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On January 9, 2024, American YouTuber MatPat announced that he will retire from all his YouTube channels on March 9, 2024. The 37-year-old YouTuber is best known for his channel, The Game Theorists, which has a whopping 18.4 million subscribers.
In the 25-minute YouTube video posted on Tuesday, he explained that he was stepping down from his YouTube channel to spend more time with his family, saying that he and his wife, Stephanie, have been “work first for over a decade," since they first started The Game Theorists in 2011.
MatPat's decision comes at the heels of other consistent YouTubers quitting their platform, including Tom Scott and Seth Everman, to name a few.
MatPat will retire from YouTube after nearly 13 years of consistently posting content
Matthew Robert Patrick met his wife Stephanie when they were both students at Duke University. Together, they started their first YouTube channel in 2011 and posted their first ever Game Theory video on April 14, 2011, to provide “gaming’s tangential learning experience” for anyone who would stumble across the channel.
Since then, their channel has amassed incredible popularity, with Matthew assuming the moniker of MatPat. The Game Theorists delved into the fascinating theories behind video games, including the deep lore of the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise, which earned him a cameo in their recently released movie.
As MatPat's popularity grew, so did his YouTube channels, which now included spinoffs like The Film Theorists, The Food Theorists and The Style Theorists. Unfortunately for his fans, MatPat announced his retirement from YouTube on Tuesday, saying he will officially be handing the reigns off to "someone else" from March 9, 2024.
"I've been so honored to have been a part of your lives but I think it's time for someone to have that honor," he said.
In the video titled Goodbye Internet, a tearful MatPat said that even though he was retiring, he was "going to miss this."
"This has been a literal third of my life and I'm gonna miss you," MatPat said.
The reasoning behind his retirement stems from his desire to spend time with his wife which doesn't revolve around work:
"For as much as I love you and I love overthinking things and I love theorizing, I don't love late nights. I don't love the fact that Steph and I have been 'work first' for over a decade. Where I'm sitting down at dinner with my best friend and we're talking about business logistics or we're talking about animatronic toes. Or I could just sit down on the couch with her and play video games and it's not for content...I miss it."
He also expressed wanting to spend more time with his son, saying that he's "the coolest little dude and he's getting older by the minute."
According to The U.S. Sun, the YouTuber hopes to leave with a bang, still posting weekly episodes that will all ultimately lead to his final video, titled MatPat's Final Theory video. After that, the channel will be passed on to four people, Lee, Tom, Amy and Santi, who have all been a part of the main channel or the spinoff channels.
The YouTuber explained in his video that he would still be involved in the behind-the-scenes of the channel, but just won't be as hands-on as he used to be.
MatPat reportedly has a net worth of $35 million, making him one of the highest-earning YouTubers
According to The City Celeb, the YouTuber's net worth is reportedly $35 million, a significant portion of which was due to his YouTube career. The 37-year-old theorist uploads a new video every week on The Game Theorists, which has 666 videos to date with a total of 3.97 billion views.
As per The U.S. Sun, Matthew Patrick was born on November 15, 1986, in Medina, Ohio. He met his wife, Stephanie, while in university and they bonded over their shared love for The Epic of Stew, a Legend of Zelda parody.
They tied the knot on May 19, 2012, and their son, Oliver Patrick, was born in July 2018. The family splits their time between California and North Carolina.
The YouTuber's career boomed due to his consistent quality videos, his heavily researched theories and his interesting quips about video games. He has also collaborated with other YouTube greats like Smosh, Markiplier, and Dream.
MatPat's video, Goodbye Internet, had over 7.7 million views at the time of writing this article.
