EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW | YOUTUBER SUZANNE THE RAIDER
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Hello everyone!
Once again, I apologise for my absence here. The last six months, I've been focusing on finishing my new Tomb Raider short film "Athena II: Path to Eden" (which is STILL coming out soon) and writing other projects but anyway, enough about me.
Today, I'm very excited to bring you a new interview! The first in a long time!
Suzanne is a YouTuber from Dublin who has become a valued member of the Tomb Raider community in recent years.
Her channel is one of my personal favourites to watch, as what sets it apart from other gaming channels is the amount of research she does on the history, mythology and architecture of each level she plays.
I'm delighted that she took the time to speak to me about her history with the franchise and how she entered the YouTube space.
TDD: Could you tell us about your history with Lara Croft? How did your love of the franchise come to be?
SR: When I was a very small child, my sister and I used to go around to our cousins’ house to play Sonic the Hedgehog on their SEGA Mega Drive. We had so much fun, all taking turns trying to beat the game, and I fell in love with gaming.
We didn’t have much money growing up, and we didn’t have any consoles of our own, so this time visiting our cousins and getting to play was so special.
Then we moved quite far away, and along with missing our cousins and aunts and uncles, we also did very much miss that gaming console. We asked our parents constantly if we could please get one.
The moment my Dad brought home that PS1, is a moment that I will never forget. This was the biggest event to happen in my six or seven years of life up to that point. I remember my sister and I were dancing around the room while my Dad set up the console, too excited to sit still, and he had this game with him that none of us had ever heard of. It was called Tomb Raider. The man at the shop had recommended the game to my Dad when he was buying the PS1, and he had bought it because it sounded like a fun adventure that we could all play together as a family. And so, this started the family tradition.
On evenings where everyone was free, we would all crowd around the PS1, my sister and I sitting on bean bags of course because it was the 90s, and we would play Tomb Raider together.
We’d all take turns playing and trying to figure the puzzles out. These are some of the happiest memories that I have from my childhood.
I was in awe of Lara Croft. I loved who she was and the things she could do and I wanted to be her. I wanted her capability, her confidence, her sass.
To me she was amazing, and Lara Croft joined the ranks of female characters that I still adore to this day, along with Buffy Summers and Xena. Ever since then, you could say I’ve been obsessed.
My love for Tomb Raider and Lara Croft has never faded. She feels like a fundamental part of who I am.
TDD: How did you start your YouTube channel?
SR: This is always a difficult thing for me to talk about, because I started my YouTube channel at one of the lowest points of my life. We were in the middle of the Covid pandemic and were in lockdown.
I had just been let go from my job as a Communications Executive, a career that I had worked tirelessly for years to build. Frederick (my husband) and I were crammed into our one-bedroom apartment that we rented for a ridiculous amount of money. Everything felt so low, and I fell into a depression, the worst one I’ve ever experienced in my life. I remember that I felt so defeated, and like life hadn’t turned out how I thought it should be. Frederick asked me one day what I would do with my life if I could, and I told him that I would like to play games online, but I didn’t know how to make videos and that I didn’t have any equipment to do that, so therefore I just couldn’t do it. Frederick turned around, walked out of our apartment, and came back 20 minutes later holding a head set with a microphone that he’d just bought in the supermarket. He handed it to me and said, “make a video”.
Frederick has always been an amazing optimist, and that day he changed my life. I made my first video a couple of hours later, screen recording my Tomb Raider gameplay on our laptop, and recording my voiceover using the headset microphone. Was the video good? Not really. But it was a video. And then I made another one, and another one. My confidence and skill grew. I borrowed an old camera from my parents and began to record myself playing. I slowly learned how to make videos, and how to make them better. I grew, and the channel grew.
You don’t have to be good to start. You don’t have to have the best equipment to start. And you won’t grow over night. Four years later, I am just in awe at how my channel has grown, and the community that has developed, and I couldn’t be more grateful. But none of it would have happened if I hadn’t started, if I hadn’t made mistakes, and messed up, and learnt new skills, and embarrassed myself. None of it would have happened if I hadn’t even tried.
Try. Start. Learn. Grow. If I can do it, anyone can.
TDD: What are the challenges of being a YouTuber?
SR: The most challenging part of being a YouTuber for me, is dealing with mean comments.
As someone who has struggled with mental health all my life, it can be so damaging to see the worst things that you think about yourself said to you by other people.
I’ve been called every name under the sun on my channel. I’ve had my appearance insulted, my accent and culture ridiculed, and even my fashion choices mocked. I’ve had people hate me just because I’m a woman and had my gaming ability trashed. I’ve received both threats and childish insults. And do you know how I deal with all of this? I focus on the people who deserve my time.
The 95% amazing people on my channel who love games, love the fun of it all, and want to uplift me and treat me like a human being with feelings. They are the only ones who deserve my time and attention. Everything else will be ignored. Constructive criticism is always welcome on the channel, and I’ve made some amazing changes and learnt a lot from criticism in the past, but insults and just plain being mean, that is something that is ok to ignore, delete, block.
Certain people will always have something bad to say, no matter what you do or say. It’s pointless to fight against it, and equally as pointless to pay it any attention.
TDD: What’s your favourite thing about running your channel?
SR: My viewers, subscribers and members. I’ve been so lucky to have so many amazing and wonderful people join my little community. For the regulars who comment a lot and participate in livestreams, I genuinely feel like these people are my friends. I am so excited every week to stream and catch up with everyone. I check in on my discord and see what everyone is up to and to see pictures of people’s pets. I have so much fun in the comment section chatting and laughing about games. I never expected to form such genuine bonds online, and it’s the thing that I’m most grateful for.
So, if you watch my channel but are afraid to comment or join in the chats, please don’t be. I love meeting you and getting to know new people, and everyone is so very welcome on the channel.
TDD: Do you have a particular favourite Tomb Raider playthrough that you’ve done?
SR: Yes, my Angel of Darkness playthrough. I got so obsessed with the research for that game.
I spent hours and hours pouring over forums and documents and articles, trying to gather as much information as possible. I learnt so much about that game and grew to appreciate it so much more by making those videos. It pains me how much potential that game and planned sequels had, and how much it was squandered due to unrealistic deadlines. I fell in love with AOD when making that playthrough, and it’s the Tomb Raider playthrough that I am most proud of.
TDD: Were there any other YouTubers that inspired you when you were starting out?
SR: In 2019, Frederick and I had been playing a lot of games together after he purchased a gaming laptop. We spent a lot of time hanging out and making jokes and commentary as we played. Frederick had also begun watching "Let’s Plays" of his favourite Dark Souls games on YouTube.
I remember one day he showed me one of the videos and said that I should check these out, because he thought I would be good at doing something similar. The videos were by a creator called Marz, and though I wasn’t hugely interested in the Dark Souls playthroughs, I began watching other games on her channel and loved her style.
I used to think that I couldn’t be a gaming creator, because I’m not loud with a huge personality. I’m generally quite quiet and laid back, except when I get angry, then I curse like a sailor and hit my desk. But in general, I don’t have the extroverted personality that people would usually associate with gaming.
Creators like Marz and Gab Smolders showed me that you don’t have to be loud and over the top to create content, and that there are people like me who want to watch someone just enjoy and react to games.
These creators gave me the confidence to just be myself in my content.
I don’t have a persona, how I am in my videos is how I am in real life. That might not be everyone’s cup of tea (I’ve been called boring and monotone many times) but I feel like I am being true to myself and genuinely enjoying the games that I play and the content that I make.
TDD: Why do you think Lara is still important to so many?
SR: Lara Croft is an icon. She was one of the first female video game characters, and certainly was the first one that was a global sensation.
Lara Croft represents everything a female character should be, confident, funny, capable, intelligent, charismatic and unforgettable. She’s also vulnerable, she messes up, she can be selfish and can lack empathy, and she gets it wrong sometimes. She feels like a real person, and real people are messy. And on top of that, she’s stunningly beautiful and owns her femininity, and while that’s not essential for every female character, it works for Lara.
The adventures that we go on in Tomb Raider are great and fun, but that’s not what keeps everyone coming back to the games. Its Lara. It’s always been Lara. She sticks in our brains because she is magnetic. Every cutscene in a game, I always just wanted to see and hear more of Lara Croft.
She’s a fantasy for most of us. No, not that kind of fantasy, although I know at times her marketing was very sexualised, but she’s a fantasy of who most of us want to be. A fearless woman who spends her life chasing adventure. A woman who has no limits and no shortage of smart remarks. A woman so in love with tombs and relics that she turned her back on her entire life.
There is a passion and a fire burning in Lara, and we are drawn to it, and drawn to her. And of course, who wouldn’t also fantasise about being a rich aristocrat and living in Croft Manor?
Lara is our escapism, and for many people like me who spent countless hours playing the games growing up, she feels like a friend.
TDD: Would you have any advice for others who want to start a YouTube channel and do you have any handy tips?
SR: As I said above, just start. Your first video will more than likely suck, and that’s ok. None of us have the money to buy an entire fancy filming and editing set up straight away. And none of us will have the confidence or experience to talk to the camera well at first. It’s all about practice and slowly building your skills and buying extra equipment when you can.
I still don’t have particularly amazing or high-quality equipment, and you don’t need it. You just need to start. Uploading consistently is also your friend. I don’t know how the YouTube algorithm works, I don’t think many people do, but I do know that uploading at least once or twice a week is key to getting YouTube to push out your videos. Also, you need patience, because it’s going to take a long time. I was making videos consistently for a whole year before I hit 100 subscribers.
It’s very difficult to grow on YouTube, and it’s a long and slow slog, but if it’s something that you really want, you have to stick with it. It’s also a little bit of luck. Having a video on a trending topic and catching the algorithm can make your channel balloon so quickly, but there is no science to this, and you just have to try different things until something works.
The main thing is to be consistent and look honestly and critically at the content that you produce. Ask yourself if this is content that you would choose to watch? And if not, why not? What would you change?These can be difficult things to ask ourselves, but it can be very helpful in changing and improving your content.
I wish everyone who is trying to grow their YouTube channel the best of luck. I’m still trying my best to grow mine.
Thank you so much to Suzanne for agreeing to do this interview!
You can follow Suzanne on Instagram and be sure to check out her latest Tomb Raider video below...
