Shirley Curry, the 88-year-old YouTuber better known as the Skyrim Grandma, has announced her retirement, saying she’s “bored to death” of making gaming videos.
Curry uploaded her first Skyrim gameplay video to YouTube in 2015, and had amassed over 1m subscribers by 2021. Despite suffering a stroke that same year, Curry soon returned to her gaming chair and has continued to post videos of her adventures in Tamriel since then.
But now, Curry’s Skyrim journey has finally reached its end. In a vlog titled ‘No More Gaming Videos’ shared over the weekend, Curry told fans, “It seems I spend most of my time sitting in here at this computer, and lately – probably for the last month – 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.'”
“I’m just doing it for fun, and it isn’t fun anymore. I’m tired of it, and I’m bored to death with it. So I’m making the decision now, totally, finally, I am not going to be making any more game videos.”
Curry doesn’t, however, plan on disappearing from YouTube entirely. Despite admitting to fans, “I’m old and I’m tired, and I don’t feel like doing much anymore”, she says she’ll still make vlogs “every so often”. These will include updates on her life, the books she’s reading, maybe even some of her own writing. And away from the camera, Curry is “going to start making a quilt I’ve been wanting to make for a very long time”.
And as Curry points out – before signing off with, “I’ll see you in a blog later on, I promise” – those missing her regular gaming escapades have nearly a decade of earlier videos to enjoy. And if that’s still not enough Skyrim Grandma, there’s always 2021’s fan-made Shirley Follower Mod, which adds Curry to Skyrim as a two-handed barbarian companion, complete with a fully fleshed-out, lore-friendly backstory.
That particular mode emerged following a fan petition to “immortalise” Curry in The Elder Scrolls 6, after she lamented the game was likely so far away she “probably won’t get to play it”. Three years later, The Elder Scrolls 6 is still nowhere in sight, but here’s to Curry’s well-earned retirement from gaming, and best wishes on that quilt.
