Stampy

Joseph Mark Garrett (born 13 December 1990), better known as Stampylonghead, Stampylongnose, Stampy Cat, or simply Stampy, is an English YouTuber, actor, and author best known for his ''Minecraft'' video game commentaries as the character of Stampy Cat. He is well-known for his child-friendly demeanour and incorporating storytelling and education into the Let's Play format. In 2014, he was one of the ten most-watched YouTube channels in the world.

In 2015, Garrett created a scripted edutainment series called ''Wonder Quest'' in collaboration with Maker Studios and Disney. The show was filmed in ''Minecraft'' and features educational content designed for children to watch in school. It aired two seasons from 2015 to 2016. Garrett has voiced the Stampy character in the video game '' Minecraft: Story Mode'' and has made guest appearances on several television programmes with CBBC and Disney XD. He has also released two children's books, and is in the process of writing a series of young adult novels.

As of June 2023, Garrett's channel has gained over 8 billion video views and over 10.7 million subscribers. In 2015, his channel received 200 million monthly views, with each video averaging 1.87 million views.

Garrett began working for 4J Studios in January 2024 in the development of a new game named '' Reforj''.

Early life

Garrett was born on 13 December 1990 in the town of Havant in Hampshire, England. He has two older sisters, Rachel and Annette, the latter of whom also has a ''Minecraft'' YouTube channel.

Garrett studied TV and video production at Solent University in Southampton. He enjoyed creating stop-motion films and wanted to be an editor or vision mixer, wanting to work on projects entirely by himself.

Career

In August 2006, Garrett created his first YouTube channel, the Stampylongnose channel. Initially, his channel consisted of live-action comedy skits and animations he made with his friends. He later transitioned to Let's Play videos of video games. Garrett eventually removed this older content from the channel. He resumed uploading on this channel in 2016, where he created primarily non-gaming videos such as vlogs, 'Behind The Scenes' videos, and later 'Book Diary', where Garrett would talk about his progress on writing his novels.

Garrett launched his second channel, the Stampylonghead channel, on 29 July 2011. He began making ''Minecraft'' Let's Play videos in 2012, including his most popular series, ''Stampy's Lovely World''. Garrett has described the channel as a "complete accident," saying his original aim was to become a video game journalist. He attributed some of his popularity to his then-daily upload schedule, saying that this ensured his audience knew they could return regularly to find new content to watch. In 2014, he reported to record, edit, and upload his videos himself, while delegating his business affairs to Maker Studios. The Stampylonghead channel was once mistakenly terminated by YouTube in December 2013 due to false reports of community guidelines violations. After widespread campaigning under the Twitter hashtag "#savestampy" began to trend, the channel was reinstated a day later. Garrett attended San Diego Comic-Con for the first time in 2014.

On 25 April 2015, Garrett launched a spin-off edutainment YouTube series, ''Wonder Quest'', in collaboration with Maker Studios. The series is told through ''Minecraft'' and is designed for educational use in classrooms. American author Jordan Shapiro praised the show for demonstrating the educational potential of ''Minecraft''. Garrett, upon being asked if he would be interested in transitioning to television, stated that he was happy remaining on YouTube. Garrett was a featured panellist at Minecon in July 2015. He attended Minecon again in 2016.

In September 2015, Garrett signed a two-book deal with Egmont Publishing. ''Stampy's Lovely Book'', released on 22 October 2015, is a children's activity book themed around Stampy Cat. ''Stampy's Lovely Book'' was followed by a sticker book titled ''Stampy Cat: Stick with Stampy!'' and released on 28 July 2016.

In 2018, Garrett broke a Guinness World Record for the fastest time to make and display ten cakes in ''Minecraft'', which he did in three minutes and 51 seconds.

In October 2018, Garrett announced he would be taking a break from his ''Minecraft'' content to spend more time writing books. He returned briefly in 2019, with the release of episode 658 of ''Stampy's Lovely World'', "Mirror World". The series returned to a weekly upload schedule on 19 August 2020.

On 13 November 2021, Garrett released the first episode of a podcast entitled ''The Bonus Points'' with longtime friend Oli Guy. The podcast centres around discussion and ranking of new video games.

On 21 October 2023, Garrett released the final episode of ''Stampy's Lovely World'', titled "Thanks For Watching". The video marked the end of the 823-episode series, and it received 1.7 million views in a day. Garrett stated that although his personal channels would be inactive following the series' conclusion, he would continue working on his podcast ''The Bonus Points''.

In January 2024, Garrett was hired by 4J Studios to help develop a video game using their new proprietary voxel engine called Elements Engine.

Content

His avatar is a character called Stampy Cat, an orange and white cat (depicted by a commercially available ''Minecraft'' skin based on the character Fidget from the video game '' Dust: An Elysian Tail''). Garrett describes the character as "a bigger, brighter, better version" of himself. Other characters in the videos (who are referred to as Stampy's "helpers") include iBallisticSquid, the YouTube name of Garrett's friend David Spencer, and Sqaishey Quack, a duck character played by Garrett's spouse Kye Bates.

When Garrett started making content about ''Minecraft'', which 'blew up', he noticed that his audience mostly consisted of children. Upon this realisation, he began to make his content more family-oriented. Garrett's ''Minecraft'' series adds a story to game which has none, while giving viewers ideas for activities to pursue with their friends in their own ''Minecraft'' games.

Once Garrett became aware of his young audience, he started placing more energy into his voice to keep their attention. This voice is high-pitched, and has a 'trademark laughter', which ''The Independent'' described as a "helium honk". Caroline Knorr of Common Sense Media describes Stampy's presentation as best for younger children, and that "Stampy feels like a cross between Pee-Wee Herman and Mr. Rogers."

Lee Bear was a bear character who was prominent in the earlier ''Stampy's Lovely World'' episodes as a helper, played by the ''Minecraft'' YouTuber Lee Carson. In 2015, it was alleged that Carson sent threatening messages and explicit images of himself to women online. Garrett removed Carson from the series in September of 2015, doing so in a manner that concealed the truth of Carson's actions from Garrett's young fanbase.

Personal life

Garrett has described himself as being shy and "a very big introvert".

On 28 July 2019, Garrett married Kye Bates, a fellow ''Minecraft'' YouTuber known online as Sqaishey Quack. They have a cat named Ori, and two dogs named Alyx and Mei. On 29 January 2025, Bates announced that the two had ended their relationship the previous autumn.

YouTube statistics

In February 2014, the Stampylonghead channel received 159.3 million views. At the time, he had 2.3 million subscribers and 845 million channel views overall. In May 2015, he was the 32nd most-viewed YouTube channel of all time, with 3.5 billion views and 5.8 million subscribers. His YouTube channel surpassed 10 million subscribers on 8 February 2021.

In 2014, Garrett was in the top 10 most-viewed YouTube channels worldwide. That year, his audience consisted largely of six to 14-year-olds, about 60% of whom were girls.

Bibliography

* ''Stampy's Lovely Book'' ( Egmont, 2015),
* ''Stampy Cat: Stick with Stampy!'' ( Egmont, 2016),

Filmography

Television

Web

Video games

Awards and nominations

References

Further reading

*

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English gaming YouTubers
Living people
English male video game actors
English male voice actors
Mass media people from Portsmouth
YouTubers from Hampshire
Let's Players
1990 births
Minecraft YouTubers
People associated with Southampton Solent University
Maker Studios people