The Super Mario Maker community on Twitch has matured into one of the most welcoming, charitable, and fun-loving communities you'll find anywhere on the internet. Mario streamers are not only incredibly talented speedrunners and level creators, but also charismatic personalities that are passionate about making something fun for people to watch and giving back where they can. GrandPOObear, in particular, represents these qualities and, unsurprisingly, has grown one of the biggest and most loyal followings of any Super Mario Maker streamer.
GrandPOObear is a legend in the Mario Maker community. He is a world record holder in speedrunning, a Red Bull athlete, and one of the most successful Mario players on Twitch because of persistently positive attitude and infectious love of the game.
We sat down with GrandPOObear at TwitchCon this past weekend to chat with him about everything from an upcoming stop on his Speedrun Session live tour, his Red Bull sponsorship, and his company Warp World, to life as a streamer with a new baby and his thoughts on the speedrunning community.
Warp World
GrandPOObear is part of a group of streamers that run Warp World, a streamer application that adds incredible features like Crowd Control and MultiQueue to a channel in order to increase the level of interaction between streamers and their audience. Warp World announced a re-brand of the platform during TwitchCon. Here's what Poo had to say about it:
"We have a lot of products at Warp World and we're trying to add more every day. We're for streamers, by streamers, so one of the things we wanted to do was to get everything under one umbrella and make it really easy for everyone to see all of our products. A lot of people are using Crowd Control but they might not know about MultiQueue. We wanna make sure that everyone can know about everything we're doing, it's really easy, we want it to look sleek and sexy and professional, while still keeping our at-home, made-by-us vibe."
Poo also told us about a new feature called Memories that he described as "a virtual yearbook of everything you've ever done with a streamer." Memories will track resubs, hosting, donations, any other other interaction you have with a streamer, meaningfully clip it, and present it in its own space that you can go back and look at.
On Being A Streamer Daddy
GrandPOObear welcomed his first child into the world this year in January. We asked him what it was like balancing streaming with being a new dad.
"It's hard, it's crazy. There's been a lot of change this year on top of that, both professionally and personally. It's been a lot of learning how to manage my time a lot more efficiently. I travel a lot more with the tour and all the opportunities that Red Bull provides. It's been really great, it's been awesome. All that sappy stuff people say about being a parent like "it'll change your life," it's all fuckin' true. It's been really incredible. Its motivated me: I love that kid and I want to give him the best life and it's weird because I thought it was going to hurt my game but I feel like this year I've been playing better than I ever have before. I don't know if it's the focus or the joy and perspective its brought to me. It's a lot easier to brush off someone saying like "oh this other guy's better," I don't care anymore because my son think I'm the best."
On Livestreaming Live
Between Speedrun sessions, Poo's live bar arcade speedrun experience tour, and convention appearances, it's clear that he's very comfortable in front of an audience. We asked Poo what he likes about streaming for a live crowd and how it compares to streaming from his home studio.
"I love crowds. I have reverse stage fright. This is way more awkward for me than a big crowd. I don't know why that is, it's just how I've been my whole life. When a camera comes on and there's a crowd around me for some reason it's just natural for me, that's when I feel most comfortable. I love the interaction and the immediate feedback. You can tell a lot more about the tone or how someone is saying it or cheering, or appreciating what you do, a lot more than just typing "POGCHAMP" in chat. It's the best, if I had a choice, I'd play every day in front of a crowd."
On The Speedrunning Community
We asked Poo why he thinks the speedrunning community has managed to stay so welcoming and friendly over the years. Here were his thoughts:
"Speedrunning is very interesting because we're competitive, but we're also collaborative. I think it all goes back to the fact that most of our events are about charity. People always want to compare us to traditional esports, and I definitely think speedrunning is an esport, but all our competition is happening 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It's happening all the time. Right now, there's someone out there trying to beat my time in Mario 3. Because we're always competing 24 hours a day, when we get together at our events, we instead raise money for charity. We come together for one cause as well as coming together to optimize the game in general, it makes us competitive but also collaborative. That kinda keeps it in a friendly open environment."
GrandPOObear streams live on Twitch almost every day (now in his newly remodeled studio) and has a YouTube channel where he posts edited versions of his streams. The next stop on his Speedrun Sessions tour will be October 9th at Lucky's Bar and Arcade in Charlotte, North Carolina followed by Battle & Brew in Atlanta, Georgia on October 10th.
You can find info about Speedrun Sessions, Warp World, and more on GrandPOObear's Twitter.