Today we’d like to introduce you to Erica Nagashima.
Hi Erica, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started out with music when I was quite young. I tried drums and the guitar but ultimately landed on the violin and studied that for 6 years, was part of a youth symphony, and participated in competitions. After dabbling in a few other instruments I finally got my chance to try out voice lessons right before high school, which I had wanted to do for a while. I continued with my lessons and choir until I graduated and eventually went to college for an opera performance at UCSB, even though I got accepted to Berklee college of music which had been my dream school but financially was pretty difficult. During high school and college, I also did a lot of trade modeling work which I enjoyed a lot and I was able to build a portfolio. After college, there was not much opportunity for music, but I fell into modeling unintentionally and was able to build a career for many years doing work in the automotive industry, the extreme sports/energy drink industry, promotional, e-commerce, commercial and print work areas.
I was able to be published in multiple magazines across the world and be on the cover of a few as well. I was able to sing a few national anthems for huge events and performed around Los Angeles (some of my favorite ones were for the Japanese American festivals near Little Tokyo!). I got back into gaming sometime after college and thought it would be a really great opportunity to join this platform I had heard about called Twitch and finally in Jan 2019 I did my first stream! Eventually, it has evolved to a variety stream where I am able to perform music (singing and playing ukulele primarily) as well as play games for my 24k+ followers full time! I also joined a female gaming collective back in 2020 that focuses on leveling the playing field in the gaming industry for females who are severely underrepresented! I have been able work with several amazing companies thanks to Queens such as Razer, Insomniac, Kala Ukulele, etc and it’s been very rewarding!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Modeling as well as music/singing always have their inherent struggles. I can’t stress enough how prevalent imposter syndrome is in both the industries. You’d be hard-pressed to find a single person in the world that has never felt some form of imposter syndrome. That is something I do still always struggle with. Another issue definitely comes from being a female on twitch (or frankly social media in general, but that’s a whole can of worms). As a female gamer, there is not really a place at the table for females in the gaming space. Additionally, as a female on twitch in general, you can get harassed often, or made to think that the only reason you have viewership is simply because you are female and not because of your personality or musical talent or gaming talent, etc. Streaming takes a lot of time and dedication. You have to be your own social media team, tech team, marketing team and more. I’m sure I haven’t even scratched the surface of everything I can/want to do. But there’s always room to learn and grow!
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
As my current career is Twitch/content creation, I think I’m unique that I bridge both gaming and music. I also think that my many years of promotional modeling has given me a unique sense of how to put people at ease and to be approachable either in person or on stream. I’m also always extremely proud to be representing, in any small capacity, the female AAPI community in music and gaming on Twitch and beyond.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
I always want to tell people not to wait until everything is aligned and perfect to start something you’ve been wanting to do. When I first thought about starting to stream, I was very hesitant and didn’t know where to start and put it off for quite a while. Finally, a friend lent me a monitor and told me to buy a $50 PS4 webcam and just pull the trigger. It was janky and amateur but so amazing. And that’s where it all started. You have to start somewhere. JUST DO IT!
Contact Info:
- Website: ericanagashima.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericanagashima/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EricaLNagashima/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ericanagashima
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/ericanagashima
Image Credits
Toby Jho Natalie Wentworth Jeremy Rafanan Miles Caliboso
