From working at GameStop to becoming YouTube superstar: A deep dive into Valkyrae's meteoric rise

Among the mainstays of the gaming giants, one name that always pops up is Rachell "Valkyrae" Hofstetter. A Filipino-American YouTube streamer, content creator, and esports organization co-owner, Rachell is at the peak of her popularity. She went from working part-time at GameStop to being dubbed the "Queen of Gaming."

However, her meteoric rise to success was not as smooth as one would think, having gone through a troubled childhood. This article delves into the eventful life of Valkyrae and her rise to fame.

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"I got into video games because of my broken childhood" - Valkyrae and her distressing childhood

Valkyrae has always maintained privacy with regard to her personal life. However, during an interview with fellow YouTuber Anthony Padilla, she revealed that her childhood included a lot of toxic parenting.

She said that her parents were constantly at war with each other, which stemmed from her father's alcoholism. She added:

"My dad was a heavy alcoholic, so he would come home every night drunk, fighting with my mom about money..."

She continued:

“My mom would lock me and my sister in my room and she would just watch me play games."

As a mode of escape, she took recourse to video games. She said:

“The reason why I got into video games is because of my broken childhood."

Hofstetter added:

“I escaped so much with video games for my entire life."

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Working extra jobs to pay her bills

Most viewers only witness the glitz and glamor of a successful streamer's life. However, Valkyrae's formative years were replete with rough times and humble beginnings.

During the video with Anthony Padilla, she also recounted how she worked various part-time jobs to pay her bills. The streamer revealed that she worked at GameStop for three years, and also worked at a car wash and a bank.

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Starting small from Instagram

Rachell used to post snippets of her gameplay on her Instagram account. She soon managed to gather a small fanbase with her followers reaching over 15K at one point.

It was her followers who suggested Valkyrae start streaming on Twitch. She said that her fans indicated:

"We would love to watch you play. You should play on Twitch, and that's when I learned of it, and so I literally streamed just to be around people online and have fun, really happy streaming."

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Breakthrough 2020

Although Valkyrae has maintained steady growth since streaming, her success really took off in 2020, especially due to her contributions to the gaming community through Fortnite. At The Game Awards 2020, she became the recipient of the "Content Creator of the Year" award. She also received the same title at the Adweek Creator Visionary Awards 2021.

The year 2020 was notable for another reason. Rachell left Twitch for YouTube and in January 2020, she signed an exclusive deal with the Google-owned platform, making her one of the highest-paid female streamers within the gaming community.

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Success with Among Us

The game that was synonymous with the lockdown period was "Among Us." Everybody was playing it, and Rachell was no different. She had the opportunity to engage in high-profile collaborations with the likes of Corpse Husband, HasanAbi, Pokimane, and even American politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

The simplicity of the gameplay, coupled with a large number of creators present together, meant that at the height of the game's popularity, Valkyrae's streams would get thousands of concurrent viewers.

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100 Thieves co-owner

In 2018, Valkyrae officially joined the popular esports organization 100 Thieves as a co-owner. According to an article in The New York Times, her role involved helping scout for talented players as well as designing fresh and trendy initiatives for the organization.

Besides being the co-owner of 100 Thieves, she joined the group as a content creator.

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How many subscribers does she have?

Valkyrae presently has over 3.75 million subscribers on her main YouTube channel. She has also accumulated a combined subscriber count of over 680K on both her second and clip channel.

She has also been immensely successful on Instagram, with over 3.7 million followers on the platform.

Despite being completely inactive on Twitch, Valkyrae is still the proud owner of a channel that has over 1.1 million followers at the time of writing.

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Notwithstanding her success, Rachell remains down to earth, which is a major factor in her burgeoning fanbase. With the streamer rising in popularity, it will come as no surprise if she continues to expand her brand as well as the channel.