Unfortunate news for Youtube’s gaming community has emerged, as it’s reported that Shirley Curry (known to many as the Skyrim Grandma) will be taking a break from the platform and gaming due to health concerns. After four long years of posting her adventures in Tamriel, Curry has decided it’s time to shift priorities to more pressing matters.

Gaining a following back in 2015, 84-year-old Shirley Curry gained internet popularity when she began streaming herself playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Since then, she has accumulated an impressive 800,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel, consistently posting her adventures in Skyrim and other games she enjoys playing. Her online fame has resulted in fans have modded Shirley into Skyrim, as well as petitioning Bethesda to get her into the next Elder Scrolls game as an NPC (a proposition worth noting to have been happily agreed upon by developer Bethesda).

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However, according to the latest video posted on Shirley’s channel, Shirley hasn’t been enjoying making content lately and wants to take time to get her health in order. Curry states, “My health isn’t very good, my blood pressure is going insane, my stress level is way too high.” Curry then goes onto elaborate in the video, “I’m not enjoying recording anymore at all, it’s no longer fun… I feel like I’m under a microscope all the time.” Outlets like VG247 somewhat understandably interpreted this to mean that Curry was being bullied out of her online presence by trolls, but Curry went to bat for her viewers on Twitter, clarifying that most of her fans “are very nice,” going so far as to request that VG247 “delete this so [the controversy] would go away.”

Although concerned pundits and gamers thought they had her best interests at heart, Curry argues that the entire ordeal blown out of proportion and is actually yet another symptom of the same over-analysis of her gaming hobby that is physically straining her. She tweeted the above a couple hours later, sharing her frustration at another “‘happy place’” of hers being violated, and expressing her hope that “everyone will just let go of this other stuff.” Considering how much joy and unity Curry brings to players of all generations, it’s not fair that the beloved woman is even having to explain that dealing with the a huge following of people is exhausting, especially in one’s old age.

Shirley Curry has been gaming since the ’90s, well before the advent of streaming. As Shirley says in her video, she’s not doing this to make a salary, and she doesn’t care Twitch stream viewership numbers. For her, it’s about having fun. So if that has been diminished by the pressure of having audience watch her every move, or if she feels that it’s affecting her health, then she has every right to take a break from streaming Skyrim and other games. After all, she’s going to have a lot of gaming on her hands once she gets to return to Tamriel in The Elder Scrolls IV.

Sources: Shirley Curry, VG247, Shirley Curry/Twitter

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Richard Coyle
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Richard is a writer, artist, and video editor based in Connecticut. A recent graduate of Ithaca College, he has worked for multiple production companies, focusing on the development of television, film, and other forms of media. Now a writer for Screen Rant, Richard hopes to provide informative and quality content for the website and it’s readers. His hobbies and interests include sports, drawing, video games, and movies.

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