Meet Marine1169

Today we’d like to introduce you to Marine1169.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I am a retired U.S. Marine who served over 21 years on active duty in the Marine Corps. I served from 1994–2016 and retired with an honorable discharge. After retiring from the Marines and moving my family to the Los Angeles area, I worked as a maintenance supervisor for a food company and for a short period as an operations supervisor for a garage disposal company.

One day I was watching one of my former Marines streaming and wonder how I would be able to do the same, and he pointed me into the right direction. Also, I was always interested how I could get into the gaming industry which is worth over 197 billion dollars. I have been playing video games all of life. Ever since I was five when my dad took me to the mall back when malls had arcades.

Once I found out what equipment I needed in order to stream, I played around different platforms. One of the newest platforms that caught my attention was Facebook Gaming. It’s funny because I wanted to delete my Facebook account and decided not to. I’m glad that I did not.

My first obstacle that I had to deal with was to get into the Facebook Gaming’s level-up program and needed 100 followers to do so. Which I did. I officially started to stream on April 22, 2022, it was a struggle getting those 100 followers and I wondered how some streamers could get over 10k followers. Let me tell you the grind is real. One day I kept getting pings on my phone and wondered what was going on. The ping were people who were following my page’s content. I went over 2k followers, and it was scary,

I continued to grind and learn about streaming and the business side behind it. I created my own company, Marine1169 Gaming LLC and on March 1, 2021, I became partners with Facebook Gaming which is goal that everyone in the level-up program try to achieve. On April 29, 2021, I quit my job and became a full-time gaming content creator. Later that year Facebook Gaming selected me to appear in an Oculus Quest 2 commercial title “Resident Evil 4 VR faceoff with Marine1169. I am still in shock because it was based off of me a Marine and my experience playing Oculus Quest 2 best-selling game.

The vibes on my channel are very chill and positive, and we keep all politics, religion and putting down other people out of the chat. It’s a place for everyone to hang out. I have a huge military following, those who are interested in the military and those who are showing respect to people who have served. Just recently, I went over 52k followers and have over 66k followers across multiple platforms.

2021-2022 has been amazing for me. I started creating short-form content and some not just based around gaming to help people laugh. I have been to multiple content creator events to network and learn from some of the same people that I followed for years, but now its face to face and vibing at the same events. The most memorable one was the Rolling Stone x META inaugural creator event. That felt like a movie.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It has not been a smooth road along the way. I remember in the beginning, when I first started, I used to stream to only three people. Those three people were me watching myself on my cell phone, tablet and on my computer. Now my Concurrent viewers (CCV) on live stream can be anywhere from 30 to 2000 viewers watching at one time. Then every once in a while, you will have trolls that would come into your stream just to ruin the vibes and try to put you down. This along with a few other things can mess with you mentally and make you question why you are doing what you do. As long as you are thick-skinned and passionate, you will achieve your goals. There have been many times where different people have messaged me to say that they love my content and that it helps them with PTSD, struggles in life, not to commit suicide, or just to mentally relax. That’s one of the things that keeps me going. Lastly balancing work where I am doing everything to include filming, editing, meetings, attending events, podcast, maintaining my own company and family responsibilities can be very challenging.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
As a gaming/variety content creator. I stream live gaming content while providing entertaining commentary, create reels, video on demand, stream for charities and promote products.

I create video content to entertain and bring the world together through gaming, laughter and fun. Everyone comes from different backgrounds with different opinions, and many people would never have met without online communities like the gaming community.

Gaming brings people together from around the world to laugh and have fun. At the end of the day, we all realize that we are the same.

What’s next?
My plans for the future are to continue to expand my knowledge and grow my brand with-in the gaming industry, and mentor anyone that serious about the gaming industry and content creation. I would also like to do commercials and other creative work. There is so much to learn and it’s a grind, but I love it. As one of my fellow Facebook Gaming partners always say, “Chase your stream”.

Contact Info:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Marine1169x/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/marine1169
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marine1169x/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Marine1169
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@marine1169