Last week I introduced you all to what I hoped would be the first of many interviews I will have to share with you all in the future. I am happy to state that this week we have another! I spoke with Jason, better known as Fargassier, a streamer on Caffeine.tv who I have recently taken up watching every evening. We talked over voice chat for a while, covering an assortment of information ranging from his view on mental health, streaming, and how his background in psychology and public speaking help him with his streaming career.
We started our conversation by discussing how the day had gone and how we’re too old to comprehend some abbreviations for words that seem to come up on the internet these days. Why do people have to abbreviate simple words? I will never get it. Eventually this lead us to the discussion of how difficult it can be to present one’s emotions throughs text.
“That’s the biggest problem people have in relationships, or business partnerships. Or even streaming or content production. We talk over text way too much for serious conversations, you can’t read sarcasm over text. I may be serious like, 5% of the time? Maybe? You’ll know when I get serious because I’m like ‘no seriously’. It’s one of those things, people used to have to introduce me, ‘Jason may seem like he’s being mean, but if he’s picking on you, he’s just trying to see if you can handle his sense of humor.’ ” Fargassier shared.
We moved on to something really simple. How old is he? Well at the time of this writing our streamer friend is 33 years old. Just a few months older than myself, actually. Admittedly, I had to ask because I had no way of telling by look alone.
“Yeah, that the beard. Everyone thinks I’m older, and then without it I’m baby faced. Everybody questions my age like, you saw even when I was going through editing the photos, people kept asking ‘well where are you in the photos?’ .. I’m right here…That redheaded guy right there, that weird looking ginger man.It’s like, who dat? Where? I dunno what it is, it’s the Clark Kent disguise! Is what it is!” For some context, he was editing his wedding photos on his stream.
With that we moved on with our conversation. What got him in to streaming?
“Well, back when I was a kid I grew up in a very small country town, where basically if you didn’t fish, you didn’t hunt; you didn’t go camping; you didn’t go mud bogging… well that was your way of interacting with people it was a very not technologically happening place, there wasn’t a lot of people who played video games back in the day. And I always enjoyed video games. And I never knew until like 4th grade what it was about, in 3rd grade I was playing the Magic School Bus, and- It was a game you went inside the human body and I loved that game.
I was in class one day, and the computer broke, I couldn’t play the game!
And then the tech specialist came in and fixed the computer and I was like oh my god! That person just fixed that computer! And I can play the video game that I like, I want to get in to computers. And doing that I learned a lot about how to fix them, how to build, and then that spawned in to me finding out about- doing some audio work, doing some video work, and just seeing all that computers could do.
And in 2009, I was working in the asphalt industry, and it was one of those times. You know it was really the happening time of YouTube and I was playing Call of Duty and Battlefield Bad Company and stuff like that. I saw these people and I really dug their style and they talked about life, and history, and stuff. And I thought, you know it would be really nice to connect with people online. I never really thought about that being an avenue to meet people like-minded, because I really wasn’t sociable, like I am now.
When I was in college, I took psychology to find out what makes my brain tick the way it does and the little quirks that I have, and I also took public speaking so that I could figure out with using psychology and using public speaking, on how to make somebody feel in five minutes like we’ve known each other for five years. And it was right after then that I was kind of finding myself to an online presence. It was one of those things where it just made me excited to start doing YouTube and then to talk to like-minded people.
It’s really getting in to why I started doing streaming and content creation was to meet people of like-minded love of video games, just to make new friends and to interact with people.”
Honestly, I had never considered streaming as a way to meet people even though it is a very social career path; I am usually on the viewer’s side of these things, after all. Though I have met a number of people that way so I can certainly understand the social aspects.
As Jason had mentioned a background in psychology and public speaking, I decided to question him a bit on whether or not it helped with his streaming career.
“Oh god yes. I didn’t have they ability to – Like I’ve always been able to talk once I got to know you I could always carry a conversation with you. What the psychology and public speaking helped me out with is not only like micro expressions when your talking to someone like face to face. But also certain ticks people have when speaking. Which helps you out sometimes in games like in Among Us.
What I used to do on YouTube once I took that course I called em the one take wonders. Like I would never go back and restart a YouTube commentary, if I was doing like a 5 – 10 minute commentary. I would do my intro, and within that intro I would know, ok here’s 4 – 5 talking points I want to fit them all in to this 5 – 10 minute video and this is it. Helps you ad-lib, it’s like taking theater and stuff like that. And I never took that stuff, I never thought that I would be in front of a camera – I was always the shadow guy, Like no I’m cool I don’t wanna, I don’t like pictures of myself. I don’t like videos of myself. I wasn’t scared of the camera but I was like, uh… not a good-looking dude, I’m not funny, just let me build sets, let me run the camera, let me be on the board, you know I’ll be the tech guy. I’m good with that. I’m fine with that. Psychology and public speaking really helped me out to be able to go in to a room just playing with random people.
In the long and short of it. It helps you read an audience a lot better. It helps me just randomly keep talking about random things that just pop in to my head.”
Finally, Jason was willing to cover a bit of a darker aspect of life. When you meet him and ask how he is doing, he always answers that “It’s another day in paradise.” A sweet concept of course, but when people have such specific answers, it’s usually either a branding purpose or something they train themselves to do it.
Like many of us he went through a hard time in his life and I pointed out not many are willing to share their mental health struggles as openly as he has in his streams.
“I’ll be honest with you. I was one of those people. For the longest time, I was embarrassed. I don’t know why I was embarrassed. I guess it’s just the upbringing that we had as kids in my town. I still remember one of the nicest guys in high school. Like the most outspoken guy. And we caught up, it was like 5 or 6 years that we hadn’t spoken. He was just going through a tough time. We were always both so positive with each other. He was the first person I told about the incident and the guy looked at me and he said. You know I’m ganna be honest with you man, I can’t tell you about how many times I thought about ending it.
That moment right there, I donno what lead me to tell the guy; I guess we were just being super honest, and I just had something I had to get it off my chest.
I knew I had a purpose on this Earth. And that’s why none of the pills dissolved and I busted a blood vessel in my eye throwing everything up and that was a mark, that was a mark to remember. You get to see that for a few months, every morning, every day. That was basically the reminder right there, like hey, you about messed up. Here’s a mark, remember.
I made up an excuse; I raced motocross at the time and I just told people I took a hit to the head when I took a jump and landed on my handlebars on my goggles. And it was a really good excuse, not the truth. In that moment I realized that you can use- and if you’re comfortable enough, you should use your mental health to be real with people, that’s where the ‘Every days a paradise’ anytime someone asks I tell em it’s ‘Another day in paradise’. Self affirmation, I don’t consider suicide a thing, but even now, 17 years down the road, you still always battle with ‘why do people watch me?’ ‘People say your funny but you don’t see it’.
No matter what, you think some of the most positive people and the most funny people you see on live streaming or YouTube or in person. Some of the funniest people that you will ever come in contact with are ones that are battling with depression. So that’s why I don’t be a stranger, I don’t like- you never know, someone can just need a Hay, how you doin?”
We chatted a little longer about our plans for the day; he had a date that afternoon with his wife; I had some editing to get done. We said our farewells, and I continued to tune in to his stream every evening as I transcribed his interview. I learned a lot in my chat with Fargassier, some things I did not expect. He’s a very positive individual, and it rubs off on you if you talk to him a bit. Don’t forget to reach out in these trying times. You never know when someone may need a ‘Hey, how you doin?’