Personally I wouldn't do it for fame but for self-improvement, I ain't into smash though because its got a lower skill set than some other games even if its busyness is higher than some. Like other fighting games get more technical, even if they exercise less skills which allows a higher skill ceiling. Like why play smash when I can play SkullGirls, or why play LoL when I can play SC2. Granted I'm no good at either since I drift around multiple games with interest changes. Also smash does have a more technical defensive system at first than other fighting games, but overall I think juking and baiting has more variables when you can summon a support character or have a more diverse move-set. I like a variety of games but ultimately, sadly, it depends on my mood in relation to the games. So I won't ever get pro tier. Also learning a variety, or I am sure even trying to perfect one, is stressful so its good to reduce stress regularly with things like reading exercising etc. 

I'm not very social but it seems recognition is desirable, perhaps it feels flattering? Socializing can reduce stress to a degree as well, but with any activity too much of it will grow tiresome. Reading more of what you wrote it seems you don't mind doing your own thing. Yeah that is quite the money loss. Probably cost of flights and stuff? Personally I think using statistics and training, then when you are good and one-up people as an unknown then sponsors could jump on it to help shape your image if notoriety is about sponsorship money. Ultimately skill and mentality (and indirect biological factors etc) determine who is the victor. Also pubbing and locals only get so far, for instance SC2 if you are in a team its mandatory to go through some specific scenario training to help management, An issue also is a lack of flexibility of style, while mastering one style does ensure speed throughout a whole match if the opponent mixes up pacing and forces you to behave differently its not going to go well if they did their homework on you, or their manager/coach/buddies did or such. Granted for a game like melee I am sure the meta is more dictated by usually simply which character you use and match up against. 

But yeah 5k subs for a fighting game you prolly did good, but I think trying to juggle tournies, and perhaps youtube informative series that would cut into a training regimen. But I'm not fully sure of what your experiences are and you are more informed of them than me. 

A neat factor is some russian study found for skill learning 3/4 visualization 1/4 practice helped make the cut more than all other ratios x/4. Granted this was for basketball shots if I recall, but it could extend to an idea of a good ratio of mental prep/coaching vs skill practice vs sparring.

Back in the old days, like before the year 2012 or so, there used to be a few top level pros who were that level in several games. Justin Wong (Street Fighter, Marvel Vs Capcom, Capcom Vs SNK), Fatal1ty (Quake, Unreal Tournament, Painkiller) and Mew2King (Melee, Brawl) are 3 of the best examples I can think of and there were several others near/at the top among their multiple games too. But these days, the competition is so well established and the player skills from entry, to highest, are just so much better in every game than before. The super tops make reliable livings from competing in tournaments and these players play 10-14 hours/day every day. If a player or team can't dedicate that much focus into their 1 game, they're not going to place well in tournaments anymore. Some players are veterans who've been playing the game/genre for a decade or even longer. Entering tournaments is just so difficult. You have no idea until you try competing. When I started back on January 2, 2009, I didn't win my 1st tournament set until July 10, 2009. It took me another 6 months to win my 2nd. Imagine playing against the super tops

Fame was a great replacement for friends. It's a feeling unlike anything else. I never got tired of it and people have told me in person that I'm fun to play games with. Nothing has ever made me feel better

The cost of $12,000 that I estimate comes from driving to so many tournaments, buying so much equipment, paying for tournament and venue fees, paying for food, paying for hotels, and how often I'd pay for each of these things. At 1 point in 2015, I was entering 3 tournaments every week. I captured so much content for my Youtube channel that I had to buy a $1,050 custom PC to help me render everything. $300 of the cost was spend on just the CPU

Melee's metagame is dictated by character choices. There is a noticeable portion of players who'll preach to main a character and have a 2ndary to cover those characters' weaknesses. The game's balance is atrocious, even among the tournament viable 8, and there are simply things that better characters can do that worse characters can't handle. Fortunately, a little bit more side on the ideology that it's better to focus all of your efforts into perfecting the 1 character you can play at a time and just fight through the unfair character disadvantages. It'll make them improve faster and there's a psychological benefit to it of preventing players from entering any degree of learned helplessness

5,000 subscribers for a fighting game wouldn't be considered pathetic if the year was 2012, but 2013 happened and now it's pathetic. Getting 50,000 subscribers is the accomplishment that 5,000 was a few years ago. I remember the days when the most subscribed to channel in Melee had only 9,000 or so and he was the unrivaled king of tournament Melee on Youtube. It took several years for others to even get to his level. He stayed at that count because he suddenly unfortunately went inactive because work enslaved him just so he could afford to live

My Youtube channel is about me making funny moment videos. I play to troll rather than to win. Unfortunately, Melee's tournament scene only likes competitive content. They don't like casual gaming. I've experienced the unfortunate side of this from some of my best friends

I've tried a tournament before for the yugioh card game and it was stressful each time I tried but I never tried super seriously. Best I did was top 16(15th) when I made a unique deck instead of copying others. But turns out I was accidentally misusing a card in my favor due to unclear text. Top 16 get to go to nationals.

Sometimes rather than just multiplayer I play games that are like, solo but challenging, usually a world record sorta arcade-like gameplay. Such as Devil Daggers, I am 1k of 60k right now at 301.4 seconds or so, and the world record is 

But I only have like 43 hours into it, I don't even play daily. Then around 450 seconds or so, the world records above have huge disparity rather than being a second here n there difference. 

Then I also play some Osu but I very very easily get RSI due to using the highest possible pen n tablet sensitivity I could set it to, causing me to use almost exclusively wrist movements when its healthier to do arm movements. Don't play that consistently either. Beat a 4.8 star last time I played though but took a month break or so because I played it for 2 hours which is apparently enough to trigger rsi for a week xD