For nearly a decade, Jacksepticeye‘s charity livestream Thankmas has been a creator industry institution. The 24-hour event happens annually, always around the time of winter holidays, and to date has raised almost $30 million for various charities, including Red Nose Day, New Story, Crisis Text Line, and World Central Kitchen.
It’s a prime example of creator (and fan!) generosity, and what can happen when creators use their entrepreneurial skills and platforms for good.
It’s also taking a break this year.
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Jacksepticeye (aka Seán McLoughlin) said in a recent stream that he’s not holding a Thankmas 2025 for two reasons: (1) He’s burnt out, and (2) He recognizes that his fans–along with pretty much everyone else–are struggling financially right now.
“There will be no Thankmas this year,” he said. “Settle. Hold for gasp. I know. A lot of you have been waiting around for it, and I was supposed to talk about it earlier, but I got really sick and then stuff got pushed and everything.”
re: being burnt out, McLoughlin explained, “This year was pretty tough physically to get through, and at the end of the year I’m just not in the headspace for it, so I feel like it’s not a good idea to do it, if I’m just doing it for the sake of it. You should be doing charity stuff because you have a vested interest in the charity you’re doing or you just want to rally your community. You shouldn’t be doing charity just for the sake of it.”
He paused for a moment and reconsidered, saying doing charity at all is a “net positive” and that things are more nuanced than just ‘don’t do it if you’re not feeling the vibes.’ But that’s not something he wants to litigate now–and, considering a study from Creators 4 Mental Health just reported 62% of creators are feeling burnout driven by things like unhealthy fan relationships and the rise of generative AI, he’s certainly not alone in needing some downtime.
His main reason for skipping Thankmas, however, is the second one.
“As the year was going on, in terms of, like, we were releasing comic books and we were releasing coffee and things like that, and I don’t do merch or anything anymore either, because as the year was going on I started to notice that people just didn’t have money,” McLoughlin said. “Not just for my stuff, but I’ve seen it all over the internet and all of the world, that people in general have just had a hard year financially.”
He went on to say that he doesn’t “want to get to the end of the year after promoting comic books and coffee and everything and then ask people to give money to a cause when you probably need your money more right now. I think a lot of people are struggling in terms of finances, and I don’t want to ask any more of my community than I need to.”
So, for 2025, “we can just have a breather. We can just sit back, enjoy Christmas for what it is.”
McLoughlin said things are still on for Thankmas 2026, but the stream will likely be in a different format from previous years.
“I was already like, I don’t want to do it live anymore, I don’t want to do it live, in person, in front of an audience, because honestly it costs a lot to run, and a lot of that money should be going into the charity,” he said. “Adding a live audience in front of us didn’t really add to the thing in a meaningful way. At the end of the day, I’m trying to get the most amount of money to a charity instead of it being spent on a stage and a venue and an audience. All of that stuff seemed very superfluous.”
McLoughlin said he hoped the live audience and ‘going bigger’ style of show would draw in more companies and get them to hand over those big corporate dollars for a good cause. But he’s not sure Thankmas has grown to the scale he wanted it to, so he’s figuring out how to slim down the ops costs for next year.
You may remember that, back in 2018, McLoughlin was one of the first YouTubers to talk about the mental strain of the job and how it was affecting him enough that he needed to take a break. We’re glad he’s still talking openly about these issues, and hope he–and other creators–can have some restful time with family over the next couple months.
