Northernlion

Streamer · Verified

Canadian streaming veteran with nearly two decades of Let’s Plays — the Binding of Isaac saga, indie evangelism, and the NLSS.

963KTwitch followers

VarietyKnown for

About Northernlion

Northernlion is one of the last of the old guard — a Let's Play creator who has been narrating indie games since before "content creator" was a job title, and who somehow never burned out, sold out, or faded out.

His real name is Ryan Gary Letourneau, born November 28, 1988, in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. He studied biology at Queen's University, then did what a surprising number of early YouTubers did: he went and taught English to kids in Daegu, South Korea, for the better part of a year, coming home to Canada in December 2011. The difference is that he'd already started a YouTube channel back on May 30, 2006 — originally for a school project — and by the time he was back in Kingston, he was describing himself as "funemployed," making videos full-time because the videos were working.

Northernlion's rise maps directly onto the golden age of the Let's Play. His currency was indie games: quirky, broken, brilliant small-studio releases that needed someone with the right voice to introduce them to an audience. He had the voice — distinctive, theatrical, endlessly punning — and he had the instinct. Developers knew it, too. He was speaking at GDC about how indie studios should pitch YouTubers as early as 2014, telling rooms full of game developers to skip the interest checks and just send the game code. He was, by then, one of the people the indie scene was built on.

The monument of his career is The Binding of Isaac. He started his Let's Play series on September 28, 2011, and never really stopped — the series has run to more than 3,150 episodes, making it one of the longest-running single-game series in YouTube history. His first episode of Isaac: Rebirth alone cleared 2 million views. He didn't just play the game; he became synonymous with it. For a huge portion of the audience, "Stupid, stupid damage" — his signature groan — is The Binding of Isaac.

But it was never just Isaac. The catalog of series is a tour of internet gaming culture: Indie Game of the Week, Let's Look At, Let's Hate, Don't Play This, Only in Korea, Poison Mushroom — formats built around discovering, roasting, and celebrating games in equal measure. He partnered with Machinima in the early days, when that was the dream, and kept his independence when the network era collapsed. As of late 2026, the YouTube channel sits at roughly 1.39 million subscribers with 1.83 billion lifetime views — numbers built episode by episode, day after day, for nearly two decades.

On Twitch, where he's been live since 2010, he built the Northernlion Live Super Show — the NLSS — a tri-weekly, three-hour variety stream that ran from 2013 to 2021 and became a fixture of the platform's mid-2010s golden era. The show was part game stream, part talk radio, part open mic for the weirdest corners of chat. His Twitch audience, now approaching a million followers, has stayed with him through every platform shift.

What sets Northernlion apart from nearly every peer of his generation is the personality around the games. He's the "film bro extraordinaire," the guy with a real work-life balance who doesn't do the streamer-event circuit, who married his wife Kate — known to viewers as LovelyMomo — back in 2014, and who welcomed his daughter Luna in September 2020. He's a dad who streams. In an industry built on 24-year-olds grinding 12-hour days, he's the proof that you can do this for a decade and a half and still be a person.

That stability makes his occasional forays into controversy land harder. In 2026, he announced the Northernlion Supercruise — a five-day Royal Caribbean streamer event departing from Tampa, with Dan Gheesling, Squeex, and LovelyMomo attached — and then canceled it a mere 72 hours later, issuing refunds to everyone who'd booked. Fans genuinely couldn't tell whether the announcement had been a bit at first; the cancellation, complete with a replacement livestreamed remote event, was peak NL chaos. Then, in September 2026, he publicly criticized his longtime friend and collaborator Dan Gheesling over Gheesling's U.S. Army-sponsored Twitch programming, calling the boot-camp-style military imagery unacceptable for a broadcast aimed at an all-ages audience. It was a 14-year friendship put on the line over a principle — and he didn't flinch.

He's been recognized by the industry he helped build, too, with three nominations from The Streamer Awards. But the real résumé is the daily grind: a man who has uploaded, streamed, and narrated his way through nearly twenty years of gaming history without becoming a caricature. The puns are still sharp, the idioms still idiomatic, the references still gloriously vague.

He also occupies a rare lane as a creator who kept his head while the genre around him turned into an industrial content farm. While other Let's Players from his era chased trends into irrelevance or burned out in spectacular fashion, Northernlion simply kept showing up — daily uploads, steady streams, no reinvention theater. The consistency became the brand: viewers don't tune in to see what Northernlion is doing now, they tune in because they know exactly what Northernlion is doing now, and it still works.

Previously covers Northernlion because he's the living link between the Machinima era and the streaming era — and because nobody narrates a roguelike like Ryan from Kingston.

About this creator

Words by Julian Cole

Northernlion — Ryan Letourneau — is the streamer’s streamer: the witty, erudite, endlessly watchable veteran whose daily uploads made him a cornerstone of gaming YouTube. The Binding of Isaac era was legendary. Thousands of episodes — the "Let's Play" series that ran longer than most TV shows — turned a roguelike about a crying child…

Northernlion — Ryan Letourneau — is the streamer’s streamer: the witty, erudite, endlessly watchable veteran whose daily uploads made him a cornerstone of gaming YouTube.

The Binding of Isaac era was legendary. Thousands of episodes — the "Let's Play" series that ran longer than most TV shows — turned a roguelike about a crying child into appointment viewing. The streak, the commentary, the slow descent into Isaac madness: it was gaming content as literature.

The voice is the product. Ryan's vocabulary, timing, and dry wit made him the thinking person's streamer — the rare creator who's as fun to listen to as to watch. The "egg" jokes, the tangents, the stories: the gameplay is almost incidental.

The NLSS built community. The Northernlion Live Super Show — the collaborative streams with friends — became a beloved institution: chaotic, hilarious, and genuinely warm. The friend group is the content.

The consistency is superhuman. Daily uploads for over a decade — the work ethic of a creator who treats the audience like a promise. The streak is the statement.

The range keeps it fresh. From roguelikes to strategy to whatever catches the eye, Northernlion's curiosity means the channel never stagnates. The taste is impeccable; the commentary is better.

Why people watch: it's the smartest hang on the internet. Roguelike fans and comedy fans get the complete package here — the egg cracks everyone up.

Previously covers Northernlion because consistency this good is its own art form. The streak continues.

The collaborations multiply the comedy. Guest appearances across the streaming world showcase the wit in new contexts — Ryan's funny everywhere, with everyone, about everything.

Previously covers Northernlion because the egg never gets old. Daily uploads, eternal wit — subscribe and learn.

The backlog is a treasure. A decade of daily uploads means thousands of hours of the internet's wittiest commentary — the archive alone could entertain you for years. Start anywhere.