Q&A: Pang zbing z., the most-followed YouTuber in Thailand

Not at all. My focus has always been on maintaining consistency in content production and I try to learn as much as possible from every trial and error. I kickstarted this journey right after graduating from university because I felt my education didn’t give lead me on the career path I desired. So I shifted my attention to running my own business and discovering my true dream. I tried making handicrafts and handmade accessories and sold them in weekend markets and via online platforms, but it didn’t work out well. At the time, there was a lot of news about people getting paid for game content streaming so YouTube sprang to my mind. Considering my parents invested tremendously in helping me start my own life, I decided to seriously pursue this path so that my parents wouldn’t have to support me anymore. That’s pretty much how things came about before becoming successful in life.

I feel that I’ve come a really long way to be where I am today. Although I have always loved playing games, I had zero knowledge about live-streaming and video editing when I started. I had to learn and remember how people do it and adapt to find my own style. Also, I relied on the statistics that I obtained from observing which of my videos had a high number of views to determine where I was heading towards in my content production. It’s funny when I rewatch the old clips that I uploaded and see how naïve and skill-less I was back then [laughs]. Looking at the improvements and progress that I’ve made, I feel that I have a greater sense of responsibility in everything that I do. To appeal to a larger audience, I also hide any past videos that contain obscene language from public view.

Absolutely. One of the reasons is the nature of my sponsored content. I work with Online Station from time to time, whether it’s fan meetings, game casting projects, or other related events. Because I’ve continuously gained exposure to this kind of work, it expanded my target audience as well as my fanbase. Thus, I try my very best to be more careful and cautious with my words and actions. I also make necessary adjustments to my gaming style to make sure that it’s appropriate entertainment.

It didn’t take long for my parents to fully understand me. They had already spent so much time trying to understand me when I was still trying to find my true self, especially during times when I had to sacrifice my sleep hours just to create all the handicrafts for sale. So building my career as a gamer and YouTuber wasn’t something that worried them anymore. I’ve learned countless lessons throughout the journey of self-discovery and understood the reality, and I’m thankful that my parents were very open-minded and allowed me to go through that learning process.

It took me two years after starting my channel. A lot of survival-themed games were released at that time, and my main goal was to stream games that are unique, funny, and exciting. The horror-themed games were widely played as well, which really diversified the content on my channel. Also, I added a variety of elements to every clip that I shared such as creative video editing and voice acting. A bunch of positive feedback came back and I simply picked up from there until I become good at it.

I think it’s my personality and the way I do my voice acting and storytelling. It makes people feel like they aren’t just watching me playing games but also for entertainment. Besides the variety of games that I play, there’s also diversity in my content. I also film a lot of fun lifestyle content like vlogs of my overseas trips and videos of me playing with my cats at home. These types of videos significantly attracted viewers who love lifestyle content and that helped me grow my channel beyond just a gaming-specific audience.

Yes, and at times pressure can get the better of me. A continuous increase in the number of subscribers means that I have to inevitably deal with hate comments which occasionally upsets me. However, I tried my best to not pay attention to them. I have my group of friends and my boyfriend who are always by my side to cheer me up, and a bunch of extremely supportive fans, so I focus my energy only on these people to maintain positive energy in my content production. Additionally, the Online Station team is always available when I need them for consultation and guidance so that helps me a lot.

Quite similar actually [laughs]. People in my personal life know me as a fun, easy-going, and carefree person. However, I can be very serious sometimes due to the nature of my work that requires well-organised management.

There’s a very big difference. There’s wasn’t a lot of gaming influencers back then so it’s very difficult to find learning sources. You can see that the quality of game-streaming videos is very low compared to now because advanced programs and tools weren’t readily available for us to do high-quality editing. But now that everything is widely accessible, it’s so much easier and eliminates the extra amount of effort that you need to put in to deliver great content to your followers. And you’ll be subjected to fewer conditions on YouTube as well if you start a channel. Moreover, you can even do live streaming via Twitch which is a gaming community where you can build your foundation as a streamer. Depending on which angle you’re going for, every resource that you’ll need is already out there so make good use of it.

Things have always been competitive and challenging from the start. The growth of your channel depends significantly on your content’s reach. For instance, your gaming content might appear in YouTube’s recommendation sections as gaming or lifestyle content which can affect the number of views. On the other hand, it depends on the nature of your content. You tend to attract followers if you stream games that are trending at that moment. Some people even do it by posting short clips on Tiktok to drive traffic to their social media platforms. It depends on your promotion strategies to grow your base.

I can say that it has changed tremendously from the past and it’ll continue to change in the future. People start to see numerous benefits that gaming offers in terms of making money as a job and being an advertising platform. Many brands such as snacks, drinks, electric appliances, and even eyewear are reaching out to gaming influencers and game-streaming platforms for product endorsements. I’m very certain the gaming industry will grow even more from now on, and that people from older generations will have a better understanding of its potential rather than just downplaying its importance.

You need to know yourself well before knowing that this is something that you want to pursue or not. Things aren’t going to be easy and there will be countless challenges and obstacles along the way. You have to be mentally prepared to handle ups and downs in your journey as well because success is never possible without overcoming rounds of failure. It takes a very big while before there’s a guarantee that you can make money from it, so don’t over expect. For all the teens and young adults who are still studying, make sure that you have a high level of self-discipline to maintain good time management. And if this is something that you know you’re passionate about and bound to do, then I would say go for it and enjoy the best of what it has to offer. You’ll definitely learn and grow so much.

Playing with my cats and hanging out at new places to refresh myself.

That’s a really tough choice for me. I would say Animal Crossing, Among Us, and The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth.