Joseph Garrett is a Minecraft playing star. His alter ego, a mischievous orange and white feline named Stampy Cat, has over 5.6 million subscribers (at the time of this posting) on his family oriented YouTube channel. The seasoned YouTuber caters to his younger audience by utilizing humorous sound effects and presenting them with creative ways to solve in game problems and puzzles. With his animated voice and contagious laughter, it’s easy to understand why the younglings flock to him and enjoy his channel. Unlike many other YouTubers, Stampy Cat is unique in that he doesn’t resort to vulgar language for the sake of entertainment. He seems extremely mindful and respectful of his predominately young fans.
Though Stampy Cat’s a highly prominent YouTube personality, the man behind the cat claims he’s anything but. Garrett describes himself as a gamer and a video producer. His life outside of the weird and wondrous worlds of YouTube is both modest and quiet. Again, Stampy Cat is an unconventional YouTube personality because there’s a clear severance of fantasy and reality. His channel primarily features his fanciful cat persona and not the man behind the Minecraftian avatar. It’s important to note that a sizable portion of YouTube celebrities are performative in the sense that they project an amplified version of themselves. Stampy Cat’s not so dissimilar in this regard, but there’s a definite line between fictional and non-fictional. This line often blurs when it comes to other big YouTubers like Pewdiepie and Markiplier, who present wilder versions of their real selves on the screen. They often swear, yell, and scream, but the biggest difference lies in the fact that they are not avatars.
With his colossal following and extraordinary success as a YouTube star, this week Joseph Garrett has launched a new Stampy Cat channel called Wonder Quest. This channel features three original series: Wonder Quest, I Wonder, and Side Quest. Like the majority of his content, Wonder Quest is set in the Minecraft universe where Garrett is once again cast as the loveable Stampy Cat. Instead of let’s play style videos, which are more common on his home channel, this new channel is more like a Minecraft show for kids. It’s educational and there’s more of a narrative structure. Stampy Cat’s I Wonder is the most different because it follows a script and is his first fully animated show.
Stampy Cat is really taking steps to redefine children’s programming. YouTube is an ever-evolving platform that YouTube stars are always adapting to and evolving right along with. Are we saying farewell to the age of clunky televisions and Double Dare at 7 A.M. on a Saturday morning? Maybe. Now that we’re able to access YouTube from almost any device, iPads and laptops are so personable in the sense that the user can customize their device to their liking. They’re also portable, which allows the user to take the device to bed or on vacation. This aspect speaks to a very different relationship with technology.
