Streaming keyboards since April 2020
He'll tell you
not to buy it.
Blacksimon has reviewed every keyboard project the hobby has thrown at him for six years, and told you to walk away from more of them than not. No sponsors, no free hardware, no vendor has ever paid him a penny.
keyboard projects scored on stream, across 296 shows, since September 2020. Group buys get a verdict; interest checks get an 🍆, a 👌, a 🗞️, or a 🥄.
group buys he told people to walk away from — more than he ever said "buy" to. Each one comes with his reasoning and a link to the moment he said it.
sponsors, paid reviews, or free boards kept, in six years. He pays retail like everybody else.
Anybody can say they're not for sale.
The difference here is that you can go and check. Every dollar the stream has ever earned, and every dollar it has ever spent, is published — $57,074 in and $56,021 out since 2020.
The money belongs to the company, not to him. It cannot pay his rent or buy him a keyboard. It buys stream gear, giveaways, and the community's events — and when he's taken anything out, it went back in.
"I don't stream for money. All income and spending are public."
"I don't take free review units. I pay in full for any unit I keep."
"I have no sponsors. I accept no money from any company or entity, ever."
"I've talked about these rules before, but they were never written down anywhere. Now they are."
Every October, he gives the month away.
It's called Thocctober. Everything the stream earns that month goes into a fund — not donations, his own income — and the community piles hardware in on top. Some years it's handed out. Some years they quietly build someone a keyboard and post it to them.
pieces of hardware given away, worth around $24,846
keyboards built for people who had no idea they were coming
of his own money in the fund, over four years
Nobody pays for this except the people watching.
That's the whole point, and it's also the catch: there's no sponsor covering the bills. If the reviews have ever saved you from a bad group buy, there are a few ways to keep them coming.
Ways to support the stream