Leslie Ann Fu, better known as Fuslie, is one of the biggest content creators in the world. She is a role model for many up-and-coming female streamers and is well respected in the streaming world. But it was not an easy path for her, as Fuslie’s start in the streaming world was a bit different compared to most streamers.
Life before Streaming
In her early childhood, Fuslie didn't play a lot of games. Apart from Mario, or Pokemon games, she wasn't really interested in video games. Fuslie dream was to become a veterinary. She earned a bachelor's degree in biology from the University of California, and was on her way to attend veterinary school, when the streamer had an epiphany.
“I realized that when I graduate college I actually have to do what I've been studying, and I can't do that, I can't be in charge of lifes. I can barely take care of myself and my friend's cat.”
So after graduating Fuslie decided that the best course of action for her was to continue to study. She decided that being a teacher would be the perfect job for her. After graduating she took a year off to think well about her choices. While in that gap year, she asked one of her best friends Raymond if she could go live with him since she was in the process of finding what she really wanted to do. Raymon ended up inviting Fuslie to live with him and his two friends.
So Fuslie went to live with Raymond and his two friends, who were huge gamers. It was them that got Fuslie into League of Legends, and gaming in general. It didn't take long for Fuslie to get hooked on League of Legends, and spend countless hours playing the game. At this point, Fuslie became a gamer.
“His two friends are like big gamers and they got me into League of Legends. I got hooked and was playing all day every day. So my mind was open to this world (gaming).”
The start of Fuslie Streaming career
Raymond was the one that incentivized Fuslie to start streaming. Her friend thought that she was very funny, and combined with the love Fuslie had for League of Legends, he thought it could really work. At first, Fuslie didn't think streaming was for her, but one day she decided to try it.
One day in 2015 Fuslie downloaded OBS, went to Twitch, and just started streaming. In her first broadcast she had five viewers, but in typical Fuslie fashion interacted a lot with them, and had a great time while streaming. From there she continued to regularly stream League of Legends and the number of viewers that watched her streams started to increase.
She spent quite some time stuck in the 80 viewers mark, but a host by fellow streamer boxbox brought 3K new viewers to her stream. Fuslie didn’t know how to react when she saw so many people in her chat.
“I think I have hit every viewership point possible. I remember having five viewers, then 10, 20, 50, and 80. I was at 80 viewers for the longest time, and I was fine with that, I was like, cool I have 80 people watching me. I remember I got a host from boxbox for 3K viewers one time and I was in shock. I couldn't speak to my chat, I couldn't fathom 3K people watching me. “
In a little over six months, Fuslie met some of her best friends, such as pokimane, xChocoBars, QuarterJade, and many others, who are still very close with the streamer today. At that point, Fuslie was very excited about streaming, and the gates to streaming success were open to her.
After League of Legends, Fuslie adventured in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. It was her first ever FPS game, and it opened the doors to games such as Overwatch, H1Z1: King of the Kill,
and Fortnite. This meant Fuslie went from a League of Legends streamer to a variety streamer, playing a plethora of games.
However, it would still take some time until Fuslie reached Twitch stardom. Her journey as a streamer was a very long one. It was in 2016, her second year of streaming, that she had her first boom of popularity, but until 2020 Fuslie was always a rollercoaster when it came to viewership numbers, and was still far from being one of the top female streamers on twitch. In 2018 she had another increase in popularity but then went down once again.
2020 was the breakthrough year of Fuslie, and that happened because of one game, and the change of the Twitch meta.
The impact of Among Us on Fuslie streaming career
No other game had the impact on Fuslie streaming career that Among Us had. When the game was released in late 2019, Fuslie was already an established streamer, but still far from being one of Twitch top female streamers. But this game skyrocketed her to stardom. This game changed the streaming meta completely. Before most streamers, including Fuslie, were solo streamers, and they wouldn't play with friends. But Among Us was a group-focused game, and it quickly became very popular.
“What I loved about Among Us is that it change the game, it changed the meta of streaming, at least from my perspective. Up until Among Us came out I was a solo streamer pretty much. I literally would not play with friends. Not that I didn't want to, it just wasn't a thing that we would ask each other to play. Whatever it was I was doing it was solo, and then Among Us was a game that was blowing up and was group focused.”
She started to play Among Us with many of her friends, and not only was she having a lot of fun doing it, but the viewers also loved her Among Us streams and videos. She was constantly playing Among Us with some of the biggest content creators in the world, such as Valkyrae, Sykkuno, DisguisedToast, and others. This allowed viewers from other streams to discover Fuslie, and helped her gain a lot of new followers and viewers.
Her Among Us videos were also crucial in the growth of her YouTube channel. It allowed her to grow and really cement her YouTube channel, and also helped her reach more viewers. It was in 2020, in the Among Us era, that Fuslie viewership numbers went through the roof. The streamer had her biggest popularity boom, and established herself as one of the top female streams on Twitch.
“Once I was able to use Among Us and grow my YouTube channel for the first time, now I don't even know what’s going on, sometimes I have 20K viewers, sometimes I have 10K. <...> For the first five years, it was a totally different journey than the past one (2020), and now we are here.”
After Among Us, Fuslie was streaming for 20K viewers on a regular basis, and she was in the prime of her streaming career. Fuslie herself said that Among Us is basically the game she owes her career to.
One of the most popular female streamers on Twitch
In the last seven years, Fuslie became one of the most popular female streamers on Twitch. Her amicable personality captivated viewers towards her streams. Despite taking some time for her to become a star of the streaming platform, Fuslie really cemented herself as one of Twitch top streamers in the last two years.
Since August 2021, she amassed 13 million Hours Watched, making her the eighth most watched female streamer on the platform during that period of time. Fuslie reached 56K Peak Viewers in May of 2022, which makes her the seventeenth female steamer with the highest number of simultaneous viewers.
Another metric that proves how much of a Twitch star Fuslie was, is her AV in the past 12 months. She placed in the top 5 of female streamers with the most concurrent viewers, with 10K Average Viewers. In the follower department, Fuslie had 1.2 million followers on Twitch before switching over to YouTube. This makes her the 34th most followed female streamer on the platform. She also broadcasted for 1.3K hours, where she entertained thousands of viewers.
Fuslie has never had less than 520K Hours Watched per month since August 20221. From December 2021 until June 2022, her viewers watched her streams for more than 1 million hours each month. February of 2022 was the month where Fuslie had the most HW in the last year, with viewers watching her broadcasts for 1.9 million hours.
If you look at Fuslie Hours Watched by quarter, the stats are even more impressive. From the second quarter of 2019 until the third quarter of 2022, she only missed the Top-5 most watched female streamers list twice. That happened in the third quarter of 2019, and the second quarter of 2020.
Fuslie has been a regular presence in the Top-10 list of HW for female streamers since 2021. Her best place in this list came in the first quarter of this year, when Fuslie viewers watched her streams for 5 million hours. In the following quarter, Fuslie once again had an astonishing number of hours watched with 3.6 million HW and placed in fifth place among all the female streamers.
These numbers prove that since 2019 Fuslie stream has grown at a rapid pace. In 2022 Fuslie numbers are amazing, with the streamer having 5 million HW in the first quarter, and 3.6 HW in the second one. Fuslie was already a star but she was only getting bigger, and these numbers are proof of that. She was clearly among the queens of Twitch with more & more viewers tuning into their streams.
Nowadays the streamer doesn't even look at her viewership numbers, since it's better for her mental health, and she prefers not knowing what to expect and not stressing over how many viewers she has. But it's undeniable that she is on top of the streaming mountain.
Fuslie is known for interacting a lot with her chat, always answering questions, and her streams were some of the most engaging on the platform. So it’s no surprise that Fuslie had such a big number of Active Chatters and a good engagement rate compared to some of the other Twitch superstars.
In 2022, March was the month where her viewers were the most active in the chat. Fuslie had 39K Active Chatters, and an engagement rate of 12% in that month. Since March of this year, she always averaged more than 10% when it comes to chat engagement rate. Most top streamers have a chat engagement rate of 7% which makes these numbers from Fuslie even more impressive.
In her worst month, she still managed to have 25K Active Chatters, and a chat engagement rate of 10.4%, proving that she always has a very active chat, even in months where her viewers are not as active in the chat as usual. Since March that she has always been around the 12% chat engagement rate mark. You can clearly see that she had one of the most active chats when it came to top female streamers on Twitch, and that she had built a big community who really likes to interact with her.
Fuslie has recently moved to YouTube where she will stream exclusively. It’s a big move for the streamer, and also a huge loss for Twitch, which lost one of the biggest female stars on the platform. Despite the change in the streaming platform, we can continue to expect great content from her. With more entertaining videos on her YouTube channel, especially challenges and Q & As with her roommates, Valkyrae, Sykkuno, yvonnie, and kkatamina. Fuslie will continue to entertain thousands of viewers from all around the world, creating funny content, and being a role model for other up-and-coming streamers.
