Theorist Media Boss MatPat Announces Live Auction to Fully End YouTube Career

Semi-retired YouTuber and Theorist Media CEO Matthew “MatPat” Patrick announced that his full retirement on the platform would come in the form of a live auction streamed on the YouTube channel GTLive on Saturday afternoon, US Eastern Time (Oct. 26).

On Oct 26, we’re hosting a LIVE #gtlive event for @MatPatGT and my final stream. 😭

As part of the stream we’re raising money for @MakeAWish, including this amazing auction of GT memorabilia. Check it out and bid for an incredible cause!! https://t.co/vWbuouuBis

— Stephanie Patrick (@CordyPatrick) October 20, 2024

In a tweet on Oct. 20, his wife and Theorist COO Stephanie said that the live stream would be their final one together before passing presenter duties to GTLive’s chief technician Ash (whose family name has not been publicly revealed). She herself has been considered semi-retired on YouTube since 2021 to focus on the business side of the company she co-founded with MatPat and on being a mother to their son, Ollie.

The couple would remain in Theorist as co-chiefs of its management team. 

MatPat’s Final YouTube Act

Beginning Oct. 19 on Style Theory’s latest video, MatPat announced his intention to fully retire from YouTube by announcing his “Big Going Away Party” on GTLive. 

“Consider it an ‘Eras Tour’ for GTLive,” he quipped. “We’re playing games and getting all nostalgic about the last decade of streaming.”

The live stream would be organized as a fundraiser for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. This global charity helps children with critical illnesses fulfill their dreams during their often short lifespans. MatPat emphasized that the stream would raise funds for the foundation’s “Rush Wishes” for children who are on the verge of dying.

Theorist has frequently collaborated with Make-A-Wish during the Patricks’ stint as co-hosts. 

For the Oct. 26 charity livestream, MatPat would be auctioning away several legacy MatPat-era Theorist memorabilia, including rare items like the green morph suit he wore on a Style Theory episode on edible underwear, a signed copy of the Toby Fox game “Undertale” (which Patrick emphasized as only the second one of its kind after he gave the first to Pope Francis in 2016), and his signature red jacket, which he ceremoniously hung at the end of his final Game Theory video. 

“The reason this meant so much to me is that — basically — you all made my wishes come true, thanks to this career on YouTube,” he added. “And now, as my final act, I’d like to pay it forward by making other people’s wishes come true. [It seems like] a really fitting note to go out on.”

The announcement was also repeated in the latest Game Theory, Film Theory, and Food Theory episodes.

The fate of Patrick’s signed copy of “Undertale” within the Vatican is unknown.

Retirement in Multiple Parts

Patrick initially announced his YouTube retirement on Jan. 9 this year, citing that he has been on the daily grind ever since the show Game Theory was created, and it was time for him to move behind the camera for his work on Theorist. 

Since 2011, the Theorist franchise branched out by creating channels theorizing on films and other visual media (Film Theory), food and beverages (Food Theory), and lifestyle and fashion (Style Theory), as well as GTLive, which was initially formed as the channel where the Patricks would stream themselves playing games and theorizing on the fly.

It is understood that the Patricks sold Theorist Media to Berlin-based digital media company LunarX in December 2022.

On his final video as host, uploaded on Mar. 9, MatPat cited Hungarian-American mathematician and physicist John von Neumann and fellow YouTuber Derek Muller of the channel Veritasium about his thoughts on “Game Theory,” a concept formulated by von Neumann regarding the importance of collaboration in competition, from simple games to geopolitics and everything in between. 

As a consequence of Patrick’s retirement, the hosting duties of the four main channels were handed over to their respective creative directors: Tom Robinson (The Game Theorists), Forrest Lee (The Film Theorists), Santi Massa (The Food Theorists), and Amy Roberts (The Style Theorists). Ash will be part of the roster of new hosts after the Oct. 26 livestream.

Semi-Retirement Chronicles

While already no longer presenting on four of Theorist’s five YouTube channels, MatPat retained his hosting duties in GTLive, which he hinted he would relinquish by this year. 

In the meantime, he returned to some of the channels’ content to promote other projects he has been working on post-retirement, such as Theorist’s sixth analog horror-based musical YouTube channel, LoreFi. He also co-hosted Style Theory’s first-of-its-kind online fashion show, Creators in Fashion, back in April. 

In August, TechCrunch reported that Patrick has used his retirement to lobby for fellow American creators on Capitol Hill, attempting to educate legislators about the needs of creators to sustain themselves as small businesses. 

“It’s weird to be in a position where I, YouTuber MatPat, who just had this big exit from the platform and is very well known in this space, am suddenly like, no man in Washington, being a literal salesperson for a $250 billion industry,” he said at the time. 

Consequently, Variety reported that Theorist signed with Night, the media firm founded and led by Reed Duchscher. 

It is understood that embattled YouTuber and media tycoon Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson was Night’s former biggest client until Donaldson announced he would part ways with Duchscher earlier this year. It is further understood that Theorist had been objectively reviewing some of Donaldson’s ventures before the sexual abuse allegations surrounding former MrBeast collaborator Ava Kris Tyson, including Massa’s critique of the new formula of Feastables in one of his first videos as host of Food Theory.

Whether Night’s pact with Theorist correlated to MrBeast’s exit from its clientele list remains to be seen.