Luke Nichols, who is best known for his YouTube channel Outdoor Boys, has announced that he is quitting the platform to spend more time with his family.
Outdoor Boys, which has 15.4 million subscribers, is known for its camping, fishing, and survival skills videos. The channel was originally launched in 2015. However, according to The Daily Mail, it has amassed 12 million subscribers in the past 18 months.
In his final video, which is entitled ‘Goodbye,’ Nichols said: “The amount of time and energy that I’ve dedicated to making YouTube videos is hard to communicate. So many late nights editing and packing and unpacking camping with pneumonia, building log cabins while injured, but it’s been a tremendous adventure and it’s allowed me to provide for my family while making wonderful memories with my wife and kids.”
Family Over Fame
Nichols admitted that he was struggling to cope with this meteoric rise in fame.
“Because of people stealing my content and posting it on other platforms, my family and I have been viewed about 4 billion times, in addition to the 2.8 billion views on YouTube,” he explains.
“The sheer volume of fans trying to contact me, trying to take pictures with me, or just trying to come up and talk to me in public can be overwhelming […] The time to stop is before this problem gets so out of hand that my family and I can’t live normal lives.”
He adds that another factor in his decision is a desire to “start focusing on other things.”
“I’ve spent so much time focusing on me and my family and growing my business, it’s time to step back and focus on helping other people for a change and I’m excited to see where that takes me,” he concludes.
At the time of writing, the farewell video has amassed nearly 13 million views.
