Interview ‘Avori Henderson’

The Extra Mile (TEM ) : Welcome, Avery. If you don’t mind introducing yourself to our readers and viewers who may not be familiar with you and what you do

Avori Henderson:  My name is Avery. I am a gamer, content creator, streamer, like you name it, I’ll do it, whatever it is. No, I’m kidding. I don’t think that literally, but I just like creating, and I am a gamer, so obviously, you know, I merge gaming with the rest of the things I enjoy, like travel, and also married, so, you know, the hubby and I, we go on a lot of adventures.

TEM : You were also a model in the beginning, right?

Avori Henderson: Yes, I just skipped a lot of information about myself right there. So, yes, I did pageants and modeling. I also went to college. I graduated at the age of 20, which is surprising. Some people may think that influencers, maybe it’s the blonde hair as well, aren’t that smart, but yeah, I graduated from college with a degree in business, a minor in marketing, and I definitely use that to this day, as well as being on Netflix and modeling and all of it, you know, a lot of things.

TEM : So, how do you balance everything?

Avori Henderson: That is a good question. I think the best balance is no balance. In the sense of, you can’t focus too heavily on how to balance everything out. You know, like, sometimes things are out of balance. You have to focus more on work or more on your relationship, and that’s okay. You just have to, like, take everything as it comes and focus on what you need to focus on at the moment. I don’t know. I think balance is kind of a hoax, to be honest. It’s too much to try and, like, give a perfect percentage of time and space, you know?

TEM : So, tell me a little bit about gaming. You know, why do you think gaming is important, let’s say, to, like, Gen Z rather than other social media platforms?

Avori Henderson: I think Gen Z grew up with gaming, obviously, because of technology. Back in the day, it used to be board games or, you know, if you could maybe get your hand on, like, a little device that would connect to a game, then that would be gaming for you. But as technology increased and games started becoming more and more accessible, I think that’s when things started to roll out and gaming got involved in everything that we do. Because, as I said on stage before, we love stories and playing in games is playing out a story in real time.

TEM : So, what do you to, let’s say, to stay ahead of trends? And, like, how do you keep that engaging while, for example, creating fresh content?

Avori Henderson: Good question. I try and be as creative and innovative as I can. I don’t like just posting normal videos that, like, everyone else can post. My husband owns a production company, and we try to post content that other people can’t. In the sense of, like, either high-quality, really unique transitions or cuts. And, obviously, sometimes I have some normal content that I’ll post just on my own. But, with my husband and I collaborating, it makes cool stuff. And I think the viewers really appreciate that.

TEM : So, if you could live in, let’s say, any gaming environment, what would it be?

Avori Henderson: Oh my gosh, definitely not, like, Fortnite or Call of Duty, because I’d get killed right away in real life. I’d, like, yeah, that would not be good. Maybe, like, I don’t know, Minecraft? Because you can’t, like, die. You can’t fall to your death. You can, like, jump off from anywhere and just, like, land in an inch of a pool and be totally fine.

TEM : What would you say is the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten?

Avori Henderson: The best piece of advice I’ve ever received would probably be to not try to be like someone else to get people to like you. I think in the content creator space, because of trends, it almost becomes inevitable that people will try and do something that everyone else is doing to get views. And I think it’s the worst thing you can do because the best content that you create always comes from an authentic place. As a content creator as well, I’ve fallen into that trap of, oh, this is a trend, everyone’s doing it, let me hop on. And then I’ll end up deleting it later, because I’m like, what am I doing? I don’t even care about that. That has nothing to do with what I’m passionate about. So it’s easy to fall into the trap, but I think if you can stay authentic and just post what you’re passionate about, you’ll find your people, and you don’t need everyone to like you. You really don’t. You just need a core group of people who resonate with you, and who like what you’re posting, but it doesn’t need to be everyone.

TEM : What advice would you give to future gamers or aspiring content creators?

Avori Henderson: Inspiring advice from me? Yeah! No, I’m kidding. I think keep going. It sounds so cheesy, but it’s really, really easy to get discouraged when you see that your at-zero viewers or one viewer, or people aren’t viewing your stories or your content. Honestly, even eight years in, there are times when I’ll go live and I’ll have way lower viewership than normal, or I’ll post something and it’s way lower views than normal, and I’m like, what the heck? Is this just a bad video? What’s going on? Or why are people engaged? And then at the same time, I have to kick myself and be like, hey, wait. It just happens sometimes. You never know what it is, but you just keep going. If you let those moments keep you down, then you’ll never be able to achieve what you can achieve if you were to just keep going and believe that you can. So, just keep going. Don’t care about what people say. Don’t worry about the hate comments. Don’t worry about the views. Keep going.

TEM : So what’s next for you?

Avori Henderson: Oh, I wonder. A lot of NDAs as of right now. It’s hard to talk about. But what’s next for me, similarly to what I just said, I’m just continuing to post what I’m passionate about. I’m doing a lot  of streaming and posting as of recently, which is a new adventure for me, but I really like it. It’s fun to be on stage and share what I’ve accomplished, and I never thought I would be at that point to where I’d be able to share my story like that. So it’s pretty cool to have that perspective instead of being that person in the crowd that’s like, I want to do that one day, which was me, to now be sharing my story. It’s kind of full circle, a little bit more. So I hope to continue being able to inspire people to do what they’re passionate about.

Learn more about Avori Henderson here