Photograph by Annette Navarro
ONE_shot_GURL streams live on YouTube every evening. Nearly half a million subscribers watch as she completes level after level of popular video games such as Fortnite and Battlegrounds. But unlike most YouTubers who make a business live-streaming content, Julie Loock has established her following here in Cincinnati. And as a 28-year-old woman, she’s also carved out a space for female gamers in a male-dominated industry. —as told to Grace Dearing
I started my channel three years ago doing gaming uploads. I would sit and play through a section of the game. Then I’d record another section the next day and slowly play through the whole game. I started streaming six months into my channel. I found that streaming is more fun and I could interact with my viewers in real time.
A lot of people compare it to watching sports on TV. You watch athletes who are good at the sport compete, and I think it can be the same with gaming: You can watch someone who is—usually—good at the game and sometimes you can learn tips and tricks.
I’ve definitely thought about moving to Los Angeles. A lot of the companies that I talk to, they’ve offered to fly me out for something for like a day, but an afternoon in L.A. turns out to be a three-day trip for me from Cincinnati.
I choose to live in Cincinnati because I’m very close to my family. That’s the whole reason I didn’t move to L.A.—because I love my family and they’re my best friends, and it’s really corny but it’s true. They mean everything to me.
I feel like, as a female, I get a lot of mean comments directed toward me that my male colleagues don’t necessarily deal with. I also think that, for females, we’re kind of a minority, so we can maybe draw some people to us [because of that].
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