Exclusive Interview: "Long Hours Of Live Streaming Affects Health", Says Rishab Karanwal

Rishab Karanwal, popularly known by his YouTube channel RakaZone Gaming which has 251K subscribers. He started his channel in 2015 and now he has inspired budding entrepreneurs who often seek his advice on digital marketing and the gaming community.

The gaming industry in India which is slowly gaining its ground, Raka has provided a top-notch content on his channel by playing Grand Theft Auto V role-play as Mr Marlega which keeps his subscribers entertained.

In an exclusive interview with STARBIZ correspondent Imran Fazal, Rishab Karanwal spoke in detail about his streaming career and how he manages to deal with trolls on social media platforms.

How do you manage your time between full-time office hours as a senior analyst at MNC and live streaming? 

My daily routine is to report at my workplace between 9-10 am. Almost ten hours of shift and I start streaming at night by around 10 pm. There have been times when I have not eaten my dinner. I often tell this on my stream that I do not like to eat food when I am streaming.

At times I have eaten dinner at 3-4 am. It has been possible only because of support from everyone in an around my life. My family and friends have supported me throughout all the stages.

A long time of streaming comes with adverse effects. Your take on it.

Absolutely. Live to stream and sitting infront of a screen for a long time will affect the body. It has a major backdrop. You get detached from your social life. Today, I hardly give my time to family and friends.

Now they hardly call me for outings or any plans because they know that I have a busy schedule. But it is a part and parcel of the streaming community. Live streaming is a continuous process, your subscriber waits for the content you create.

What do you think about the Indian gaming community and what can be done to promote electronic sports?

Today, we see competitive e-sports players. They participate in tournaments internationally. I believe India should organize such tournaments in order to groom such players.

It has always been heard and talked that social media influencers are earning huge amount of money. How much does Rishab Karanwal earns through his channel? 

One should not start a YouTube channel or live streaming thinking about huge money involved. I make around Rs 1 Lakh a month which includes brand collaborations, memberships and super chats. It takes a lot of effort to create content which is liked by my audience. I have to keep on creating content and play different games to keep my audience entertained.

We have seen that many people have started live streaming. What advice do you have for upcoming YouTubers?

As I said, I play different types of games. I had 10 followers on Twitch when I started playing Call Of Duty. The channel gained momentum when YouTube launched its live-streaming feature. My belief is that hard work is important.

A streamer should be able to provide a variety of content, posting video highlights and maintaining it to keep subscribers glued to your work. Also interacting with subscribers at events and during streaming helps.

We have seen that YouTubers often get trolled over their content. How do you manage to deal with trolls? 

The best way to deal with trolls is to ignore them. I cannot afford to make my chat dirty for a single person. There are more fans than haters. So the best way is to ignore them. If you notice the speed of live chat messages, it becomes difficult to reply to everyone.

There has always been a debate that few streamers with huge fan base use abusive languages. Is there a need for censorship on such content? 

I believe in family-friendly content. There are few streamers which use abusive words. Also, there is an audience which likes it. Basically self-censorship is the best option instead of regulating the content on YouTube.