While Rachell Hofstetter, better known as Valkyrae, may have over 14 million followers watching her stream online, when she was growing up as a half-German, half-Filipino Cross Cultural Kid in a small town in Washington State, U.S.A., like many CCKs she spent her youth trying to figure out exactly who she was.
On the first episode of her “Press ESC” podcast, Valkyrae describes her mother as a “very Filipino woman. She grew up in the Philippines and she struggled to learn English, so she wanted my sister and I to be entirely whitewashed and only know English, so we didn’t have to suffer the way that she did.”
While Valkyrae appreciates what her mother sacrificed to raise her and her sister “and I love her for that, but oh my gosh, there’s this universe far, far away where I can speak Tagalog and I can be fluent and go overseas and be able to [speak Tagalog].”
Valkyrae says she “grew up just feeling so uncultured in every way, just not feeling Filipino enough and not being white enough.”
“I really struggled growing up trying to figure out my identity, what am I?” she adds.
Valkyrae recalls as a child washing herself with a Filipino papaya whitening soap, a popular herbal exfoliating bar infused with papain enzyme from papaya extract. It works by breaking down dead skin cells to fade dark spots, even out skin tone, and reveal a brighter complexion.
“I definitely appreciate my skin more now, but growing up, I feel like I’m not white enough,” she says.
Nowadays as an adult, Valkyrae has over 14 million followers, co-owns the esports company 100 Thieves and is the founder of Hihi Studios, a media company built around anime-inspired content, including short-form animation, comics, webtoons and a mobile game currently in the works.
Along the way, she became the first gamer ever featured in print in a Vogue property (a seven-page spread in Vogue Philippines), and has been named Gaming Creator of the Year by Adweek, Content Creator of the Year by The Game Awards, and 2024’s Most Impactful in Sports and Gaming by Gold House.
Speaking at the 2026 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Valkyrae says streaming “has opened up a lot of opportunities for me, including working with brands, travelling and doing stuff like [Cannes Lions].”
I really struggled growing up trying to figure out my identity, what am I?
When asked how does she frame her value and what kinds of partnerships is she looking for, Valkyrae says she needs “creative freedom.”
“I need to be able to have communication, a conversation, a real back-and-forth with the brand,” she says. “They suggest their ideas, I suggest mine. I’ll be [upfront if] my audience is going to think their idea is cringe, since we all want us both to grow. Our partnership also has to be authentic, because people can tell when it’s fake. The audience can tell when you’re doing it for money, a quick payday, especially with livestreaming since it’s not edited. They can see my reaction — and I’m not great at hiding my reactions.”
BEING ABLE TO SAY NO
A piece of advice Valkyrae has for content creators is that you have to be able to say no.
“Some people will sign with a brand for three years at the worst pay, or they don’t realize that saying yes to one brand means saying no to another,” she says. “So, you have to be a little choosy and pick what’s going to work best for you and what’s going to resonate with your audience.”
Brands also have to understand that they are not going to know a creator’s audience better than the creator does, according to Valkyrae.
Our partnership also has to be authentic, because people can tell when it’s fake.
“Over the years, I’ve rejected some really good deals because the fit wasn’t right,” she says. “Saying ‘no’ has gotten us to where we are now — we’re able to say yes to the brands that are willing to actually work with us.”
After 11 years of streaming across multiple platforms, the community Valkyrae has built “has been there with me through everything, including my dad’s passing. They’ve seen where I started, so I think people just get attached and feel like they’re part of the community.”
For her future projects, she wants to show more behind-the-scenes work and have the community vote on the creative direction, “like, ‘Hey, what kind of anime do you want to see?’ Because I know what I like, and I feel like I know what they like. Their involvement is important, because at the end of the day, I would not be here without the people that are watching. The audience makes us. There’s no brand if they’re not watching.”
The three contracts Valkyrae signed to stream exclusively with YouTube makes her feel like she “won the lottery” and “was life-changing, allowing me to take care of my family.”
After that, she started thinking: what can she do to make an impact in this world?
Over the years, I’ve rejected some really good deals because the fit wasn’t right.
“People tell me all the time that I inspire them to start streaming, to be more themselves,” she says. “That’s wonderful. But I want to do more. With Hihi Studios, we’re going to give people jobs: hire animators and writers, create things that entertain people in the long-run and that I also genuinely want to consume.”
For brands looking to approach a partnership with a creator, Valkyrae advises them to be as communicative and excited as possible “and really listen.”
“Listen to what the creator thinks will work for their audience, because at the end of the day, doing ‘#ad’ in the title, slapping a giant logo on screen — that’s not going to get anyone to stick around or buy anything. It just has to be authentic.”
Additionally, brands shouldn’t limit themselves to “obvious pairings,” according to Valkyrae.
“You can work with a creator you wouldn’t expect and build something genuinely interesting together,” she says. “Co-create. Find the thing that resonates with their audience in a way that also makes sense for your brand. It has to be creative, fun and authentic. That’s it, really.”
FOLLOWER COUNTS
One of the most overhyped metrics in the creator economy right now is follower counts, according to Valkyrae.
“How many of my followers have passed away? How many of them are bots? You would never know, right?” she says, adding that brands should be paying attention to the engagement that actually matters: views, comments, real interaction.
“There are creators with 100,000 followers who are better business partners and more cost-efficient than someone with 100 million,” she says. “The number doesn’t tell you the story.”
Listen to what the creator thinks will work for their audience, because at the end of the day, doing ‘#ad’ in the title, slapping a giant logo on screen — that’s not going to get anyone to stick around or buy anything.
Having been almost two years since Hihi Studios launched, Valkyrae says she’s the most excited about “the possibilities” the future holds.
“We’ve been brainstorming, setting big goals — maybe one day winning an Oscar for animation. I know that sounds huge, but why not? Being surrounded by people who are equally excited about what we’re building is what’s driving me right now,” she says.
It’s also about “the unexpected connections,” she adds.
“I’ve been doing voice acting outside of Hihi, and it’s so fun and keeps leading me to people I never would have met otherwise. Those relationships end up feeding back into Hihi in ways I didn’t plan for,” she says.
The storytelling is what it all comes back to, though, according to Valkyrae.
“My all-time favorite anime is ‘One Piece,’ and what I love about it is that something in episode 1,000 will tie back to something from episode 20,” she says. “I want to build things that hold together like that. Obviously ‘One Piece’ is legendary; I don’t know if we’ll ever compete with that, but that’s the goal.”
