It’s never too late to be a gamer, and 90-year-old Hamako Mori is a testament to the statement. Known affectionately as Gamer Grandma on YouTube who built a cult following online with her video game skills has been recognised as the world’s oldest YouTube gamer — at the age of 90. The Japanese woman only got started on the gaming journey 39 years ago at the older-than-usual age of 51, and has never looked back since, rolling out one video after another to finally receive one of the most coveted honours: a place in the Guinness World Records, as the oldest video game creator on YouTube.
According to Guinness World Records, the first gaming console she owned was Cassette Vision; she has kept most of the consoles and software she had bought over the years,”I treasure them because I bring me memories.”
Recently, Mori shared on her YouTube channel that she had been recognised by The Guinness World Records as the oldest video game youtuber. She thanked her subscribers in the video, saying that she would not have been able to achieve such a record without them.
“After living for this long, I feel more than ever that playing games for this long was the right choice. I am truly enjoying my life — it’s rosy,” Mori said in a media release from Guinness World Records.
Mori maintains a sharp sense of humor in her videos, with one dubbed “elder plays Elder Scrolls V Skyrim,” referring to the popular fantasy role-playing title. They also offer a candid close-up on her life: In “90-year-old grandma plays Dauntless” — which has more than 3 million views — Mori blows out candles on her birthday cake before vlogging her take on the monster battling game.
She says, “I’m going to play ‘Dauntless’ today. After I started playing this, it was such fun, and I couldn’t stop. I can’t look at any other games — it’s all about this one … sometimes I end up playing until 2 a.m.”
Her particular favorite is Grand Theft Auto V. The reason why Hamako began uploading gaming videos onto YouTube was that she wanted to share the gaming experience with others.