TimTheTatman has never been shy about sharing his struggles with his fans. And, in return, those fans show him unwavering support. But for a guy who's all about family, he's taken a ton of hard hits.
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00:00Tim the Tapman has never been shy about sharing his struggles with his fans, and in return,
00:05those fans show him unwavering support.
00:07But for a guy who's all about family, he's taken a ton of hard hits.
00:11I gotta be honest, bro, I wasn't anticipating that.
00:16I'm a sensitive sally."
00:18On October 9th, 2023, Tim explained to his fans that his stepmom wasn't doing well, although
00:23he didn't specify her health issues.
00:26He announced that he was taking a break from streaming to be with the family, and his post
00:29was instantly flooded with supportive messages.
00:32But just four days later, Tim took to X to write,
00:35"...thank you all for all the love and support over these last couple of days.
00:38Sadly, my stepmom passed away on Tuesday."
00:41He expressed his appreciation to his fans, who, along with fellow streamers and even
00:45some gaming news outlets, left thousands of comments sending their condolences.
00:49Tim's been around since 2012, and his fans have been there for some big highs and stark
00:53lows over the years.
00:55Whether it's dealing with family illness or preparing to be a father, there's almost no
00:58part of Tim's life that he doesn't share with his people.
01:01But on one tragic occasion, Tim got hit with devastating news, completely unprepared, in
01:06the middle of his stream.
01:07In early 2019, Tim's fans were caught off guard when his stream ended abruptly.
01:11His wife gave him some bad news, and he suddenly quit his game and shut off his feed.
01:16Fans ran to Reddit to speculate about what might have happened, but after taking the
01:19time he needed to handle his real life, Tim hopped onto social media to let his fans know
01:23what was going on, posting,
01:25Sorry for the abrupt ending.
01:26Got news my aunt passed away.
01:28Shocked.
01:29Thank you much for all the love, well wishes.
01:31With family now."
01:32Losing someone is not easy.
01:35Try not to take people for granted.
01:37Incredibly, Tim still streamed, and even played in an Apex Legends tournament, that same day.
01:42Another streamer might have felt pressure from viewers to get back online as soon as
01:45possible, but Tim had other reasons for playing.
01:48In a follow-up post, Tim explained that getting into his usual routine was one of the ways
01:52he dealt with grief.
01:53In 2024, Tim the Tapman's fans were shocked to learn that he was facing some strange health
01:58issues.
01:59Although he didn't offer the gory details of what was happening with him, he did explain
02:03some of his symptoms and their treatment.
02:05He was experiencing some problems with inflammation in his brain.
02:08According to Tim, the issue was getting serious enough that it was affecting his speech.
02:12Words will just enter my head, and I'll feel like I have to say the words, and it's like
02:18a mental battle.
02:19If that sounds unpleasant, wait until you hear about the treatment he needed to manage
02:23the issue.
02:24To help with the inflammation, he was getting infusions of NAD+, a peptide delivered via
02:28IV drip that's become increasingly popular among celebrities in recent years.
02:33What it does is it basically regenerates cells in your body and greatly reduces inflammation.
02:40Tim said that the injections helped reduce his symptoms, but that the process of getting
02:43them was extremely unpleasant, saying,
02:46It's just, like, aggressive.
02:48I don't know what else to say about it.
02:49Like, it hurts."
02:50He said that the faster the infusion goes, the more it hurts, and trying to go really
02:54quickly one day caused him so much pain he almost vomited.
02:58On average, Tim said his infusions took four hours and left him completely wiped out by
03:02the end.
03:03He hasn't said much about the infusions since, so fans assume he's doing much better.
03:07Of all the tragic things Tim the Tapman has faced in his life, his mom's death was the
03:11hardest.
03:12God rest her soul, miss you ma.
03:15Back in 2015, Tim offered an extremely personal stream on the anniversary of his mom's death,
03:20opening up about her story and his experience dealing with her loss.
03:23He began by saying,
03:24I want to tell this, because there may be people who have lost someone, or this may
03:28strike a chord with someone, or maybe you'll learn something, I don't know."
03:31Tim was just a teenager when his mom died.
03:33She was only 46 and had a range of health issues that Tim had been confronted with from
03:37a very young age.
03:38So my mom had bad health, diabetes, overweight, etc., etc., all that jazz, heart attacks.
03:44But on top of this, she drank.
03:46Of course, the loss of his mom changed Tim's life forever, but watching her health struggles
03:50also changed his relationship with his own health.
03:53For him, it was a wake-up call.
03:54Tim explained,
03:55I'm not working out trying to lose weight because I want to be… not trying to be good
04:00looking.
04:01I'm trying to be healthy for my wife and son.
04:05As tragic as his mom's death was, Tim managed to come out on the other side of his grief
04:09with the resolve to be stronger and healthier than before.
04:13It's easy to think of streamers and other gaming content creators as people who just
04:17get paid to play video games.
04:19It's a regular comment you see pop up from viewers when they see their favorite content
04:22creators talking about needing time off.
04:25Tim the Tapman got a bit emotional during a stream when he was attempting to explain
04:29that, while it may appear this way from the outside, it simply isn't the case.
04:34In fact, occasional time off is the only reason he's been able to perform consistently over
04:38the years.
04:39Me taking those breaks has made me able to stream for, this is now, nine years.
04:47Tim argued that, quote,
04:48"...burnout is a real thing in Twitch streaming and content creation."
04:52He talked about his time working in landscaping, and explained that he knows what it's like
04:56to work 40 to 60 hours a week doing hard labor.
05:00If you do physical labor, I feel for you, man.
05:02It's not an easy thing.
05:04Flip side of that, where I'm at now, this is a hard job in its own right.
05:10Tim argued that having time to spend with his family is his top priority, getting visibly
05:13emotional and wiping tears away from his eyes.
05:16I'm thinking about my son, wanting to spend time with him, Tim said.
05:20That's kind of the bottom line.
05:23Tim the Tapman has talked a lot about the different jobs he's held down over the years,
05:27but there was one Twitch stream where he talked about a job he didn't get, working at Taco
05:31Bell.
05:32He opened the conversation in defense of the fast food restaurant, saying,
05:35Do not disrespect Taco Bell, alright?
05:38I love Taco Bell.
05:39However, the sentiment quickly turned sour when the mention of the restaurant chain reminded
05:44him of a time when he was down on his luck.
05:47In a both tragic and hilarious confession, Tim began by claiming that if Taco Bell were
05:51ever to approach the inked-up streamer to do a promotion,
05:54There is a part of me that is tempted to say,
05:57You're not qualified.
05:59Because I was not qualified when I was younger to work for them.
06:02Tim went on to explain that he viewed this job as a last resort, in a time where he didn't
06:06have many options.
06:07He didn't go into much detail as to why he needed the job so badly, but did express how
06:12disheartened he was when he discovered he wasn't qualified.
06:15He summed everything up by saying,
06:16Yeah, long story short, I didn't get hired at Taco Bell, and, um, you know, look at me
06:23now.
06:24And I still love to eat there, just to be clear.
06:26Things may have worked out in the long run for the streamer, but it's apparent that this
06:29rejection came at a time when he desperately needed the work.
06:33Side note, Tim really does seem to respect Taco Bell, even eating it on stream on occasion.
06:38Mmm, that crunch is lit.
06:41Man, Taco Bell doesn't miss, bro.
06:44DJ was like, what if he has nip anxiety, which is so funny, because I did used to have really
06:48bad nip anxiety.
06:50Tim the Tapman spoke on a stream about a tattoo artist react video in which he reports that
06:54they had described his chest tattoo as looking like a nipple monster which is pinching his
06:59nipples.
07:00The tattoo in question covers most of Tim's chest and features the face of a roaring bear
07:04with the mane of a lion and the wings, legs, and claws of an eagle.
07:08Appropriately, Tim has referred to this creation as a bear-lion-eagle.
07:12While Tim clearly got a kick out of the artist's comments, the remarks about his chest also
07:16sparked a much deeper conversation.
07:19He explained that he had really bad nip anxiety in high school.
07:22I wore a tank top and then I would wear a white t-shirt that was over that and then
07:30I would wear my polo shirt.
07:31That might seem pretty extreme, but apparently there were times where his anxiety over his
07:35puffy chest drove him to even more desperate measures.
07:39And one day it got so bad and I was so sensitive about it that I put duct tape on him.
07:43He's come a long way, stating that he didn't care much about it at the age of 30.
07:47However, he also expressed concern that his son might go through similar anxieties about
07:52his body.
07:53One of Tim the Tapman's viewers submitted a question in a stream asking how Tim kept
07:57his motivation to keep going with Twitch back in the days when he had almost no viewers.
08:02This seemed to strike a chord with Tim, and it led to him recounting the period of time
08:06where he almost quit streaming forever.
08:08And I was probably averaging at the time about 300 to 500 viewers, maybe 300 to 700 on a
08:14good day, where it was going really well.
08:17Until it wasn't.
08:18Tim continued,
08:19Call of Duty Ghosts came out.
08:21I get on to do my big 24-hour stream after my work, and I had 20 viewers.
08:27He went on to explain that he had finally grown used to having hundreds of viewers at
08:31once, and the drop from what he had come to consider the norm shook his confidence.
08:35He also said that he now understands that a drop like that is normal with new release
08:39titles, since more people are online playing the game.
08:42When you have a new release of a game, everyone's playing it, right?
08:45And there's way more viewers — I'm sorry, there's way more streamers on, so the viewers
08:49get distributed a lot more.
08:51Even so, the moment briefly wrecked the streamer's confidence, and almost led to the premature
08:56end of his career.
08:57There's a silver lining here, however.
08:59Experience seems to have changed the way Tim thinks about streaming.
09:02He explained,
09:03I'm not going to worry about the 680 viewers that I was averaging that aren't here.
09:10I'm going to try and focus on the 20 viewers that are here.