Joseph Mark Garrett, known on YouTube as stampylonghead or stampylongnose, is an English YouTuber, gamer, author, actor, and voice actor. He is known for posting videos about the sandbox video gameMinecraft as the character Stampy Cat. In 2014, Garrett's Channel was one of the ten most watched YouTube channels in the world. He has been featured on several television programs with CBBC and Disney.
Biography
Garrett was born in Portsmouth in the United Kingdom on 13 December 1990 and studied video production at university and initially intended to be a games journalist. Garret created his first YouTube channel on 3 August 2006, called . Initially, his channel consisted of live-action comedy skits he made along with his friends, but he soon transitioned to the gaming genre after "Let's Play" videos surged in popularity on YouTube. He mainly played violent video games such as Homefront, but soon quit his channel and created a new one, stampylonghead. He was introduced to the game Minecraft in May 2012, where he would start a Let's Play series on it. The game caused his channel to rapidly grow and he quickly became a prominent member of the site. When he noticed that his primary audience were children, he reoriented his work to be family-friendly. When the videos became popular, Garrett left his job as a barman to focus on producing the content full-time. His avatar was the character of Stampy Cat, an orange and white cat. Garret develops a story in his series in Minecraft, which is an otherwise non-story game. He gives viewers ideas for activities to pursue with their friends. Garrett describes the character as "a bigger, brighter, better version" of himself. He receives correspondence from his viewers and thinks they see him as a friend, rather than "a presenter in a studio". Other characters in the videos include iBallisticSquid, the YouTube name of Garrett's friend David Spencer, and Sqaishey Quack, a duck character played by Garrett's wife Bethany Bates; they engaged in 2018 and married the following year. Jordan Shapiro said that "he does a great job of bringing the positive aspects of Minecraft—the game’s educational potential—to the surface." Caroline Knorr of Common Sense Media describes Stampy's presentation as best for younger fans and that "Stampy feels a cross between Pee-Wee Herman and Mr. Rogers." In December 2013, Garrett's channel was terminated from YouTube due to false reports of community guidelines violations. The site's community, especially that of Garrett's fanbase and the Minecraft community, launched massive campaigns for the channel to be reinstated. The channel was eventually reinstated the same day it was terminated. In 2015, Lee Carson, a long-time friend of Garrett, was subject to allegations of sexual misconduct. As a result, he was subsequently removed from Garrett's videos. Shortly after the incident, the channel saw a significant decrease in viewers, going from an initial average of four million views per video to only one million. Garrett took a hiatus from his main YouTube series in late 2018 and uploaded his last Minecraft video on 19 October 2019. After another hiatus, he began working on his channel once again but did not return to Minecraft. Additionally, his videos received an average of about 60,000 views, a massive decrease from his peak during 2013-15. On 25 April 2015, Garrett launched a spin-off educational YouTube channel in collaboration with Maker Studios. The series, Wonder Quest, is scripted, professionally produced, and designed so that it can be used in classrooms. Garrett has also been attached to a Minecraft film. In July, he appeared on the series premiere of the Disney XD sitcom Gamer's Guide to Pretty Much Everything where he portrays the announcer Stampy Cat at the World Gaming Championships. He was a featured panelist at MineCon held in London in July. Garrett has signed a two-book deal with Egmont Publishing. Stampy's Lovely Book was released on 22 October 2015; aimed at ages 4 to 10, it features games, activities, jokes and facts about Stampy Cat and some of his Vlogger friends. Stampy Cat: Stick with Stampy! was released on 28 July 2016; the 32 paged paperback features sticker-based activities, games, jokes and posters.
