When Streaming and Content Creation ruins relationships

Ever wondered how the buzz of content creation can shake up the family tree? In our latest heart-to-heart, we share the raw truths about balancing live streams with life's curveballs. As dads and gamers, we've ridden the rollercoaster of time management, feeling the highs of community building and the lows of missed family dinners. We get real about the sacrifices and the necessity of forging pacts with our partners to keep our home lives and streaming schedules in sync.

But let's face it—not all of us will become streaming moguls, and that's okay. We dive into the nitty-gritty, showing that even without the allure of internet fame, involving our families in our digital endeavors can turn potential neglect into a shared adventure, whether through charity streams or cooperative gaming nights. We also reflect on the worth of personal time, and how stepping away from the screen to cherish those close to us can sometimes be the most rewarding play of all.

To cap it off, we embrace the beautiful mess that is parenting in the age of the internet. We swap stories of juggling the joys of fatherhood with the demands of our careers, without letting our passion for gaming and content creation fall by the wayside. For those who've chuckled and nodded along with us, we're extending the invitation to join the banter on our socials. Remember, it's not game over—it's just a pause before the next level.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Stand by, stand by Switching from Human Mode to Dad Mode, initializing Sequence in 3, 2, 1. This is Dad Mode, the podcast where we navigate the chaotic realms of parenting, gaming, content creation, work and hell, just life in general. We're diving into the challenges of raising kids in the digital age, from social media madness to navigating the gaming landscape. We're talking about it all, especially from a dad's perspective. Whether it's conquering the littest game, creating content that's more than just a hobby, or just trying to keep up with the ever-changing tech landscape, we're right there with you. We want to help you navigate this wild journey of parenthood and modern life, from balancing family time to managing your career and still squeezing in some gaming and content creation. It's all about fun, some dad wisdom and a whole lot of dad mode. Now your hosts Bearded Nova and more.

Speaker 2: 1:22

Welcome back. I've got a message here from Sir Winilot and he commented on one about TikTok, saying you know, relationships are getting ruined by streaming. He's had a few people that have all had failed relationships within a month purely because of streaming. This can go towards content creation. It's not just streaming in general, but I thought it was a great topic to talk about.

Speaker 3: 1:47

Yeah, and it's definitely something that I have to experience, sadly, some experience with, and, yeah, it's going to be an interesting one to go get into and I think that anyone listening who is a streamer or a podcaster or a content creator is probably going to pick up on a lot of the same things that we're talking about in terms of why Sir Winilot made that dairy.

Speaker 2: 2:14

I think it's anyone in the content creation, Anyone in content creation with a significant other. You're going to face it.

Speaker 3: 2:25

What's one of the biggest reasons you can think of issues that you have?

Speaker 2: 2:29

Tom, I think it's all about the time. I guess it's that addictive addiction of going live I've got to do this, I've got to do that and just spending hours and hours in front of a computer or a screen doing something and you're ignoring the world around you, which we've talked about heaps in this show about balancing that time. But that's what I think ruins the relationship.

Speaker 3: 2:55

I agree. I agree on both counts. We have talked about time management and awful lot because it's so impactful in dad life, in everything that you're doing, but in terms of streaming, content creation, whatever, I think that you have to invest so much time to do it right. The problem is you're walking along, you're living your life. All of a sudden, you said I want to be a streamer. Then you start getting into it and you realize, oh, I've got to be live three, four days a week. I've got to spend all this time making social medias of all whatever you need to do. All of a sudden you have this gap of time you weren't spending and all of a sudden you filled it up with this thing and you're excited about it because it's fun and you want to do it more. Now, all that free time you had, that you were spending time with your partner, spending time with your kids, doing a little extra at work or whatever, or spending time with your friends, your IRL friends that's gone, that's eaten up and that can damage relationships. Yeah eventually.

Speaker 2: 4:04

I think it's. I'm not going to say that's the only thing that kills the relationships. There's probably a dozen other things, but that could just be in general life, but the majority of it is time. You know, like we said, we've both come to an agreement with our significant others on when we're streaming, what we're doing, how long we're doing it for, et cetera. So that's the harmony in the house. It is because you know I'm not doing that, then I know eventually it's going to bite me in the eye. I reckon within two weeks I would get oh, you're spending way too much time doing this. That's all what you do.

Speaker 2: 4:46

Yeah, and I do remember at one stage, two years ago, I was looking into YouTube and I was trying to do a little bit all at once and I was getting home from work saying hi, jumping on the computer, trying to edit for an hour or two, hop off, do dinner, jump back on the computer. Oh crap, it's nine o'clock, time to hit stream, stream for a bit, finish the stream, edit for a bit, then go to bed, rest and repeat. Yeah, it was this small window of time that I would spend with the family, and even not streaming on the weekends, because I never really streamed on weekends. But when I get to a weekend, okay cool, I'm not working. All right, wake up in the morning, make my coffee, go, sit at the computer. It's time to start editing. Oh crap, I've got an amount of TikToks. It's okay, I've got three hours. Let's try and make half a dozen TikToks.

Speaker 3: 5:39

Yeah, yeah, and that's the life, it's rinse and repeat, it's do all that stuff. If you're taking it casual, then maybe this isn't as impactful to you and your relationships, but when you really want to try to do something, it can be, I think, one of the reasons that, like my wife, got very upset at different points based on the amount of time I was spending doing it. And the reason is you're doing this probably multiple reasons, but you're doing this hobby that you really enjoy and maybe you're having some success or whatever, but they're not part of it, right, so they don't get to experience it with you. And now you're taking time away from them and that doesn't necessarily go over really well.

Speaker 3: 6:28

I remember years ago I was working 90 hundred hours a week at my job. I wasn't required to, I was just that into my job and I loved it. And my wife is like I feel like you're just a roommate at this point. You know, so I was. I was still working. So what she did is she actually went and just would pull a chair into the office where I was and just to hang out while I'm working, right, yeah, and I'm like I'm spending too much time doing this work if my wife has to do that to spend time with me, yeah, and it's the same thing with when you get too into any hobby not streaming content creation, whatever it is I can think of where we both have come from, this sport I'm going to.

Speaker 2: 7:11

You know, it's a simple world, wow, wow, that's it. That in itself, in a nutshell, explains exactly the same type of thing that's ruining relationships.

Speaker 2: 7:23

So you get into that wow factor of 10 years ago, 15, no more than that. 15 years ago we'll say you're going to go rage, you're going to go grind at levels, raid parties, raids are lasting six hours at a time. That ruined, wow, destroyed, so many relationships and then at the same time, you got those weird relationships Not weird, I'm not going to say that Up to you Relationships where they were computed side by side. We're raiding part part as well, like my brother actually was that. Yeah, one of his, really yeah for a partner, for a what to use there. They both used to raid together. That's the time that we're talking about that addiction. It's taken over.

Speaker 3: 8:07

My wife is not a gamer, but she tried doing World of Warcraft when I was in it because to spend some fucking time with me and it was. It was cool. But like I don't know if I would like to side by side with you, because I feel like at that point they're just enabling you and like you're just playing it even more. Yeah, you know what I mean and like now you're only talking in the game, but no, I mean it's, it's. So we're talking about streaming content creation, you know, and it's impacting your relationships, but it could be anything you do in excess where you're not paying attention to, like, the other things you have to do.

Speaker 3: 8:43

We talk about time management on plenty of episodes. You talk about prioritization and things like that and paying attention to what's important in your life, and this is just another way of looking at that of it's. So we always say you need to do it, but maybe we haven't always told you why. Because you can ruin relationships. Do you really want to be? Let's face it, for most people who are listening to this, you're not going to become a millionaire streaming and content, doing content creation right. You're not going to get that level of financial success in your life. Do you want to throw away your real relationships with your, your, your family, your job, whatever? For what you're getting out of this, you have to, like, try to balance things so you're getting the best of both worlds. You're happy because you're doing something you like, but your family is not miserable and ignored.

Speaker 2: 9:37

At the same time though I guess a lot of people don't think about it You're going on a success, like even the big successful ones. That's not in the cruising job. You're still putting in way more hours than you are probably doing in your nine to five. Now you're 40 hours. Maybe you got, say, 50, 60, 60 hours of overtime. No, that is a 24 hour a day, like even with editors and supportive teams. You still got so much work to keep on top of it all.

Speaker 3: 10:08

It looks you, you do and that's that's a great point bearded Once you've, once you've put in your, your, your 200 hours a month trying to make it. Now you're spending 300 hours a month trying to keep it. Yeah, because you're doing even more. And now, like when I was streaming a lot, I had times during the week where that's all that I did. That's all that I did was streaming. That was it. But if I became bigger, you know like a Ludwig or something like that, right, yeah, it's not just those times during the week, it's 20, it's 24. Set some. Some fell behind me, I know you guys in here, but it's 27, right, it's 24, 7 that you're on, because every time you go out in Public, maybe not as a stream mark.

Speaker 3: 10:59

Yeah, you know what I mean. They tell me do anything online, like people are looking at you, watching you and like now it's all encompassing and and that sounds stressful to me yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:14

Yeah, it's, it's in. I Couldn't do it. I'll say that I'm just stress. I like, I like my time, a lot, me time. Yeah, you know you lose up and give up on that. I Think, though, you know, thinking about our ways to avoid this, in getting out of that situation, like if you were getting that, you know you got that time of your heart you need to stop and sit down and talk to him.

Speaker 2: 11:47

If you feel like that relationship is not there anymore, I highly suggest probably you streaming that still in it Go spend some time with him. Go out to dinner it sounds crazy Doing the. You know, got no children. Go. Go have a date night once a week. Go out sushi, or Doesn't have to be somewhere. Great, I just have a basic. Get out of the house. No, I would would help. Yeah, if you got children, well, then You're probably not doing great. If you get your focusing on that and you know it's not just your wife you got to worry about, then yeah, it's how your children see you as well. Yeah, but you need to have that conversation.

Speaker 2: 12:27

You need to try and break that habit. Get in there, have a talk to wife and really understand all part, oh, husband, and understand how they feel, how they feeling with you and your journey, how content creation affects them. Yeah, you know, some Some people like love social media. Other people don't love social media. You know, if you got partner doesn't really love social media, you're looking at it Out of way that they're not gonna understand you. They're not, they're not gonna understand, right, no matter what you throw at it, they're not gonna understand what it means to you. So you Need to find that middle ground.

Speaker 3: 13:11

Yeah it. That's another great point. Very good, my wife isn't. She doesn't love social media. You know she's not a gamer, so she didn't really get all the stuff I was doing and she couldn't get into it right. So if you have a hobby and like this and it's going well and you want to keep doing it more and you don't want to Slow down too much but you don't want to alienate, Maybe try to find some ways to get you know your significant other or your kids. If you are comfortable with that, Get them involved in what you're doing yeah, helping you out or being on stream.

Speaker 2: 13:48

Let's play when some other you think, how many people do?

Speaker 3: 13:51

let's make the thing the family can enjoy.

Speaker 2: 13:53

Yeah, Well, you know how many people do let's plays with their partner on my partner's so played a video game. It's just husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend. Yeah, you know what, two people sitting down the computer, one experience one, not cats going. It seems like fun. I tried it. I tried it but did to like life got in the way, but that's it. That's a. That's a, that's a possibility is to try that. Try the let's place. That's that. My wife think was slightly involved when I did some charity stream and that was purely for self harm. It like harming myself, like get a waxing, waxing and pie in the face and stuff like that. Moment I break that up she's like, oh yeah, I'll come do that.

Speaker 2: 14:37

Yeah, you know that's exciting yeah but you should add it.

Speaker 3: 14:41

You should add a challenge, that where I can kick you in the nuts.

Speaker 2: 14:45

You know what? Someone would have paid that to the moment? Because she she brought.

Speaker 3: 14:50

Wife would have, would have donated.

Speaker 2: 14:51

Yeah, she brought up. Yeah, I'm pit waxing as a joke, of course, just just said the stream started and it was instantly. It was someone's mod at the time Tastic, you know, I was like wolf's mod was actually in my stream and she saw it and went oh yeah, okay, how much do I need to pay to get that happening? I'll make that money. So she was the one that dropped the $50 down to get my armpit wax.

Speaker 3: 15:19

Oh, I still can't believe you did that, oh my god.

Speaker 2: 15:22

Yeah, I know it took it forever to grow back to. Just Look, I was really surprised how long that took. I'm like how this is it? You know, I was confident, I didn't. I didn't do the other one. I was like you know that'll come back. Comes back when we committed to stay in there.

Speaker 3: 15:42

Yep, so so that, like that, that's an option, right, is trying to get them involved. But you know, when you're in my situation, I did try some things and there was no. She just couldn't do it. She just there was nothing that interested her about it, right, and so then it became a decision of Do I want to continue going at the rate I'm going and and damaging relationships which are gonna last a lot longer than whatever career I have? The oh yes, I Chose to slow down.

Speaker 3: 16:17

You know it coincided with me being unhappy about other things than doing this. But, yeah, I chose to slow down and now my wife and I don't argue about this, which was something that we argued about far too more than I would like to admit, you know, and it's not comfortable because, like you're on stream and you're pretending to be all, everything's going great and and blah, blah, blah. But you know, your personal life is not as happy and it's not fun. Could you turn off that? You hit end stream, you know, like now I got a face life, yeah, and it's suck. It can suck.

Speaker 2: 16:52

Yeah, I mean, I know, Coming back, changing from where it was to now like what I was both doing this. Now, you know you stream once a week. I never stream at all. Both of us have commented on how happy our wives are in the state and yeah, I believe enough, it's that old saying happy wife, happy lot. To be honest it's. I'm pretty happy not hearing it like is.

Speaker 2: 17:20

I used to do the stream, you know Monday, monday, wednesday, sunday, monday, wednesday or whatever, and After I've done the stream that night. So you know they go to bed early. You know start stream at 9 o'clock and Then the following night, okay, cool, I'm gonna spend this time on the couch watching TV With my wife and that. But but the phone was in the hand. It still is. It still is to a degree, but it was horrible when I was deep into the content creation period because, cool, I've posted stuff, I gotta check on the comments. What's the comments? Okay, I got a response to that. Oh, no, okay, this video is doing great. I got to check it every 20 minutes to see if the views are going up. Like, yeah it, it spilled it even when I was away from stream. Away from it. It's trying to do the right thing with my partner. I was still ruining it by Still being involved to a degree.

Speaker 3: 18:18

Yeah, yeah, it never stopped. Like it same thing. Like we would do a stream and it'd be saturday. We're gonna go out, do a family thing, go somewhere. And I'm on my phone. I'm like, oh, I gotta post some content. Oh, this is funny, let me record some content. And she's like, what are you doing? I'm like I'm recording content. I'm like you know what? Never mind, yeah, I got an idea, I need to do it now. It just never stops. It never stops.

Speaker 3: 18:42

Now you know you might be thinking well, that's not me. You know when I'm not, when I'm in my family or whatever. I remember my girl from my, my boyfriend, whatever I'm just doing, I'm just paying attention to that. I'm not paying attention and that's cool. But for those of you who understand what I'm saying, you get it and you got to be careful and you may have a partner that Um Isn't expressing that they're upset with it. No right. But it doesn't hurt to pay to try to pay attention to the signs, because some people don't express their emotions in the same way and then with your kids, they don't, they're not mature enough to to express when they're unhappy, when they're not spending enough time with you. So you really have to pay attention, to make that effort sometimes yeah, really do because you mean they're not gonna be like your, your spouse, and be like, hey, why are you doing streaming all the time when I want to spend time with you? Your kids aren't gonna say that, just gonna assume, oh, dad's just gonna go do his thing again.

Speaker 2: 19:38

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 19:39

I mean in events.

Speaker 2: 19:41

I think that would be I never did it, but I know people do would Give up Social events, real life, irl events Put aside, because this is my stream schedule. I've got to do this, I've got to do that. Yeah, take the time off, don't miss those. Don't. Don't, don't miss those important events really, because A stream, your community will get it, you know. Yeah, it shit happens. You can have time off. It's no different than being sick.

Speaker 3: 20:14

Yep, yep, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's similar like when I see people on twitter be like oh, I'm so sorry, guys like I can't, you know, like Don't apologize. Don't apologize because you need to spend time with your family or you need to take care of yourself. Like who are you apologizing to? Yeah, like no offense, but those people in your community by and large will forget you in an instant once you're not doing something. I'm sorry to break person anyone's bubble who thinks that you know they're the center of some people's universes, but you're not so yeah, yeah, they weren't.

Speaker 2: 20:47

People were okay and we both know changing, changing content, what content you do does impact. It's not a flawless, everything just flows the same way. I guarantee, if I went back to streaming, if I decided to do a stream and say, hey, I'm streaming tomorrow or something, try and advertise it, try and put it out there.

Speaker 3: 21:14

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:15

I know for a fact my numbers it's going to be zero. You know it'd be zero. Maybe two people would show up and then, you know, I don't expect it to bounce back. Coming back now would be starting fresh.

Speaker 1: 21:28

Again.

Speaker 2: 21:30

I mean.

Speaker 3: 21:32

And I've accepted my streams. Since I've come back, since I've cut everything down. I don't advertise, you know you don't do your talks. I don't do anything, I just I just it is inconsistent Some weeks is Monday, wednesday, some weeks is Monday, some weeks is Wednesday. You know, I'm doing everything. I used to teach people in the mentor program not to do everything. I said don't do but, but anyway. But the thing is like I say I'm saying that but I'm not going to do the things I need I know you need to do to have that chance to grow. Because I'm like, like Beard had said, I'm a lot happier having a happy wife. I'm a lot happier spending more time with my kids and in bonding with them. Those relationships are going to last an awful lot longer than the relationship with my community Awful lot longer and having a lot of bigger impact on my life.

Speaker 2: 22:31

Well, I guess it all comes down to weighing up what relationships are most important to you. Write it down on a piece of paper, if you need to put it, you know, put it on your desk or something. Mark what's important to you the most, the most, and then try and look at where content creation fits it. Hmm, and it's OK to change around your priorities as you, as you get older, change, time changes, things changes, priorities change. But writing out all your priorities and looking at them on a piece of paper and seeing what's there really showcases where you're pushing your attention to without you probably even noticing it. If you know you're thinking OK, the family's, family's most important to streaming all the time. Well, have you have, you know, you start thinking to yourself is that actually what I'm doing here? Am I actually showing what this means to myself?

Speaker 3: 23:27

Yeah, yeah, I can't, I can't, I can't reiterate that enough. I mean it's, it's so important to pay attention. You know, I remember, you know. Give you guys another example like. This is not stream related, but it was at a job where the one I was selling, where I spent 90 hundred hours a week and my manager took me aside one day. She's like man, you get you got to stop working so much. She's like why are you doing this? Like because I'm having fun, I'm enjoying it, you know. And she's like well, when you die, do you want on your head? So to be like? You know he worked a lot or he had a great family life. You know what I mean Like, and for some reason, it's that simple little questions like oh, I'm going home, Well, this isn't worth it.

Speaker 3: 24:07

It's not worth it. You know, and now if you're in a situation where you know you maybe you don't have a lot, you don't have a family, you don't have a partner at home or kids or anything like that, you know, and you're spending all your time doing this, because we're not talking about this? If we didn't have families, I'd probably do this 24, seven. Sorry to interrupt, but that wouldn't be healthy either, because I'm not. I'm not fostering any other relationships, I'm not even trying.

Speaker 2: 24:34

I went out last week, friday last week, on the night and caught up with Brenda and he came over a few weeks ago, but we don't really catch up like we used to and it was a showcase of my youth. I showed up there. He's the list of my selfless computers and video games and shit everywhere. It's great, we know that's what we talk about. The whole time is all that type of crap. Then another mate came over who's the same Like we got our own little chat that we talk in all the time. So he came over. He managed to get away from his house. I'm the only one that's married in kids. He's the one friend's got a girlfriend, the other one's single.

Speaker 2: 25:13

It was five hours of sitting on the couch playing, burnout through. That was it Just. And you know my wife messaged me and said hey, what time are you going to be home? Just wondering if I need to stay up and like, if I wait for you. And I'm like, oh, it's 9, 30, I'll probably leave around 10, 30. You know, that's probably. It Just go to bed, it's fine. I got home at 1 30. Oh, so you know that to be just. Oh, this would be me. This would be me. I'm like my family. This is, this is my life, you know, ordering pizza and playing video games constantly.

Speaker 3: 25:55

That's, that is all I would do. Yeah, Like you know how I stepped away because of whatever. I would never have slowed down. I would have been doing this more. Now I'm not saying that anyone listening should, no, I'm saying like I just would have.

Speaker 2: 26:12

And we're saying our self control, we know where our self control limited is, that you know we've pushed that boundary before, we've gone past probably what we should and and realizing that we've gone too far as the point of you know pulling it back. But knowing, you know it's a demon, I know it's there, I know at any given time, you know something happened it. I don't see myself going out to find a new family Like someone happened to my family. You know, horrible thing happened. I don't see myself going out to find a new family or a person. I'd be sad. But I guarantee you still probably still be gaming. Like you know, I've become a hermit. Still, that's that's I would too.

Speaker 3: 26:55

You know I told you like people ask me to have used to ask, well, yeah, used to ask me more. I don't know how you do it more Like you know you're always. You have such a big capacity to work, to do all this stuff and I'm like I'm thinking that's me restraining myself, that's me showing restraint, you know like, because I knew I had a family and a job. Imagine if I didn't have, if I came home from work at five and there was nothing else to do. I'm streaming at five oh five, and I'm getting off at like midnight every day, because what else am I going to do?

Speaker 2: 27:32

Uber Eats is coming. You know I'd have the things that you know. You viewers can order your Uber Eats if you want something like that. It's nothing in the fridge.

Speaker 3: 27:43

Yeah, yeah, I've even seen. Yeah, I see I don't know who's streaming. It was like years ago Like they the, they had like DoorDash or something hooked up to the street.

Speaker 2: 27:52

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 27:53

Maybe this is what you were just saying where they. You're just eating the orders food for you, yeah, yeah, fuck. Like, why would I ever do? But I'm saying all this because I know, and beard knows, that like this is what we do. But we're not saying it's good or that's healthy, that's just what we would do. But if that was a life, you notice, one thing that didn't happen in there is we didn't start any other kind of relationship at all, like we weren't going out meeting anybody else, nope. And at the end of the day, like in some aspects, you're still alone. Like, is that really what? What you want?

Speaker 2: 28:30

Yeah, yeah, and I think that's like thinking about it, because people do want to grow. It's not saying don't do it, don't do social media, don't stream. Everyone is their own choice to do what they want. But maybe it's a good way to look at what you're doing and then say, hey, can I work around this? Can I do this in a better way? And, if you want, go back to one of the first episodes we did, where we talked about us working smarter. We work smarter. Look at ways that you can shrink down your time and give yourself more time, back to that balance of family and loved ones. That would be my biggest success. If you can't step away, you don't want to step away. That's fine, there's nothing wrong. But work smarter. Get yourself more free time.

Speaker 3: 29:30

Yeah, yep, because there's a lot to do out there in life, outside of your computer, outside of your microphone.

Speaker 2: 29:38

Touch some grass.

Speaker 3: 29:40

Yes, and I know people say that as like a joke, but like no, seriously, man, go touch some freaking grass.

Speaker 2: 29:46

Yeah, go do it, go take your shoes off, go stand in the grass for a little bit.

Speaker 3: 29:50

If I could say one thing to kind of wrap up what I'm thinking, it's you know, I'm going to reiterate something that Beard said earlier but pay attention to your priorities and get, though, look at them honestly and figure out what's the most important thing in your life and balance your time around that You're not going to regret the time that you spend with real people and touching grass versus the time that you're spending behind your computer entertaining people.

Speaker 2: 30:24

Yep, I don't know how. I think that's perfect way to wrap it off in general. Just yeah, balance it out, that's perfect.

Speaker 1: 30:34

You've been listening to dad mode. Our passion is navigating this wild journey of parenthood and modern life, from balancing family time to managing your career and still squeezing in some gaming and content creation. And no matter what the women say, they will never be able to pry the controller out of our cold dead hands. Anyway, we hope you enjoyed the show. If you did find us on Twitter, tiktok and YouTube at dad mode podcast, and we can be found on every podcast site at dad mode podcast. Y'all be cool. See you next time.