Conversations with Chase Holbrook

Today we’d like to introduce you to Chase Holbrook.

Hi Chase, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
This question is always so hard for me to answer fully as time always has a way of blending together, however, to understand where I am today you must start where my passion for content creation and gaming started. Growing up as a kid was rough for me and my half-siblings. I grew up in a small, one-stoplight town in Iowa and some of my earliest memories are very hard for me to recall as we were living with my mom’s then-abusive drug dealer boyfriend. While I myself was never abused physically as I was very young, I got emotional and mental abuse from witnessing the physical abuse of my mom and siblings.

My childhood is always a hard part of my life, but at that early age, I had to learn how to entertain myself as my mother was working two jobs at the time. I learned how to tell stories with my toys, that would change every day, so it was a new experience every time and this creative imagination is something I still use today when creating fun and interesting streams for my community, for example when I threw down the sandwich making gauntlet with Jimmy Johns and ultimately lost and had to become a human sandwich (Image included). Life moves on from there to when I’m 10 years old and for Christmas that year I and my older brother received an Xbox 360 with a copy of a video game that would spark my love for gaming for all my life which was Halo 3.

From watching my older brother playing it into the early morning to getting to play with him, this would only make me fall even deeper in love with gaming and eventually, I would get the Xbox to myself, and I was officially hooked on gaming. A couple of years would pass and my love for gaming would continue to evolve and eventually I would start to upload gameplay commentaries on YouTube as in my free time I loved watching big creators such as Woodysgamertag and Tmartn. However, out of all the big creators, I watched the one that inspired me the most and still does today was a young professional call of duty player and YouTube creator who lived in Chicago named Matthew “Nadeshot” Hagg who is now a multibillionaire and owner of the esports team 100 Thieves.

Nadeshot inspired me in many ways from how to improve my content and gameplay skills, ultimately, he showed me that goal of getting to do what you love for living in gaming and content creation is possible if you put in the work, time, and yourself. Believe me, when I said to my high school guidance counselor, that I wanted to be a content creator in gaming he told me to get realistic, and when I said it to my parents, they become worried that I was going to waste my life playing games, but It didn’t change me my heart was set on it. However, as life moved on and I would end up going to college in 2017 at MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe, KS as a general ministry major, I pushed my passion for content creation and gaming aside for ministry and my passion for people.

It wouldn’t be till 2019 when I realized Ministry wasn’t for me and changed majors and I began to bring back up my passions for gaming and content creation, which would lead to a decision that I would never change for the world, I started streaming on Twitch. Years prior I always wanted to stream as I saw Nadeshot and other big creators doing that, and I didn’t have the time or right equipment to do it (Which I was Wrong About) Nevertheless I started streaming on Twitch from my PlayStation 4 in my small, cramped dorm room at MNU as ChaseTheGallant.

The early days of my streaming career always bring a smile to my face as it was challenging and super fun, I remember I went to local businesses in the Olathe area and at MNU and put up my homemade flyers promoting my stream. Another fun challenge I faced was teaching myself how to use photoshop, so I could make my stream schedule for the week and promote my streams on social media and ultimately edit my stream to raise the standard of my stream to a more professional standard.

As time went on more people would come and become recurring viewers in my stream and eventually more people would come around my dream and passion for content creation and say we want to play a bigger part in this and so I would make my best friends Austin and Noah my first two moderators and eventually I would bring on my now senior Mod Justin and later my best friends Connor, Joe, Andrew, and their job is keeping my stream chat safe and friendly for everyone allowing me to focus on entertaining.

As I would continue to grow and build my stream with my team around me, it wouldn’t be till the middle of the lockdown in the Covid-19 pandemic that I would discover the “why” to why I stream every day and keep going in it and it’s the people. One of my biggest passions has always been making people laugh whether that’s through me telling a joke or story or doing something outrageously funny like waxing my hairy chest or dying my beard (All are true).

I love to see people light up through laughter and I realized that in such a dark and hard time for people in the world and so I made it my goal to make my stream a place where people can come vent and laugh together with and at me through me playing video games and streaming! As time went on things only continued to grow more and more, I got brought on an Esports Org as a content creator and Content manager for Exile Gaming and I would be involved with The TwitchKCCommuntiy As well and my community would continue to grow.

Out of my two years of streaming, there are two moments that stand out to me. The first one is how awesome the community I have built is back in 2021 we celebrated two years of streaming and one thing we have always done was a donation challenge to raise money to do more crazy streams and these challenges had a price tag next to them and if my community hit them, I would have to do them, for example, being tased and shaving my head bald! Our goal for that donation stream was $200 in under 30 mins of being live on Twitch we hit $500 and more which continues to blow me away even today.

The second one is how loving my community is, back in November of 2021 my father Dale Holbrook sadly passed away from Stage 4 Small cell carcinoma Cancer, I was live on stream that night playing halo infinite with my friends when I received that phone call that rocked my world as my dad was my hero. At that moment my community came around me and loved and supported me from daily texts to going to get dinner and lunch and kind tweets on Twitter, my community helped me stand through that really hard time and they still do today.

In January this year, I signed my first ever paid sponsorship for my stream which allowed me to stream full time as a living which here recently has since ended as the business sold. But today I still have an awesome sponsorship with an amazing organization out of Georgia and I’m proud to partner with KCGAMEON and GGProductions which both help to support and grow content creators and Esports in the local KC Area! Which is where we are now, I’m now streaming off my second twitch channel which is ChaseTheGallant2 and we are continuing to grow and do crazy and big things and one of my hopes and dreams is that one day I can give back to KC for being such an awesome place and space for creators like myself and I hope when I go out in public and have people recognize me and say “Are you ChaseTheGallant?

I watch your stream and you are funny, and you made my day so much better when you did this!” The Gallant Community is growing and only will continue to grow. I would love to have more of the awesome people of KC come and be a part of my community, whether that’s through sponsorship/partnership opportunities with a local business or being a regular viewer in the stream chat! I hope you check my community out and I hope I can make your day a little bit funnier.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
For my Channel it has been both and here’s why. The biggest struggle in the past was moving constantly between my dorm and my dad’s one-bedroom apartment in Des Moines.

Between having to move expensive equipment such as my streaming PC and monitors and the fact that the dynamic of the stream changed while I was home. I couldn’t do the crazy streams I did when I was in a solo dorm room, which at the moment was hard but, recently I realized I needed that because it forced me to grow on how to make my gameplay commentary between me and my friends even better and funnier.

If I’m speaking from my own personal point of me the external pressures were the hardest for me, but they forged me to have thicker skin. People tell me I’m wasting my time and that I’m never going to make it big and that I need to get real. To the haters, I say thank you, and look at me now!

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
So as a Content Creator there is a big misconception that all the work for streaming is all done when you hit that live button and it’s not! The hitting live button is 5% of the work that goes into being a full-time content creator and don’t get me wrong it’s an important part of what I do as a content creator however, there are hours of editing and creating social media content and then promoting it. There are hours that go into planning and collaborating with other creators and their content and their schedules.

Last, I would say the biggest piece of what I do as a Creator, is networking everywhere you go, talking to people, going to big events, handing out business cards and making lasting connections with people, and encouraging them to come to check out one of your streams. The Biggest thing I’m proud of is how far I’ve come as a person in doing all of this. Streaming has taught me many lessons about life, such as learning to be patient (which is ongoing lol) not comparing myself to others and their craft or content, and most importantly to be myself above all else.

That’s what sets me apart from others in my mind and I’ve been told this by others is that I have a way of connecting with many different types of people and bringing them together. The other thing that sets me apart is I’m a genuine person, I’m the same me on and off camera no matter if I have 1 person watching or 20,000 the Chase you get on stream is the same chase you would get if we talked on the street!

Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
Risk-taking is a part of life in general in every aspect of life. However, I think there is a difference between unnecessary risk-taking and calculated risk-taking. For me, I would say I’m a calculated risk taker, but I have my moments with unnecessary risks too (I’m human lol).

A big risk I have taken here recently in my content creation was saying for much of the summer I was just going to be doing content creation full time, no side job or anything like that and it was a little scary as I just moved into my first apartment with my roommate.

So, I looked at my financial situation and how much I was making from my paid sponsorship and from twitch and realized that I can live and fully pay my bills with this and so I took that calculated risk and it paid off!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.twitch.tv/chasethegallant2
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_chasethegallant_/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chase.holbrook.9
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChaseGallant
• Other: https://www.twitch.tv/chasethegallant

Image Credits
TwitchKCCommunity