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Shirley Curry, known to most people as 'Skyrim Grandma,' says she has finally had enough of Bethesda's iconic RPG after 15 years of playing and uploading different character stories. Once again, but for real this time, she's retiring from Skyrim YouTube.
Now approaching 90 years old, Curry says in her latest video – "My 'Goodbye' to Skyrim" – that "I am no longer going to be uploading Skyrim" content.
Curry notes that aside from "a few older, regular viewers," most of her viewers "seem to be very young kids, children, and I'm not getting any feedback from them on the videos."
Comments saying "Hi grandma" or "I love you, grandma" might get the occasional like from Curry and a zillion upvotes from others, but she says that kind of feedback "isn't what I was spending my time on making and uploading videos for."
Curry says she'll still upload a vlog "once in a while when I have something to talk to you guys about, older ones." Here again, when she says "older one," Curry says she means "teens and up, the ones who have regularly commented on my videos, actually talked to me."
Sharing her religious blog (she also mentions the Shirley Curry follower mod for Skyrim), Curry reiterates that "I do not want all these kids to come there and say 'hi.'" Rather, "it's for conversation."
This sticking point comes up again at the end of the video; Curry seems exhausted by the gap between the size of her audience, now over 1.3 million YouTube subscribers 10 years since her first upload, and the volume of actual, meaningful engagement coming from them. She also says she's had her fill of Skyrim.
"This has come to this because I'll soon be 90 years old," she concludes. "Every time I come up with a new idea of how to play a story in Skyrim, which is what I've mostly always done, made up my own stories in there, I may make one or two or three [videos] with a new character and then I'm just bored again. So that's why I'm just going to stop uploading anything with Skyrim.
"I'm tired. I'm not having any fun with it anymore. Probably because of all the little kids on there. I think that's about all I have to say. I hope my older viewers will stay with me and keep talking to me like you have been."
Earlier this year, Curry took a break from Skyrim to enjoy a run as Oblivion Remastered Grandma, savoring Virtuos and Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered as something of a vacation.
Nearly one year ago exactly, she initially retired from making gaming videos, saying even then that it "isn't fun anymore, I'm tired of it, I'm bored to death with it." This time, it sounds like her Skyrim retirement will stick.
