Law Student Turned Gamer, Meet Cozy K

Not surprisingly, last year the number of people purchasing and playing video games went through the roof and 45% of businesses reaped the reward say Ukie, the trade association that represents the online gaming entertainment industry in the UK.  The pandemic was obviously good news for some and at least us at home had things to keep us occupied.  

With this surge, we saw new releases of cosy simulation games, such as Nintendo’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons in March 2020, which, the BBC reported in 2020, “tripled the company’s profits.”  And then of course Calico, where you have to assemble the town’s cat café (we all need one), dropped in December and everyone thought it was just purr-fect.

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The popularity of this genre has changed the idea that playing videogames has to be a brain rotting, violent, waste of time. Which okay only some of the time. Casual simulation games on average attract mostly young adults, which the website Screenrant say has an “almost completely equal gender split”.  There is something in cosy games for everyone it seems. Fan of the genre, 26-year-old Daisy, from the UK, says “I love cosy gaming simply because it makes me happy! I don’t like to get overly stressed when I’m gaming so pretty artwork and sweet story lines are perfect for me. I remember getting a farming game called Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town when I was around 9-years-old and I haven’t looked back since!”.  She goes on to say that when delving into the category, it is “all about finding the what’s right for you. Cosy games span many genres from farming to horror. My partner exclusively plans MMO’s (massively multiplayer online games) but is obsessed with Animal Crossing and Pokémon Snap. It’s all about finding what makes you smile!”.  

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One gamer, who has made it her mission to spread the word about this genre, is Kennedy Rose (AKA @cozy.games). The 24-year-old law student, from Northern California, started her journey back in February 2020, when she initially made her Instagram, all about cosy videogames, creating a relaxing space and practicing self-care. She specifically aims to appeal to those who feel that they do not fit in or connect with the typical gamer and vibe of the mainstream gaming community. 

Kennedy says: “a large portion of the gaming community tends to exclude anyone who isn’t a cis man”.  Anyone identifying as something different can relate when she says that the gaming “can be off-putting for those who haven’t tried it or isolating for those that have but are faced with that exclusion often”. For years, male streamers and youtubers, such as PewDiePie (Felix Kjellberg) and Ninja (Tyler Blevins) ruled the gaming scene, with their YouTube videos and online streams, playing shooter games like Fortnite and horrors, like Five Nights at Freddie’s. Now with the increase of female gamers, like Plumbella (Jesse McNamara) and Lilsimsie (Kayla Sims), who stream a range of more casual simulation games, like The Sims 4, Animal Crossing and House Flipper, the face of gaming is beginning to change.

Kennedy spent her childhood collecting gaming consoles with her family and playing games, such as “Super Mario on the original NES” (Nintendo Entertainment System), with her brother. 

After a year of finessing Insta, Kennedy’s online vibe connected with others and her presence spread onto other platforms, such as TikTok, YouTube and Discourse and reveals that it was “a creative jump that felt natural”. 

Inspired by “a lot of amazing gamer women” on the sites, such as her close friend Kayla (@playerpluto) and YouTuber and Streamer Gab Smolders, Kennedy made her accounts to express her own “personal approach to gaming”. Kennedy’s neutral colour palette, soft voice and relaxing background music is different to anything else currently on the web.  

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Her TikTok page began to grow quickly, after she posted her first video on 19th January 2021. Her new and budding community suggested that she began to create more long-form videos on YouTube, “I’m so thankful to them for giving me that push and helping me find my YouTube niche!”. 

When asked about her social media growth, Kennedy revealed that she “didn’t originally go into content creation with any real goals” in regard to numbers. She wanted to join the platforms to share her images and be part of the gaming community. At the moment of writing this, Kennedy is at 46.4K followers on TikTok, 8.8K followers on Instagram and 7.47K on YouTube! “I’m so grateful” she says, “knowing I have more and more people appreciating what I’m putting out there motivates me to create higher quality and more unique content every day”. Her next goal is reaching 10K on Instagram. Her TikTok account has “unexpectantly grown so quickly” that she feels like she hasn’t “even had a chance to think about growing past where [she is] now!”.

 Although you definitely should subscribe to her YouTube channel, Kennedy says that she is in no rush to reach any specific goals on there. Right now, she is “just enjoying the process of creating each video”. She goes on to say “People have been so encouraging and receiving kind messages about what my videos mean to different people goes much further than reaching a certain number of subscribers. I’m also enjoying having a tight-knit community, where I recognize repeat viewers/commenters and am able to respond to every comment - it makes it all feel more worthwhile during the creation process”. 

Despite her love for content creation, it hasn’t been all that smooth sailing. “I’ve had multiple stress-cry sessions about YouTube specifically” she says “Nowadays it seems like the bar for entry is so high in terms of production. Most people consume pretty high-quality videos without even realizing it, so we all come to expect a certain level of production when we click on that next”. Being a student, she cannot always afford to buy the latest tech to have the highest filming setup. She has had to release her own merchandise – T-shirts, hoodies and crewneck jumpers, tote bags, stickers and mugs with cute and cosy artwork, are available on teespring.com – and open an “Etsy shop to be able to save up for each new item”. 

The struggles are worth it in the end though. Kennedy revealed that her community gives her a “sense of purpose” and makes her feel “validated, affirmed and accepted as a person” every time she interacts with them. They are her favourite part of the whole process: “I finally feel that I’ve found a purpose in my life that I find absolutely fulfilling and that provides something positive for others; I couldn’t think of anything better than that!”

Kennedy’s first Instagram post was all about her favourite game, Stardew Valley; a farming simulation role-playing videogame, developed by ConcernedApe in 2016. She loves the “realistic sense of community with the townspeople, the storylines and even the map itself since [it is] contained and learnable”.  The gameplay is “low-stakes and personalized”, allowing players to “spend time on whatever they want each day…there's no real negative consequences for anything they do or don’t do since there’s no direct goal”.  This lets players “sink hours into it without even noticing time is passing”. This is especially true for Kennedy, who admits that she has spent over 100 hours playing it! She adds that “there’s just something about the music and the art style that creates such a calming, cosy atmosphere!”. 

As well as just enjoying the gameplay, another aspect of Stardew Valley that appeals to Kennedy is the characters, especially Leah, the young artist, who she feels like she has a connection with. “She’s living the cottagecore dream!” Kennedy says, “[She’s] just making art in her little house in the forest. As a Gen-Z/Millennial cusp, who dreads late-stage capitalism, that’s goals”. 

Speaking of the music in Stardew Valley, Kennedy believes that the ‘Stardew Valley (Original Game Soundtrack)’ by ConcernedApe is the best videogame soundtrack. She admits to listening it to when studying, so much so that the creator of the game has been her “top artist on Spotify wrapped for two years now”. She goes on to explain that for her “it just perfectly captures the feelings of cosiness and happiness” with its “bouncy, fun and light-hearted soundtrack…It just leaves you with a smile on your face”. 

She then quickly adds an “honourable mention for Gris!”, taking about the soundtrack for an indie platform-adventure game, developed by Nomada Studio and Blitworks, and published by Developer Digital, that explores a young girl’s journey with grief and trauma. 

Despite her love for Stardew Valley, Kennedy reveals that if she had to live in any videogame, it would “definitely be my island on Animal Crossing”.  She goes on to say: “There’s new clothes and new furniture in the shops every day, cute little animals to talk to, and fun events happening? I’d love that!”. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is another one of her favourite games. She has spent over 400 hours playing it and often features it in her TikTok’s and Instagram stories. A lot of her time has been spent personalising her island, another reason why she would want to spend the rest of her life there, “it’d be so cool to experience it irl”. 

We all know the popular cosy games, but what about the smaller, underrated ones? 

If you’re already well into this sector of the gaming community, you may have heard of A Short Hike, “I think [it] gets a lot of love in the gaming community because we love indie games, but I think it’s tragically underrated in the larger, casual gaming demographic…Amazing storyline, hilarious dialogue, beautiful art style, and it’s short and sweet. What more could you want?”. 

Controversially, Kennedy admits that she finds the beloved Mario Kart games, Nintendo’s best-selling series, with 3.41 million sales on just the latest release, to be overrated. “I just don’t care about racing games and [it] just feels like any other racing game to me…I love that it’s Mario characters but I just don’t find it that fun” she says, then laughing that her own competitiveness  may be a factor in her opinion: “I’m just bad at it and I hate losing, so that may be influencing my feelings too”.

As well as videogame content, Kennedy also posts videos about selfcare, beauty and creating a cosy living space on her YouTube channel. Selfcare is something that she is extremely passionate about nowadays. One of her favourite ways to express it is by “finding a moisturizer and body spray/perfume that you love and taking the time after you shower to light a candle, put on some music, and do a full-body moisturize, spraying yourself down with your favourite scent after”. She does this no matter what she is getting up to during the day, whether she has a busy day out of the house or if she is just gaming at home. For Kennedy, selfcare is “all about honouring your body for a moment by caring for it in a small simple way”.  Her favourite skincare brand is Krave Beauty, a Korean beauty company that is vegan-friendly and cruelty-free and focusses on creating products that are effective yet so gentle that they can even be used on sensitive skin: “Every single product I’ve tried from them has drastically improved my skincare routine, but the best is the Great Barrier Relief serum. My skin clears up within days of using it”. Other brands she loves includes Good Molecules – “for their serums!” – and Glossier, especially their Cloud Paint cream blushes and Haloscope cream highlighter stick. 

Other ways that Kennedy likes to care for herself is by making a cup of tea and putting on a comfy pair of sweats. Any long time viewer of Kennedy’s content knows all about this. She begins the majority of her TikToks this way: “A chai tea latte or matcha latte are the cosiest drinks ever!”.  Although her favourite tea would have to be rooibos: “It’s an herbal tea that doesn’t taste herbal-y, so I love it. It’s similar to black tea where you can fix it up with any creamer/syrups you want and it won’t clash with its natural taste, but it’s decaf!” Wearing a comfy outfit is “one of the most important factors of cosiness” for Kennedy. Her “go-to shops are H&M, Zara and ASOS” as well as preloved, second-hand sites like Mercari and Poshmark”. 

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In her video ‘create a COZY space + moment to unwind’ she mentions the importance of the scent of your space, “it is so important in creating a certain mood”. But what is her ultimate favourite? “That is the hardest question for me yet!” she says “But if I had to choose one, it’d probably be Capri Blue’s Volcano scent. They have it in basically every form now (candle, diffuser, perfume, room spray, etc), and it fits basically any mood - especially a cosy one!”. 

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Can’t get enough of Kennedy’s content, well do I have great news for you! Kennedy reveals that she will soon be on streaming on Twitch, a live-streaming service popular within the gaming world. She said that it is her main plan for the near future: “I’m waiting for some equipment to come in before I can do that, but I’m really excited and have so much support on my Twitch channel already, so I’m very grateful!”. 

In her professional life, Kennedy says her goal is “going into start-up law and hopes to continue that for as long as I enjoy it!”. She does understand that her mind about her main future career may change overtime: “If I begin to enjoy content creation more and can live comfortably from my income from it, I may consider shifting away from law. It may be a tough decision, but I ultimately want to follow whatever it is that bring me the most satisfaction!”. 

Make sure you subscribe to Kennedy’s platforms to join her ever-growing ‘cozy’ community @cozy.games!