‘Skyrim Grandma’ Shirley Curry Scales Back To Reduce Stress
by Alex Kane
Frustrated with the parasocial relationships that come with the YouTuber lifestyle, famed “Skyrim Grandma” Shirley Curry has decided to scale back her output. As pointed out by PCGamesN’s Dustin Bailey, the 84-year-old content creator has taken the last several weeks off.
In a vlog uploaded on May 2, Curry explains that she simply can’t keep up with her usual schedule, saying she intends to interact with commenters far less frequently going forward.
“It’s not gonna be a happy video, but there’s some things that I’m gonna have to say,” Curry says in the video. “My health isn’t very good. My blood pressure is going insane; my stress level is way too high. And I’m going to have to take control of it.”
Among her frustrations are comments telling her how she ought to play, or how to play better, or what games she might enjoy instead of Skyrim. “I look at all the games. I’m a gamer,” she says. “If I wanted to play them, I would be playing them. And when I tell somebody no, that’s a simple answer, easily understood.”
She even goes so far as to implore folks who don’t enjoy her style of play to look elsewhere. She also cites a bugged quest line, which has forced her to abandon a character mid-playthrough and end one of her ongoing role-play stories prematurely.
“I know that I shouldn’t let these things stress me out, but they do. That’s just the way it is. From now on, I will respond to very, very few comments. I will be deleting a lot,” Curry says. “I feel like I’m under a microscope all the time. I have much more fun, and I play much better, when I’m just playing by myself.”
Though she doesn’t want to quit, she says, “I’m not happy,” adding, “I play to have fun. And if I don’t have fun, I shouldn’t be playing.”
When she returns, Curry plans on scaling back from daily uploads to Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. As of this writing, the May 2 vlog is still her latest video.
“I can’t do this,” she says. “I have to care for my health.”