Shirley Curry
| Name: | Shirley Curry |
| Also Known As: | "Skyrim Grandma", @ShirleyScurry |
| Occupation: | YouTuber/LPer |
| Medium: | Video |
| Works: | Skyrim Let's Plays |
| Official Website(s): | YouTube
Instagram Twitter Grandma's World Of Skyrim Steam: #GrandmaShirley'sGrandkids SHRLYGRNDKD |
| Fan Website(s): | |
| On Fanlore: | Related pages |
This article or section needs expansion. |
Shirley Curry (also known as Skyrim Grandma, Gaming Grandma, and ShirleyCurryTheOlderGamer) is an American gamer known for her gaming playthroughs, most notably Skyrim. Due to her notoriety, a NPC based on her likeness is set to appear in The Elder Scrolls VI.
- "Good morning, grandkids."
Background
Shirley started gaming when she was in her early 60s, when her son gave her a copy of the 1996 strategy classic Sid Meier's Civilization II. She says that she would play the game "day and night". [1] After a while, she started to branch out to other games, and started playing open-world RPGs, including mostly games made by Bethesda Softworks.
On 18 October 2015, Curry posted her first Let's Play video, "SKYRIM eps 1." Within four years, the video received more than 1.8 million views.[2]
Over the next three years, Curry's videos continued to receive hundreds of thousands of views. "Skyrim eps 2" received more than 375 thousand views and the video "SkyrimSE #1 Ganci The Redguard Warrior" received more than 200 thousand views.[3]
Curry stated that she started her channel just to join her fellow gaming community on a platform to share her content, and never sought the fame that she has achieved.
She is the subject of the 2019 short documentary "Shirley Curry: The Gaming Grandma" by Gameumentary.
Curry has made appearances on the gamer convention circuit.[4]
In May 2020, Curry announced that she would be scaling back her output and fan interactions due to stress and health concerns related to her blood pressure. She described feeling pressure from the limelight, and frustration with the community for spamming unsolicited advice.[5]
As of 31 March 2021, Curry's YouTube channel has over 950 thousand subscribers.
Fan Community
Fans often describe Curry as "wholesome" and appreciate her warmly addressing them as "grandkids". In turn, they affectionately address her as "Grandma".
Fans led a campaign for Bethesda to immortalize Curry by including a NPC based on her likeness in The Elder Scrolls VI. Just under 50 thousand signatories supported the Change.org petition "Immortalize Shirley Curry as an NPC, unique weapon, or location in The Elder Scrolls VI":
Shirley Curry is an 82 year old grandmother who runs her own channel on YouTube (with the help of her grandson). Shirley plays The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim as well as other first person RPG’s in away that is often received as fresh and gentle as well as entertaining and thoughtful. Sadly, the next Elder Scrolls game won’t be released until Shirley is 88 years old, which means that unfortunately, she may not get to play it. As Bethesda has demonstrated with another fan named Erik West, they are willing to include dedicated fans of their series into their games.[6]
In a video celebrating the 25th anniversary of [The Elder Scrolls] series on 29 March 2019, Bethesda revealed that Shirley Curry would be featured as a non-playable character in The Elder Scrolls VI.
After Curry's May 2020 announcement that she would be reducing her output, rumors circulated that she had been experiencing bullying and harassment. Fans pledged to fight[7] her enemies à la Doomguy, but Curry denied the rumors.
Fan Tributes
Fan Art
- https://www.deviantart.com/matheushqd/art/Shirley-Fanart-792286433
- https://www.artstation.com/artwork/e0DOVX
- https://www.deviantart.com/fluffyassassin01/art/Shirley-Curry-aka-Skyrim-grandma-792901798
- https://www.deviantart.com/rowy16/art/To-slay-a-dragon-and-have-fun-818605415
Video
- "Shirley Curry: The Gaming Grandma" Documentary [1] by Gameumentary
External Links
Resources
- "Shirley Curry" on The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages
- Know Your Meme: Skyrim Grandma
- The New York Times: "This 84-Year-Old Gamer Has More Than 900,000 ‘Grandkids’" by Luke Winkie
References
- ^ Winkie, Luke. "This 84-Year-Old Gamer Has More Than 900,000 ‘Grandkids’." The New York Times. Published 1 Sept 2020. Updated 5 Sept 2020. (Accessed 31 Mar 2021.)
- ^ Know Your Meme. Skyrim Grandma. (Accessed 31 Mar 2021.)
- ^ KILROY WAS HERE.
- ^ Good morning, Grandma.
- ^ Kane, Alex. ‘Skyrim Grandma’ Shirley Curry Scales Back To Reduce Stress. Forbes. 25 May 2020.
- ^ See: Immortalize Shirley Curry as an NPC, unique weapon, or location in The Elder Scrolls VI, Archived version
- ^ Twitter post, 25 May 2020.