Outdoor Boys are leaving YouTube

Originally Posted 5/18/25

The Announcement

If you're unfamiliar with the Outdoor Boys YouTube channel, the following is the video where he announces he'll be leaving YouTube:

What is the Outdoor Boys YouTube Channel?

The Outdoor Boys YouTube channel is a channel that features videos of Luke going on adventures into nature either solo or with his family. During these adventures he will often talk about different sort of survival skills, make shelter, and generally sort of just survive for a few days wherever. Luke himself seems to genuinely like sharing the information he has on survival, and overall has a pretty go with the flow type attitude and friendly demeanor.

Why are they leaving YouTube?

Luke mentions in that video that one main reason is his channel/ his family has reached a level of fame where he's starting to become uncomfortable with it. People either reaching out trying to ask him things, or people in public trying to stop him to talk with him or his family. He mentions he rather stop the problem now than wait for it to get worse. He does say he will probably post some videos he's been working on at the end of the year if he feels like it, but largely will only post if he really feels like it, rather than regularly.

In other videos, he had also mentioned that his kids are getting older, and he wants to be able to spend more time with them, and less time dedicated to YouTube. His videos have also had comments turned off since I've been watching him at least (about the last year). I believe this was to avoid any sort of negative comments or trolls, but I'm not 100% on that.

He does also mention in his video though that his son, Tommy, is making his own YouTube channel and that he will be helping Tommy with that. You can find Tommy's YouTube channel here.

My Thoughts

On the Outdoor Boys

First off, I obviously understand and agree with Luke's decision. He's gotten pretty famous on YouTube (15 million followers), and mentions in the video above that with how often people steal his content and re-upload it to other sites, the amount of people who have seen him is much larger than that. With that sort of fame comes the type of things he speaks about in the video - people recognizing him or his family in public, wanting to talk or say hi to him while he's out and about. But that can be really tiring, or scary depending on the individuals who are coming up to them. It's also a lot of stress in general, especially to put on kids.

That said, I will miss the channel. Luke seemed like a genuinely nice guy, and it was always amazing to see what he was able to do while camping or adventuring wherever. Michelle and I often watched his videos together and we'd talk about how we were always amazed at what he cooked while in nature. We would joke that he eats better camping than we do normally. I also really want to figure out his bread/ biscuit recipe - I know he talks about it in multiple of his videos but it looks so good!

On Jocat

With The Outdoor Boys leaving YouTube, this reminds me of when Jocat left YouTube. If you're unfamiliar, Jocat is a YouTuber and Streamer, who got his fame largely from his Crap Guide to DnD videos. He went on an indefinite break from YouTube, starting on 12/18/23. You can click the dropdown below for the full info. Wayback Machine link to the post on his website.

Jocat's Leaving YouTube announcement

Copy of his announcement:

My name is Jo and I've been making videos on youtube for 5 years. I've a combined total of about 200 videos and hundreds of hours of content. On October 6, 2020 I did a live stream of the early access release of Baldur's Gate 3, and during character creation I did a bit where I briefly sing a genderbent parody of Lizzo's “Boys”

It seemed to go over well with my audience and all of my friends. I typically do these kinds of bits for my live streams sometimes. I was also partly inspired by the source of where I first heard Lizzo's song - Hakkim Animation's video

Running the idea by my friends, who are all very encouraging and supportive of me, I decided it could be a fun project to animate the brief stream moment for my youtube audience who may miss or not be interested in my live streams. And so on April 2nd of the following year, I finished and uploaded my I Like Girls video, and it got a universally positive response from my audience, my peers, and my partner.

About a year later, it seemed to have reached outside its target audience and ever since then I have seen and received many assumptions about my character, my history, my beliefs, my relationships, and all those of my partner, as well as threats of violence to me as well as my family, doxxing attempts, and mocking from even people I look up to and respect. All from a single 30 second video, out of 200 other ones.

Granted, a lot of this has been primarily on twitter, where I could simply log off and ignore the haters, but no small amount has leaked into other parts of my regular day to day that is harder to ignore - private DMs over discord and twitch, suspicious packages being sent to my family - but I've always kept quiet about it because speaking out about it publicly, defending myself, any reaction to it would just encourage more, and be presented as my own fault as well. But if that's the tradeoff to do something like share the things I make that I'm proud of on the internet, seeing as I'm writing this, it's probably an indicator that I'm just not cut out for it, and the best thing for everyone would be to stop and pursue something else. Despite being very grateful for what this job has done for me and my family, I'm simply not strong enough to keep doing this if it means having to just accept this kind and amount of distress. Perhaps that makes me weak, but I've rarely ever really thought otherwise.

I never meant to make anyone upset, I only ever just wanted to make things I was passionate about for fun. I never intended for this one video to really be all that much deeper than just a thing I wanted to do on a whim because I thought it could be fun. I never planned to have youtube be my job, but people happened to like what I made so I thought it could be a good idea to make more of it, and use it to pursue projects I've always wanted to make as well as be the change in youtube I wanted to see. I was inspired by the channels I watched growing up, and the wonderful friends that have encouraged and inspired me to be who I am and make what I want.

I still want to make things, but perhaps I should just keep them to myself for the time being. For anyone that cares, I'll still be continuing Heart of Elynthi and the JOmega charity, but once those are finished I will be taking an indefinite break from posting anything online. It's a decision I've considered ever since the first hate wave from about a year or so ago but wanted to sit on it and see if the feeling would persist. I know now this is the best choice for me.

If you took the time to read all of this, thank you. I'm sorry for causing so much trouble. Thank you for watching my videos

JoCat

To summarize, Jocat created a video I Like Girls which was a sort of parody, or at least inspired by, "Boys" by Lizzo. While his standard audience really liked the video, a lot of people online began harassing Jocat about it. The harassment got so bad, that people were sending threats of violence to him and his family. Because of this, Jocat decided to take a step away from the internet.

He had also mentioned in other videos (this one I believe) about how sort of burnt out he was getting from the Crap Guide videos. On one hand, the Crap Guide videos seemed to be what the audience enjoyed the most, and what allowed him to make money on YouTube. On the other hand, he didn't like making that content, not as much as he liked things like Let's Plays, or deep dives on video games (I absolutely loved his Klonoa 2 video), or his critiques on character creators. However those videos, the ones he liked making, did not make nearly as much money, because they were simply not as popular.

Jocat has since started making content again, but largely focuses on the content he likes more - streaming largely.

But the reason I bring up Jocat in this context, is because in his announcement the way he phrased his tweet was "If this is what it takes to be a content creator online, I don't think I'm cut out for it". That is the same sort of vibe I get from the Outdoor Boys leaving YouTube.

Often I've seen online when creators or people with some amount of fame complain about things like harassment or the difficulties that come along with fame, there seems to be a set of people that respond with a "Oh boo hoo" or "that comes with the job, get over it" type mentality. With how Jocat phrased it though, I think it recognizes that yes, while this may be part of what it takes to be online, it's not something everyone wants to deal with. And I think this is part of a broader trend of people in the spotlight wanting to protect their peace. I know another example recently is Chappell Roan, who has spoken about dealing with paparazzi or the struggles that come with becoming famous.

Wrap Up

Overall, it's always sad to see another content creator leave YouTube. But I think it makes a lot of sense for Luke and his family, and I hope they're able to keep going on adventures and enjoying life, without all the fame that came from YouTube.