In the online world of boys and trolls, there are very few fair maidens dominating the keyboard, but South Africa can lay claim to its own femme digital, Chloë Geraghty.

• A person who broadcasts themselves live to an audience online is known as an online streamer or live streamer.
• Chloë became a streamer by accident, and she has never lived near a beach but it’s something she wants to do one day.
• When she thinks of Sandton, blue glass buildings, business and ‘THE accent’ come to mind.
• Visit www.sandtontimes.co.za for more stories.

Born in Pietermaritzburg and having moved around quite a lot since then to places like England, Zimbabwe, Limpopo, Taiwan and California, Johannesburg based Chloë Geraghty has built up an impressive following online, through her daily stream sessions on Twitch. She also boasts an array of endorsements and has turned hour long screen time into a career.

She can’t live without caffeine during an extended gaming session and whilst trying to eat well at the best of times (even getting into cooking and meal-prepping at home more), she still loves Lekker Vegan’s nachos and wraps, RocoMamas and McDonald’s, like most gamers do.

How did you get started as a streamer? It was quite accidental. I wasn’t much of a gamer growing up, but I started playing shooters regularly in 2018ish. A local stream team (Super2Bit) was looking for someone to join their team and, through mutual acquaintances, they knew that I dabbled in gaming and thought my personality might work well on stream.

They asked me if I wanted to come and stream from one of their setups and, being in a very ‘yes man’ stage of my life, I said yes. I had only ever watched one stream before this, so it was completely new to me. I definitely wasn’t any good, but I had so much fun. I was invited to stream once a week, then twice and eventually got my own setup, and built up a community through this.

What kind of games do you enjoy? I enjoy a variety of games. I usually have one shooter like CALL OF DUTY, APEX LEGENDS or FORTNITE, on the go and one single-player or story game in between. I’ve recently enjoyed STRAY and CULT OF THE LAMB but my favourite story game has to be RED DEAD REDEMPTION II. Apart from these ‘gamey’ games, I really enjoy lighter games that encourage maximum community interaction like DRAWY, WORDS ON STREAM and GEOGUESSR.

Did you get into streaming for a good time or a long time? It was definitely for a good time but ended up opening doors to something bigger that I just didn’t know existed. I didn’t ever think this would be an industry I would be involved in but the longer I have spent in it, the more possibilities I see and the more I want to keep going with it.

What has been your best gaming moment to date? I have streamed for thousands of hours so there are loads of moments that come to mind for this question, but I would say that events and activation’s have made me feel closest to the community. The peripheral experiences like filming and creating around this have been the most fulfilling.

Can you tell us a peculiarity about you? I can wiggle my ears. I’m also an ambivert which has taken me a long time to understand. I need equal parts social interaction and equals parts unwinding in silence. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why I craved social interaction but felt so drained afterwards, but a Myers-Briggs personality test made some sense of that for me.

What do people misunderstand about being a gamer? Just that gamers aren’t individuals that have unique approaches and reasons for enjoying gaming and like with every industry, there are stereotypes that just don’t apply to everyone. I think the idea of what a gamer is or looks like is changing but the idea that gamers are lazy or don’t have any ambition outside of just being immersed in games is a tired one.

Do you have anything you’ve always wanted to try and why? There are quite a few things. The bucket-list items that come to mind, though, are sand boarding and skydiving. Sand boarding because I skateboard, and I think falling on sand might be less painful than falling on concrete. And sky diving because I have heard it is amazing. I have bungee jumped and I won’t pretend I enjoyed it because I was petrified but skydiving looks like a beautiful experience.

What would you say makes you stand out? A few years ago, I would have said that I don’t look like a gamer but now my answer is more about the fact that (I think) I am good at speaking and engaging with an audience.

What are your plans for summer 2022? My mom will be coming to South Africa from the UK in a few days, and we will be spending some family time at the Kruger, which I am looking forward to. In terms of the rest of summer, no solid plans yet but I hope they involve being outside as much as possible.

Do you prefer streaming or gaming? Streaming because of the interactive element. I really feed off the energy and laughs that is brought with viewers. I don’t play games very often off stream, but I do still enjoy playing with friends occasionally while not engaging as much and being able to focus more on game-play.

Visit Chloë Geraghty Instagram profile or Twitch profile for more.

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