24.03.2021
This week’s guest mix is by the lovely cheska, an avid Twitch streamer and bunny lover.
She has a unique perspective on Twitch streaming, as she has been a streamer the entirety of her DJ career – so that is talked about in the interview below. She has also played places locally like Magic Stick and The Grasshopper Underground.
In her interview, we talk about things like her bunny Jasper and her logo, her college degree choice, what she looks for when she finds new music, an industry panel by Neon Owl she was recently a part of, why she started DJing, her goals for 2021, her most used emoji, and more.
Each mix will exclusively premiere on Deep Space Radio at noon on Wednesday – and then be available on the detroit.dance SoundCloud as per usual at 3:13pm EST.
Be sure to check out her mix, on SoundCloud now.
detroit.dance: What do you do outside of music?
cheska: Right now I’m going to school to become a respiratory therapist. That’s basically all I do, clinicals, plus streaming. I’m actually starting a new job soon as a student respiratory care practitioner. So, my week is pretty busy.
detroit.dance: Why did you choose that degree field?
cheska: I already have a Bachelor’s Degree in Public Health and then I realized while I was looking for jobs that I didn’t like it. I thought it was way too administrative and they didn’t tell us that when we were going to school. So I did some research, and by chance I came across this job about respiratory therapy, and I have had asthma and allergies my whole entire life. That’s when I said, “This is what I want to do.” And then I signed up for the program and I loved it. I have two more months until I graduate. It’s funny because I started it about a year and a half ago right before COVID hit, and now this job is everywhere. So hopefully I make more money than I thought it was going to.
detroit.dance: What are some of your hobbies?
cheska: When it’s warm out, I like to run and exercise. I have a bunny named Jasper, I like to play with him. Obviously streaming and finding music. Finding music is my number one go-to when I have nothing to do. Outside of school, I forget what it’s like to have a life, and COVID made everything super weird.
detroit.dance: What are things you look for when you are finding new music?
cheska: When I’m looking for music I’ve used SoundCloud since about 2013. I think I have spent so much time on it that I have followed a lot of underground niche artists that have only a couple followers. I go through those people and what they repost. I like a variety of things. I like bass music in general, diving into that dubstep was the first thing I really liked, but then I went deeper into it and got into experimental, future bass, melodic…everything except for hardstyle and hardcore stuff. I look for tracks that are euphoric, vibey, and heavy all in one. I really like a combination of everything.
detroit.dance: How long have you been DJing and what is your sound?
cheska: I like anything within the bass music genre. When I’m playing songs I usually go anywhere from dubstep to future bass to trap, even drum and bass and house. A lot of trap though, trap is coming back. I’ve been DJing since about December of 2018. I started DJing because I was going to a bunch of shows, and I wasn’t happy with what I was hearing. I would always go and hope that I’d hear some of my favorite songs and it never happened. I love to dance too. So if there’s a DJ playing and I can’t flow to it, I get super frustrated and want to leave so I decided to take matters into my own hands.
detroit.dance: Your logo has the rabbit ears and you mentioned you have a bunny named Jasper – so talk a little bit about how you designed your logo.
cheska: My logo was actually something I threw together the day before my first show. They asked me if I had a logo for their flyer and I didn’t have one yet so I made this one. “Cheska” is a nickname that I’ve had since birth, and I had a way I liked to write it in cursive. So, I drew it out on paper and wondered, “How can I incorporate myself into this?” I am super in love with my bunny Jasper, so I tried to make part of my name bunny ears. I came up with a couple sketches and eventually I found one with a nose, whiskers, and ears at a certain angle and that’s how it came to be.
I got Jasper in April 2017. I had a studio at the time, and I was lonely, so I started looking into hypoallergenic pets and I found out about hypoallergenic bunnies. So I looked everywhere for bunnies I wanted to adopt, but I guess Michigan isn’t great for bunnies in shelters. So I had to go to a pet store and they had a ton of them. The breed I was looking for was a mini Rex, and they had two of those bunnies there. One was all brown and then there was Jasper who is white and spotted and I was like, “That’s the one!” so I bought him that day and the rest is history.
detroit.dance: Do you have any particular memorable moments with Jasper?
cheska: So many. When I’m streaming I have a camera on him called Jasper Cam, and I think it’s funny when we catch him doing zoomies. It always seems to be to harder music where you feel like you’d be in a mosh pit. I feel like he’s a bass bunny, which is fun.
detroit.dance: Do you have any streams or events coming up that you’d like to talk about?
cheska: I’m going to be part of a Raid Train on Twitch that’s hosted by my friend FindTheRabbit on April 2nd or 3rd. It’s like an online music festival but we raid each person on the lineup. She has just hit partner so she’s celebrating it with her Twitch friends. You’ll be able to find it on my channel, here.
detroit.dance: How long have you been streaming on Twitch and how often do you stream?
cheska: I have been streaming since I started DJing in December of 2018. I started streaming because I wanted to track my mixing progress, so if you have been following me from the beginning then you can see my improvement over the years. Right now I stream Thursday, Friday, and Saturday every week starting around 8:30pm EST.
detroit.dance: Why did you choose Twitch as your platform?
cheska: I started out on Facebook, but Facebook has so many copyright issues and they take you down all the time. I was looking for something that would save my videos and let me go for a long time, and it was Twitch.
detroit.dance: What has streaming on Twitch taught you?
cheska: I definitely learned how to speak more because I’m not a big talker. I have learned to deal with negative comments better as well, and either not say anything at all or don’t blow up at them and handle it like an adult. I’m lucky to not have come across many people like that. I’ve made a lot of friendships, which I think is super cool because I don’t think it would have happened if I didn’t use Twitch. About half the people that I know are from Twitch now. I learned how to network as well. I think it teaches you a different way of networking compared to Facebook.
detroit.dance: You use specific terminology in your livestreams like “chunes/chune goons” “bass buns/bunnies” etc., how did that come about?
cheska: When I started to get a bigger following on Twitch they were like “What do we call us? What do you call your fans?” and I was like “I didn’t know we were naming you guys!”. But I did chunes as the world for tunes and keeping up with alliteration with a “ch”, and then everybody was listing things and none of them seemed to fit, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, chunes rhymes with goons and ya’ll are goons, so chune goons it is!” Everyone is also called a bunny so that’s where “bass buns” comes from. I can’t choose, so that’s why there’s so many names.
detroit.dance: You have 10,000 followers on Twitch – how did you grow your community?
cheska: It’s crazy to me. I actually got hit by a follow bot when I first started, and I didn’t know what was happening, but I got rid of them so it is is the true number now. I want to say that I started really growing a following for the first time in December of 2019. I accidentally streamed for every single day that month. I guess that’s when people started noticing me because I was always online. So I did that again last December, at least I tried to. Overall I don’t really know where people come from or how they find me. When you go live you can put tags kind of like hashtags but you’re only allowed five. I think that helps a lot. I also share a lot of the same communities with other streamers that I’ve made friends with.
detroit.dance: I was watching some of your recent streams and you play this game called the Stream Racers game, how did you choose that game and how does it work?
cheska: That is fairly new, I didn’t play games before on my stream. It was strictly me mixing. I raided Two Tails and he was doing a 24 hour stream, and he was like, “Let’s play a game!” and they were playing Marbles. I had seen people play marbles before but I had never seen someone DJ and do it at the same time and I was like, “Hmm, that’s pretty cool. It gives us something to do.” So I wanted to play a game but I didn’t want to play Marbles too and take his idea. Then I did some research and saw what games you could play, and I came across Stream Racers. There’s some other games you can play but this one seemed the most fun to me. You can’t control your car at all so you watch it crash and it looks like everyone’s drunk and crashing into everything.
detroit.dance: Are there any things you wish Twitch would improve on?
cheska: They have an app that could use some work. There’s a lot of lingo that people need to get used to, and if you’re new to it you don’t know if you’re being rude or not. When I was starting out, I didn’t know what Bits were or if something was happening I didn’t know if it was good or bad. But eventually I learned.
Some people come into my stream or someone else’s stream and they ask you to do something like raid them, or they promote themselves which is kind of like, yeah, you can do that but it comes off rude in streamer culture. Twitch in general could also be more transparent about what they want specifically from each tier of streamer. I’m trying to get to partner status right now, which is a step up from affiliate. I have met all the requirements and they still deny me. I would like to know what exactly they’re looking for because obviously it’s not the requirements stated.
detroit.dance: You were recently on a panel talking about your experience streaming – I unfortunately did not get to tune in for that, but how was your experience doing that?
cheska: Yeah, it was super cool, I had never done anything like that before. I guess they do the panel event in person when it’s not COVID. The people who put it together are called Neon Owl. They had a mental health panel, one on Twitch and streaming, and a demo listening party which was super cool. They had people on there like Autograph, Christian Burns, some label founders…so it was a big networking thing on top of the panels. I think I would have loved to go to it if it was in person. I also think it was super cool to have whoever was there also participate if they were a producer and send in their own music and have the people who are there critique it. The mental health panel was also super informative, to learn how people in the industry have been handling their lives and mental health during COVID, on top of everything else. Overall, it was informative and really fun…I was nervous but it ended up being great.
detroit.dance: Since you are mostly familiar with streaming, you have done some live shows, but is there a big difference between streaming and live shows for you?
cheska: I have done very few shows. And when I do I’m the opener so I’m not really used to a crowd. When I stream, I don’t see people so I don’t have stage fright. When I do a live thing, I’m always freaking out. I try to plan out my sets for a live show since they’re only about an hour, when I stream it’s a free-for-all, I don’t know what I’m going to do.
detroit.dance: You have merch – talk about that and what you have to choose from.
cheska: I went with the program that they give you that comes with Twitch, you can link your account to it and it’s called StreamLabs. They always change what’s available because there’s a lot of streamers using it. We always have stickers. My stickers are my emotes that I had drawn specifically for me once I got to affiliate on Twitch. Some favorite ones are the Cheska Headbang, where it’s me in cartoon form head banging, and then another one is me with heart eyes but also crying because that’s also something I do a lot – love things so much that I’m crying. There is a hoodie, shirts…my favorite one is the beanie because it’s embroidered.
detroit.dance: How does it make you feel when you see people out wearing your merch?
cheska: Well, I haven’t seen it here yet. But I do see people posting it online and it’s crazy to me. I feel imposter syndrome because like, “Why are you wearing my name on your shirt?” But it’s super cool because I guess that means I made an impact on someone’s life enough for them to want something like that. I actually hate how much everything costs, and I eventually want to make my own merch. I have a sewing machine but I’m not great at it.
detroit.dance: Do you have any people you look up to or mentors during your time in the music industry so far?
cheska: I’ve pretty much learned everything on my own. I guess for inspiration in the very beginning, I was going through Twitch and looking to see if DJing was a thing because it really was known only for gaming before COVID. And I came across some people DJing with over 100 viewers. One person I found is named JOVIAN. He’s crazy good at mixing and he’s big on Twitch. I look up to him a lot. And I also found KobiLAX, they were also an inspiration to doing this on Twitch. My favorite producers are Virtual Riot, Haywyre, and Lights. She was my first music love. She started singing and producing music, now she has a comic book that goes with her albums, and I think she has an alter ego now that is doing mid tempo stuff. Which is crazy to me because when I first found her she was some indie pop girl.
detroit.dance: When you look back at what you have accomplished so far, what are your thoughts on that?
cheska: I can say I’m really proud. Streaming has become my job since I lost my “real” job in March, and I’ve been going to school the whole time and streaming. Now that I look back at it, it’s kind of crazy that I have juggled all of this. I didn’t give myself any free time. I’m almost at the finish line for graduation and then I can finally focus on music. I’m also proud of how I taught myself how to DJ.
detroit.dance: What is your favorite music festival that you’ve been to so far?
cheska: My favorite for the music is Lost Lands, my favorite for the experience is Electric Forest.
detroit.dance: If you woke up tomorrow and you could only say one word for the whole 24 hours, what word would you say?
cheska: “Happy”. Hopefully someone would smile.
detroit.dance: What is your most frequently used emoji?
cheska: Let me look…the bunny.
detroit.dance: What are your goals for 2021?
cheska: Since I’m graduating in April I think I can finally divert my energy from mostly school to music. I really want to learn how to produce, I have a DAW and everything that I need to get started but I haven’t had the time.
detroit.dance: Do you relate to this meme?
cheska: Yes, that’s it, that’s the face. It is the face. The arms always do that thing.
Make sure you check out cheska’s Destination Detroit (Campus Martius), and her Recipe by Request that will be posted on Friday (Spaghetti with Homemade Meat Sauce).
Keep up with cheska on her socials: