have had.”
If you’d like to stay up to date with Snake’s content, she can be found on Twitch.
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