Last month the streamer and YouTuber JoCat—known for his Monster Hunter, D&D, and Final Fantasy 14 videos like 'A Crap Guide to X'—announced an indefinite hiatus.
This was in the wake of an innocuous video titled "I Like Girls" (a gender-swapped parody of Lizzo's "Boys") which in his own words "reached outside of its target audience". JoCat said that wider reception from fringe elements caused waves of harassment, which included doxxing attempts, threats of violence, and a "suspicious package".
As stated in the original announcement, JoCat had some projects he wanted to finish up before making his departure. "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."
Heart of Elynthi is JoCat's D&D livestream (which he DMs), and will be posted as an unlisted, demonetised video alongside the end of his Baldur's Gate 3 playthrough. The JOmega charity run however was completed yesterday.
In case you're unfamiliar with Final Fantasy 14's raiding scene, an Ultimate is a gruelling 8-man boss fight. They're considered to be some of the game's hardest brawls: a gauntlet of ultra-hard boss fights chained together where a single mistake spells doom for your whole team.
While an Ultimate itself takes around 15-20 minutes on a successful clear, actually learning the fight can take months. Or in JoCat's case, over a year. JoCat decided to turn the event into a charity drive for trans rights, creating stretch goals on Tiltify for players who wished to donate. He also said he would donate one dollar for every death.
JoCat has now completed the raid with a total death counter of 1,573. Since his charity of choice is Gendered Intelligence, JoCat converted his dollars to GBP, upping his personal donation to nearly $2000. At the time of writing the campaign has raised £53,607 (over $60,000), though donations are still open for the next week.
After beating the raid, a swarm of supporters met JoCat in Radz-at-Han and promptly flooded his screen with particle effects—the closest thing you can really get to a standing ovation in an MMO. JoCat issued a thank-you to them live on stream, then later uploaded the full saga in a YouTube video.
"I wanna thank everyone, including the [team] that helped me reach this point, and all my friends—including all the trans friends I've made along the way that inspired me to not just do this, but to be myself," he includes a few other special mentions, including the Ulti Project's Sausoftheroll for developing and sharing strats, as well as Gendered Intelligence for coordinating with him on certain stretch goals—though he regrettably won't be able to fulfil all of them.
JoCat then gives a heartwarming thank-you to his fans: "Thank you, I'm sorry to say that I think I do need this step away. For many years you've helped me—you've got me a house, you found me my fiance, you're helping me pay off my parent's house, and I cannot ever thank you enough for that.
"I don't know when I'll be back, if I ever [will be] … but after so many times of saying 'you're welcome'," a catchphrase he finishes all of his 'Crap Guide to X' videos with, "it's now my turn to say 'thank you'. So thank you, I hope you have a wonderful night and a beautiful year."
JoCat finishes the video with a clip from his time at the Latech School of Design in 2018, where after a presentation he's asked whether he does YouTube videos because "that's one of the best presentations I've ever seen, and it flows like a YouTube video … that's pretty amazing."
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