Shirley Curry, aka the “Skyrim Grandma”, is no longer posting gaming videos, she’s told her viewers. An upcoming eye surgery is going to leave her recovering for some weeks and (more importantly to her) she is simply tired of playing games for an audience.
“It isn’t fun anymore,” she says in a video. “I’m tired of it. I’m bored with it, bored to death with it. So I am making the decision now – totally, finally – I am not going to be making any more gaming videos and uploading them.”
In the video message, she talks frankly about the dwindling desire to record her exploits in games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
“It seems like I spend most of my time sitting in here at this computer,” she said. “And lately… I walk in here and look at my computer and think: ‘I’ve got to make a video today’. And then I just shake my head at myself and say: ‘I don’t want to, I have no desire to’. And I turn around and walk back out.”
Over her time as a player of Skyrim, Curry has gained over 1.29 million subscribers on YouTube, (but she jokes she can count the number of actual regular viewers on two hands). She became popular enough that Bethesda scanned her likeness and have pledged to immortalize her as an NPC in The Elder Scrolls 6, whatever it turns out to be.
Now, instead of gaming, she’s going to spend time on other interests. And she might make infrequent videos about those, she says. She’s fed up with doing it for gaming, specifically. But reading and other hobbies might still bring her to the camera now and then.
“I’m going to start making a quilt that I’ve been wanting to make for a long time. I designed the
squares a long time ago… and I will show you it bit by bit as I make it.
“I’ll tell you something about a book I’m reading, tell you a little bit about it, just in case you’d like to read it.”
This isn’t the first time the octagenarian YouTuber has cut down on her vlogging. In 2020 she was worn down by the time and energy demands of making videos and started to do less. But, as she notes in this video, the amount of work would often creep back up over time. It’s something she doesn’t want to repeat, it seems, as she finds it difficult now to simply stay engaged.
“Sometimes, when I wake up of a morning and I’m so comfy in the bed, and it just feels so good and I think: ‘Oh my goodness I’ve been here all night long, I’d love to just lay here all snuggled up all day long’. Isn’t that terrible?”
Not terrible at all, if you ask me. I think about my computer some days and want to do the exact same. It isn’t surprising to see Curry face similar difficulties to most vloggers and streamers too – pressure, tedium, expectation, “metrics” worries, personal health concerns… It doesn’t really matter if you’re in your 20s or your 80s. Work is work, and sometimes it’s best to cut it out. My thanks to GamesRadar for spotting this story.
