TRE ColuJM: Friday night iRacing Twitch rally highlights online community good will

The night of Friday, April 17th, 2020, is a night that David Schildhouse will never forget.

I was just about to head to bed, but I saw some tweets popping up on my feed, and I decided to check it out.

When I joined the SchildhouseD Twitch stream, which had already been going for hours, I saw this man crying into his palms, overwhelmed by the support from the community members who were supporting him in a way he had never experienced before.

“I thought graduating from college would be the highlight of my year,” Schildhouse cried to his viewers at one point. “I thought announcing The Replacements 100 would be the highlight of my year.”

“This is a night I will always remember… I love my community, man. I literally just sat here and cried for two hours. You couldn’t wipe the smile or the tears off of my face.”

Multi-tweet post:

I’ve run out of superlatives to describe what happened in our community yesterday – the love and support shown not only to me but @SteelHorseTV ,@MrF4Speed and others in the @Twitch community. The level of generosity demonstrated was simply unheard of.

— David Schildhouse (@schildhoused) April 18, 2020

Another Twitch streamer, by the handle of @xxevil_coffeexx, started what would be a night of continuous subscriptions being gifted, otherwise known as a “Sub Train”, while Schildhouse competed in an iRacing Pickup Cup race.

“She is just an incredibly generous person,” Schildhouse said. “She ended up gifting 120 subs for the night… that’s $600.”

By around 3:00 am in my neck of the woods, or around midnight for Schildhouse, he had gotten over 1,000 subscribers to his channel, some via people enticed by his channel, but mostly by his Twitch community members, friends, and others passing through the stream.

His stream ended just before 6:30 am ET with just about 150 viewers still watching. A final total of 1,120 subs on his account. The stream lasted over 10 hours.

“If I could bring some joy, bring some happiness… if I could do any of that while streaming, that would be a success.”

Schildhouse started the night with less than 200 subscriptions to his channel.

“My sub goal for April was 100, and that got destroyed earlier in the month. I came into the stream with 169 subs so far for the month, and ended at 1120.”

From Twitch’s FAQ, “Twitch Partners and their subscription payments normally result in streamers taking home a generous 50% of the $4.99 per month cost. The other 50% is collected by Twitch itself. There are also monthly contributions of $9.99 and $24.99 per month. For example, 1000 monthly subs roughly equates to $2.5k per month or $30k per year.”

Figuring that Schildhouse gained almost 1,000 subscribers during the Friday night / Saturday morning stream, it’s safe to bet that he might take home a large chunk of change, as he hopes to graduate from a Twitch Affiliate to a Twitch Partner as soon as possible.

The main point of making Twitch Partner, for Schildhouse at least, is to be able to give back to his subscribers and fans to provide them more perks during his streams.

His application for Twitch Partner was sent in on Monday.

“The most important thing to me is viewer engagement and satisfaction.”

Fingers crossed.

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Sim racing since 1995 on NASCAR Racing 2 by Papyrus, Schildhouse attributed many of his life accomplishments to being a part of the Sim racing community near the end of his stream.

He started racing online in 2003, on the predecessor to iRacing, NASCAR Racing Season 2003 by Papyrus.

Schildhouse reached a pinnacle in his Sim racing career in 2016 while still racing on NR2003.

FTF Racing, the Sim racing league I personally own, was lucky enough to have David Schildhouse for many years, even as an administrator at one point. He won our 2016 Cup Series title. He was also the Most Popular Driver in the series in 2017, a title he cherishes more.

He’s joined us now on the FTF Racing on iRacing venture on Saturday nights. It’s honestly great to be racing with him again.

Right now, Schildhouse is racing for and working as a social media presence for Slip Angle Motorsports, a team that has six drivers competing in the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series in 2020.

He’s also a part of a streamer team, Outrun eSports. Created by the Monza Madness winner, Justin Botelho, it brings together many notable iRacing oval streamers, such as Schildhouse, Botelho, Johnathon Caddell, Trevor Perry, Malik Ray, Rence Brown, and more.

Not only did Schildhouse receive some love on twitch that evening, but so did his teammate, Caddell, who ended his night with hundreds of subscribers as well.

A total of 20 streamers currently make up the Outrun eSports team, with two of them currently partnered with Twitch, those being Botelho and Caddell.

Schildhouse hopes there will be more added to that list very soon.

5.5 SOF for 2:45 am Carb Cup to celebrate @schildhoused. Entire field waited for someone who missed the grid. Threw a comp yellow and decided to do a 4-wide restart for it. This. This, is @iRacing at it’s peak. (btw I won too so 😁) pic.twitter.com/bji4YkKJKs

— Mr. F4 Speed (@MrF4Speed) April 18, 2020

 

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David Schildhouse has already worn many other hats besides Sim racer and Twitch streamer during his lifetime.

His first career was a mechanic, as an ASE Certified automotive service professional.

At one point in his life, Schildhouse worked as a crew member and spotter for RSS Racing while they competed in the NASCAR Gander RV and Outdoors Truck Series.

Currently living in Scottsdale, Arizona as a corporate accountant for Universal Technical Institute, as well as a full-time online student at Colorado State University, studying for his Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting, David’s plate is already as full as it can be.

During his free time, he’s dipped his feet into the world of Sim broadcasting, most recently with Podium eSports. His last broadcast was the well-known The Replacements 100 at the virtual Atlanta Motor Speedway, right as the COVID-19 pandemic started shutting down all professional sports, including NASCAR just days before.

In a time where the world is shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic, many have turned to online entertainment for the time being.

For most, the situation is not ideal, but there are some like Schildhouse who are jumping on opportunities that would not normally be possible in a normal time.

“COVID-19 has brought nothing but benefits to me, with the increased interest in iRacing and streamers, not just me, but many streamers have seen a huge uptick in viewership and support during these times,” Schildhouse said. “I would have never have expected that a worldwide pandemic, that has caused fear and disrupted so many people, would somehow turn into something that would benefit me.”

I can relate. I’ve felt busier that ever with the increased interest in Motor-eSports, but eventually, things are going to go back to normal.

Whether those numbers go down when the world resumes, or continues to increase, Schildhouse still has his community, something he’s very proud of.

“My community has come from many places,” Schildhouse said. “Michael Cosey Jr’s community has come over and shown a lot of support, there have been raids from other streamers, and people who find their way in to my stream because of the time slot I typically stream in. I get a lot of international viewers because I stream late night.”

On top of the community, he’s also got moderators for his Twitch stream chat, which are his “lifelines”. For the close knit members, it’s nothing more than a giant festival of love and appreciation for one another.

It’s amazing to see, in times of uncertainty, the good side of the online culture. After events that transpired on Easter weekend, there was a lot of malice felt towards the whole eNASCAR and iRacing wave.

Follow Schildhoused on Twitter, Facebook, and of course, watch him stream live on Twitch.

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DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.