MatPat is stepping down as host of Theory videos

After 13 years on YouTube, MatPat is stepping down from hosting Game Theory, Film Theory, Food Theory, and Style Theory.

“Steph and I have known this video would be coming for the last three years,” he says in a 25-minute video uploaded this afternoon. “We weren’t sure it was necessarily gonna be today, we didn’t know exactly when it would fall, but we knew it was gonna happen eventually.”

That’s why, he says, Theorist Media has been staffing up for the past couple of years, and why MatPat and Stephanie agreed to sell the company to Lunar X in late 2022. They’ve been laying the groundwork for MatPat to pull back from hosting and for them both to take a bit of a breather.

As for his reasons for pulling back, MatPat jokingly blames Tom Scott and his epic goodbye video, then gets serious and tells viewers that “as much as I love you, and I love overthinking things, and I love theorizing, I don’t love late nights. I don’t love the fact that Steph and I have been work-first for over a decade, where I’m sitting down to dinner with my best friend and we’re talking about business logistics.”

Today’s video kicks off a countdown: MatPat is still hosting nine more videos each on all four channels, ending with a March 9 celebration where he’ll officially step down. The final videos will involve “a bunch of theories that are gonna be a lot of fun, revisiting old favorites, getting some closure on things,” MatPat says. “And we’re gonna see some familiar faces.”

Speaking of familiar faces, a few will be taking over Theorist Media’s channels following MatPat’s exit:

• Lee Collins, who’s been with Theorist for 10 years as a video editor and creative director, will take over Film Theory
• Amy Roberts, who’s been with Theorist for six years as a channel manager, brand manager, and creative director, will host Style Theory
• Santiago Massa, who was formerly with Mythical and has been the creative director at Food Theory since 2023, will now host Theorist’s culinary adventures
• And last but not least, Tom Robinson, who’d worked with Disney and Fox before cold-emailing Theorist in 2020 asking for a job as a writer, will host Game Theory

MatPat will continue hosting Theorist’s fifth channel, GTLive, “from now until the foreseeable future”–at least through the end of summer 2024, he says. He’ll also be sticking around as a creative director, leading programming and brainstorming ideas for upcoming episodes.

He has other plans, too. “For the last 13 years, I’ve been commenting on other people’s IP. But now that I’m stepping out of those roles, I get to create the IP,” he says. “Still as a part of Theorist, but I get to create things that are gonna challenge those new hosts of the channel. Things that I’ve had in the back of my mind from years of studying media that I can now make a reality, and the channels can comment on them.”

His first projects are a lo-fi video series launching in a couple weeks, and a digital creator fashion show that’ll air on Style Theory in April.

“Because of this whole transition, I’ve been thinking about my time on these channels and the evolution that we’ve gone through together,” he says. “In the beginning I was kind of like the edgy older brother, and then at a certain point I evolved into DadPat.”

Now, after all these years, “I think I’m kind of evolving into GrandpaPat,” he says, choking up. “And just like your grandparents—hopefully a cool grandparent—you don’t get to see me all the time. And I don’t get to see you all the time. And maybe we can call and talk to each other every once in a while, but at the end of the day, that grandpa loves getting to see you. […] He so looks forward to seeing you, and the love that he has for you, it doesn’t go away. That grandpa is so proud of you, and he cherishes the relationship that you’ve had so much, and he is so honored to be a part of your life. To have been a part of helping you grow, and helping you experience the world.

“You have taken me on the wildest, craziest 13-year ride of my life,” he says, “and I am so grateful. So GrandpaPat is gonna sign out now.”