We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful ZorDonofDoom (ZorDon). We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with ZorDonofDoom (ZorDon) below.

Hi ZorDonofDoom (ZorDon), thanks for joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

Singing has always been a part of my life from a very young age, but it wasn’t until I was in college studying to become a nurse that I realized I wanted to pursue an artistic path. I had a love-and-hate relationship with my voice up until that point and much of what I did depended on doing things to make others happy. I think joining a band and making friends who were also creative helped me to break away from always people-pleasing. I wanted to do something I loved!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hello! I’m ZorDonofDoom, an artist signed with InRage Entertainment, a label based in Los Angeles. I’ve released an EP called “The Confuzzled EP” and a few singles available on most streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Pandora, etc. At the moment, I’m working on some new music with my producer, Automatic, for my album!

Just before the pandemic, I stumbled into the world of streaming on Twitch! Before that, I was mainly creating content on YouTube so now I juggle with posting content and streaming, which I’ve been doing now for 3 years now! I stream from Sunday to Thursday playing video games while singing, and interacting with the chat. On YouTube, I post my original music videos, video edits, reactions, covers, shorts, and vlogs! Anything that interests me, I try to create and put out there!

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I, honestly, started to build my audience on Twitch back in 2020 before anywhere else. I had been struggling to find inspiration to create videos on YouTube for years, and one day I came across another creator, Hookshotretrospective, on Twitch. Talking with him in his chat made me curious about trying it out myself. I began by downloading obs and going live “for real” (I had dabbled with it previously) in December 2019, and hit affiliate in three months. From there I met so many new people on that platform, and if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t have been able to foster any kind of audience on any other social media platform.

As for my advice: It might sound cliche, but I’m 100% behind the idea of being yourself on social media. If you want to focus on the longevity of what you’re doing, you gotta be upfront and real with your audience. Keeping up a mask or pretending and acting in a way that isn’t “you” can wear a person out over time. Burnout is so real when it comes to content creation and streaming, and if you present a lifestyle online that isn’t true… You may get called out if you’re ever found out. Just be you, but also be kind. Kindness goes a long way in making connections and meeting new people. As much as networking gets a bad rep, no one is an island, sometimes you have to put yourself out there to reach your audience. As much as you should be kind to others, be equally kind to yourself, if not more. No creator starts out with a thousand followers; everyone starts somewhere. Be patient with yourself and do what brings you because that joy and excitement is what will attract people to what you do. Seeing low numbers and concentrating on analytics early on can be frustrating, but if you can flip your perspective and focus on making yourself proud of your work, eventually people will see it too.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

When it came to creating videos for YouTube, I used to be so strict with myself – everything had to be perfect. So perfect that I would spend weeks and months working on a project only to never post it because it was never good enough. I was so worried about what everyone else would think. It was a toxic mindset that I had learned from my childhood that I couldn’t seem to get away from until I started streaming. The idea of hopping on stream and having an audience look at me as I am – imperfect and full of flaws – was daunting. I couldn’t edit myself or worry about post-production because it was live, and although it scared me, I was fascinated by it. The first time going live on Twitch and seeing someone in chat was the most nerve-wracking thing. The first year was a lot of unlearning. I had to unlearn how to stop people pleasing and how to stick up for myself. Through streaming, I was able to lessen my perfectionism enough to be able to create and post videos on YouTube and other social media platforms. I had to be okay with being seen as I am. I had to learn to be okay with people pointing out all of the things that used to bother me and be able to say “So what? This is me.” Even though there are days when the words still get to me, I know I’m a work in progress. I just have to keep doing what I love and even when I know something isn’t perfect, knowing that it’s good enough is sometimes where I learned to draw the line.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://zordonofdoom.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zordonofdoom/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZordonMae/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/zordonofdoom
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/zordonofdoom
• Other: https://www.twitch.tv/zordonofdoom

Image Credits
Tyler Lorita Bradford Rogne Candice Dalsing