Interview with GrandPOOBear, a Speedrunning Pro

GrandPOOBear is a Twitch streamer and speedrunner who has become known as one of the country's best Mario players. He has performed Mario speedruns at marathon events like AGDQ, SGDQ, and hosted his own event, Mario Maker Colosseum.Learn about his deadly snowboarding accident and how it led him to becoming a streamer.

How’d you get your gaming name?

Well, the real story is totally boring, so when people ask this question I tend to go with a Joker-style and make up a new origin story every time. It's become a running meme in my channel.(Seriously the real story is way more boring).

Why’d you start streaming and what’s your favorite part about it?

Before streaming, my life was snowboarding..it's how I made my living. I was hit by an out-of-control skier and broke my back and knee, tore my ACL, and had a ton of internal injuries which caused me to be in the hospital for about 4 months.

When I finally got out, I had so much free time as all my friends were back on the mountain. I randomly found the Twitch app on my Xbox, and my mind was blown. I said to my wife “I'm going to do this with my time because I'm losing my mind having no interaction during the day.”My fav part is no doubt the social interaction it gives you with people who are into the same things you are.

Is streaming your full-time job? What’s a typical day look like for you?

Yep! Wake up, work out, emails (seriously, so many damn emails), talk to my wife about what I need to get done for the day (she acts as my manager and runs some of the social media platforms that I don’t care about, like Facebook), practice whatever speedgame I am playing, eat breakfast, stream about 6-8 hours, go through clips of stream, talk to my YouTube editor about what that days video should be like, then it's either record our podcast, The Warp World Podcast, or do some clean-up on stream as there is always something that is going wrong.

Then I usually relax with my wife and dog for like an hour before we do it all over again the next day!

How do you feel about the community you’ve gathered in your stream?

I am nothing without my community. I am so grateful to the people who support me, you have no idea. I am even more grateful at how they support eachother, which is something to see when you have a thousand people in a chat.It's almost corny how much love gets thrown around in my stream, but in the best type of way :)

What are some accomplishments that you are most proud of since you started livestreaming?

I have rasied nearly 900k for charities through different events such as AGDQ, SGDQ, Calithon, and our own event the Mario Maker Colosseum. That is something I could never do on my own, so to be apart of things so big is something I will always be proud of.

Who is your favorite streamer?

I have too many friends IRL who would get mad if I didn’t say their name! I'm going to go outside of my Warp World family because they are all my faves!I'd say AuthorBlues or Littlesiha. I know Auth IRL. He is just a great guy with an all-time voice and is one of greatest speedrunners in the World. Siha is just a beacon of positivity and really, really good at her games.

What’s your setup look like? (A photo would be nice to feature on the site)

Let me clean it up first

Top 3 favorite games of all time?

1. Super Mario Bros. 3
2. Fallout 2
3. A Link to The Past

Are there any particularly memorable moments that happened on stream?

Outside of WR speedruns, which are always super fun, I have one moment.I was shoutcasting a race and my internet went out! It came back on as I was pleading with my internet company and sent me right back into Discord. At that moment, in the poutiest voice ever to the poor lady fielding my call, I said “I pay for your service and it goes out 40 times a day, please, just help, this is the biggest night of my career.”

Which, to be fair, was at that point.Well, that got rebroadcasted to 10,000 people. My co-host, iateyourpie, just goes “Poo, we can hear ya buddy.” I muted myself, gathered my thoughts, and came back on right as one racer was finishing. I quickly said, "that was a career defining moment for him,” to which chat erupted.

I figured if I am going to be the joke, I need to be in on the joke as well. Needless to say that has followed me for 2 years now:) It's a great meme.

What do you do when you’re not streaming?

Practice, watch wrestling, and play games casually that I wouldn’t play on stream for whatever reason.

How long do you see yourself on Twitch?

All entertainment jobs end, and all jobs have a time where they will become obsolete for whatever reason. I try not to make plans too far in advance in life anymore, as you never know what is going to happen. I hope I can be doing this for a living as long as it's still fun, so who knows!