Have you ever met a gramma and immediately thought how cool she was? Okay well how about a gramma that plays video games, streams them, and helps strangers with their mental health all at the same time?
Yeah, pretty bad ass, right? That’s Michelle Statham for you.
She’s 55 years old, and has been playing video games since the ’70s!
Here’s where the world is really turned upside down: she’s a gramma living in her kid’s basement playing video games!
She’s a grandmother to two cute grandbabies (one of whom was just born yesterday on the 12th of May!) and she’s been channeling her grandmotherly energies into helping people out online under her streaming name, TacticalGramma!
Especially during these stressful times amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, people have been coming to her with a lot of stress and anxieties. They have difficulty opening up to the people around them but Michelle provides a calming, safe space for them to talk with her in a loving and casual way.
And she’s been making quite a name for herself this way!
“She has been helping so many people, from young single moms to college students to inner city youth […] She listens and cares for each of these people—all while playing video games.” -Shawn Statham, Michelle’s husband
Honestly you can’t ask for a more relaxing environment really. She isn’t getting paid to listen to your problems, she’s just willing to help and pass on her wisdom and advice if you’re willing to hear it! It’s all genuine.
And you can tell it’s genuine within mere moments of watching her stream. She’s pretty candid about everything, and
her personality shines right through instantly!
One of my favourite moments while watching her stream earlier today was when she was so excited to show one of her teammates her new grandson. She asked him, “have you seen my new grandson yet? He was just born yesterday.” When he said he hadn’t yet, she pulled out her phone and showed him a picture by holding it up to her webcam!
When I clicked into the stream, there was a little prompt at the bottom: “Have you seen my new grandson yet? Yes or no.”
She’s no slouch when it comes to her gaming either, she’s reached the maximum rank in Call of Duty: Warzone (I haven’t gotten there myself yet!) and usually has two or three different screens set up while she games for maximum efficiency!
She plays a variety of games, and usually collaborates with other streamers,
having a day of an all-women stream in Call of Duty where it was all about kicking butt with girl power!
She even attends gaming conventions where new hardware and software are shown off to the community!
But her humility would tell you otherwise, and she does!
“I’m definitely not the best at gaming or anything, but I love chatting with the community, and I love to play”
But the numbers don’t lie, granny! Considering her high rank and the fact that she’s won games at all is pretty impressive! (For context, out of the 150 players in a single game, only one team of 1-4 players can be the winners!
She’s been doing this for a while and has no shortage of videos to watch, all of which are great, but she started pretty reluctantly, with her children being the ones pushing her to stream and and go public!
Since then, people have seriously connected with her and she’s built a real, positive community of
thousands of people that all love to talk and watch her play.
Streaming is of course a lot of work, but she seems to be nailing it effortlessly with how calm and collected she seems on stream and with how much fun she has!
She is still a pretty classic gramma in a lot of ways, and shares a lot of the same kinds of heartwarming posts you’d expect, and like most grandmas, shares a love for Baby Yoda, of course. It’s two birds with one stone, and she’s a lot of fun!
You can check out her stream here, and she also posts on Instagram and Twitter!
Keep doing you, TacticalGramma! Thanks for everything you’re doing for absolute strangers!
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