Welcome to the NZStephenF blog site. This site has been dead since the day I created it back in 2013. It was meant to be used for a Media Studies practical where we had to document our activities and I needed to find a suitable free web hosting platform. *insert cheap smoke effects here* I PRESENT WORDPRESS! *coughs down a storm because cheap smoke effects used earlier*
But more to the origins story of where NZStephenF came from. As a young one, I’ve always had this burning passion to entertain people – friends, family, acquaintances and strangers who I hope to become acquainted with. My mission was to turn a frown upside down. TV presenting was a career I would have liked to pursue. So as an attention-seek teenager I was, I decided to create a Facebook page to show that your boy Stephen Falepau can be a public figure (well I hope to be, I try my best to not be off-side with people haha, also that’s still yet to be determined).
Now at the time of creating the page, I had no idea what the username should have been. Also, this was being made during class time when we essentially had free time so the clock was ticking before class was over.
The page was created during a time where I’d come home from school, turn the telly on and watch the now-defunct TV show ‘Drew and Shannon Live’. The format of the show is something I’d love to work in someday, it was a TV show that aired from 4:30 to 6 on weekdays. They aired music videos and in between songs and ad breaks, have entertainment news and other entertaining content to be broadcasted to the nation. Hosts were Drew Neemia and Shannon Ryan, both from a music-related background. Drew’s username on Facebook to this date is Drewzealand. I thought it was genius how he created a punderful (LUL) username with his name and his home country, New Zealand. After this came to mind while coming up with the username, NZStephenF came to light.
NZ being New Zealand,
Stephen being my first name, it’s not short for anything like Stephenyaboi,
F being the first letter of my surname, Falepau.
Username decided, what next?
After coming up with the username, I stuck with it and it’s still set as my public Facebook page today. As I knew at the time that I’d be too young for music television presenting roles, I wanted to get in the ‘entertainment’ media industry in some capacity. So watching a television show called U Live (RIP TVNZ U), with the behind-the-scenes live streaming aspect of the TV show, it brought some extra interactivity with the show. Seeing how it proved that audience live-engagement is key to showing a personality for others to tune into on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, I wanted to start my own live stream that focused primarily on giving people something to what, to see I’m more than capable to drive a show that I ran, wrote/produced and executed, also to give that NZStephenF some use.
Live show flops
When the idea to go live on the internet came about, I was full of excitement. To me, live streaming was the unknown and I hadn’t seen many live streams done within the type of content I was aiming to broadcast. So after some planning, I had a date set and a live streaming platform all set up.
The stream begins, I’m in my room with a rundown of what to speak about. I shut my room door because I don’t want people knowing I’m talking to myself when I’m actually talking to a camera (with no one in the room physically, okay yeah I was talking to myself 😛 ). Time strikes 8pm which if I remember was the time I scheduled to go live. Facebook post and Tweets go live to promote the stream and the whereabouts of where to watch it. First 15 minutes was, HELLO CAN YOU HEAR ME and HI IS THIS THING ON WITH PEOPLE WATCHING. The damn live show flopped so hard.
The YouTubes
Okay if you got to this part of the blog post, thank you very much for your time. Now, the live show flopped and I’m not sure anymore if I decided to run a second or third live stream. At the time, YouTube live streaming wasn’t a known thing to use back in 2011 for people like myself who had less than 100 subscribers and didn’t have that interesting badge with a tick in it. “NZStephenF LIVE” actually live was laid to rest.
Back to the drawing board, I didn’t want this live streaming horror show discourage me from creating entertainment-related content. The idea of creating NZStephenF LIVE was born-again-but this time it isn’t broadcasted live. Every week for the rest of 2011 and up to 2014, I created one video a week covering things from a gig guide, entertainment news of the week, segments that didn’t last and more. Now if you go to youtube.com/nzstephenf it doesn’t actually have the videos. I HID THEM! I DON’T WANT THE PUBLIC SEEING MY CRINGE AS F**K CONTENT AGAIN.
This idea ran up until 2015. Before I stopped creating content, I actually got a hang of video editing and think I can do a pretty decent job with the tools I have access to. I use VideoPad up to this date and it’s pretty great stuff. Right so back to the end of the channel… Smosh Games Alliance (SGA) was relaunched in 2015 and I wanted to join the audience-driven community. In doing so, I was tempted to bring over NZStephenF LIVE (not really live) to SGA but in the end I stopped producing stuff on that channel and moved to “Passive Steve”.
The username is still used frequently on Facebook, Twitch, here on WordPress and various different platforms. If you see me somewhere on the internet, shout out and say hi! ^_^
If you wish to see some recent content from me, go to the Passive Steve youtube channel and for the latest updated content, follow and visit @stephenfalepau on Twitter.
Have a wonderful day,
Stephen/Steve ❤
NZStephenF 