SPECIAL REPORT
The grandma gamers of the GRAND DAMES
Gaming’s most popular grandmas.
Shirley Curry, the ‘ Skyrim Grandma’, became a YouTube celebrity in her 80s. Wit and a welcoming tone earned the videos where she explores Skyrim thousands of devoted followers. She’s not the only grandma gamer on YouTube, though. She’s one-quarter of the Grand Dames, four women who meet virtually once a month to record a livestream tea party. They have their own merch, including branded teacups, and a following who see their age not as a novelty but a feature. They bring a huge amount of life experience to their videos, and aren’t afraid to speak their minds.
“The Grand Dames started last year at PAX Online, the very first online PAX, and the title of our PAX panel was Tea With Grandma Gamers: Grandmas Talk Shit About Games,” explains Dame Jessa, the organizer and informal boss of the Grand Dames. “Although maybe it didn’t say ‘shit’, it had a bunch of cartoon curse icons.”
Though ‘grandma gamers’ is a label they happily apply themselves, Jessa says she’s never thought of herself as a gamer before now. “That’s because there’s a very narrow definition for a lot of people of what that is,” she says, “and also the idea of who that gamer tends to be: Young, white, male. Then there’s the negative stereotypes: Living in his mum’s basement, unwashed—and I’ve been to PAX
West, so I know the unwashed part. Merrie, back me up.” “Truth!” shouts Dame Merrie, the Texan of the group.
“Truth,” Jessa laughs. “I hadn’t smelled some smells like that since I’d been to Paris, there were some heady smells there. But anyway, seriously though, I’m learning that I love identifying as a gamer now. However, I still see myself primarily as a storyteller who uses games as the tool to tell the story, rather than being a gamer who plays games to win them, beat them, that kind of thing.”
Her ideal game for making stories is The Sims 2, which she’s played since 2004. “I was single at the time, and I just remember that I played The Sims 2, when it first came out, every night,” she says. “Pretty much every single night unless I had some other plans—which I really didn’t—for a year maybe? And I had this whole long, wonderful mystery story. There was a murder mystery, I kind of did Agatha Christie in The Sims 2 complete with a dead body.”
Dame Merrie prefers games that tell their own story and praises Borderlands 2, especially the fan-beloved Tiny Tina DLC. “When I finished it and the credits are rolling, I was just sobbing,” she says. “I was crying. It brought out that much emotion in me, and I felt every bit of her pain. It was like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe y’all did that to me.’ When a game can bring that out, and you’re just crying! I think I did scream and cry as bad as Tina, but I guess I get very emotionally invested in the storyline.”
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When I talk to the Dames their fourth member is Britta, a New Zealander who loves JRPGs. This will prove to be her last month with the group, however, as she’s retiring from livestreaming. “I think we are all old enough here, us ladies, to know that the moment you lose interest in something you’ve got a problem,” she says when the subject of burnout comes up. “All of us never have a problem pursuing our interests, and that’s what keeps us going every day. Yeah, we know there’s only so many days in a life. That becomes very clear as you get older, and you jolly well make the most of it.”
While the other dames play a variety of games, Shirley’s devoted to Skyrim. Though you’ll occasionally see her play Ark, or a horror game while wearing a skull mask for a Halloween ‘Shirley after midnight’ special, the open-endedness of Bethesda’s RPG keeps her coming back. “I don’t rush through the game just seeking quest after quest till I get to the end of the main quest,” she says. “There’s so much more to the game.”
The popularity of Shirley’s videos brought her to the attention of Bethesda, who plan to base a character on her in The Elder Scrolls VI. There’s also a Shirley mod for
Skyrim that adds her as a follower who tells stories based on adventures she’s had in her videos, and which she recorded the dialogue for.
These loyal mod-makers, YouTube followers, Patreon patrons, and PAX audiences enjoy spending time with the Grand Dames both in games and out of them. But why now in particular? Jessa has a theory, “This last year we had a global pandemic and it took away from people, early, a lot of their grandparents. A lot of people lost their grandparents last year. And when we started the Dames, I wasn’t thinking about that at all. I mean, before the Dames even started we did the PAX panel, Britta and I were at the panel, and both of us were very surprised how many people said, ‘Oh, this reminds me of my grandma.’”
My apologies if that made you cry like Merrie at the end of a Borderlands DLC, but it’s an aspect of why the grandma gamers matter right now. And they’re only going to get more relevant. “We’re a variety of ages, but we’re paving the way,” Merrie says. “All these 30-year-old gamers are someday gonna be 60, 70, 80. And they’re going to know that we’re already doing it, and you don’t have to stop just because you’re retired.”
Jody Macgregor
“I KIND OF DID AGATHA CHRISTIE IN THE SIMS 2 COMPLETE WITH A DEAD BODY”