OctoBoy: A YouTuber Who Never Talks?

It's been three weeks since the Splatoon 3 announcement, and my life hasn't been the same since. As I mentioned in the Name That Hyperfixation episode of "21," Splatoon has become my new hyperfixation. It's made me start watching new Splatubers that I previously hadn't watched. I was previously only subscribed to Failboat, but now I'm subscribed to Etce (whose Side A and Side B series might just become my new hyperfixation), GG Gabriel Gaming (founder of Woomy United Today), and Viantastic (creator of Bridgett). However, the first Splatuber I found was OctoBoy, who makes hilarious videos of himself and his friends doing various Splatoon shenanigans, whether they be meme games or just doing Salmon Run with an added bit of chaos. There's just one twist: OctoBoy himself never talks.

Okay, saying he never talks is kind of stretching it, but he is known among the Splatubers as the silent one. At the beginning of the video I have linked to the picture, GG refers to OctoBoy as "the ever so silent OctoBoy." And this was his own video.

The video I have linked is probably my favorite OctoBoy video. Every moment is sheer gold from Vian starting with Etce's catchphrase to OctoBoy running into the water (depicted above alongside Splatuber Sagaci's reaction) to Etce giving birth to Vian (this doesn't make any more sense in context), and this is all before Failboat and Fyrus join in. I think this is where OctoBoy's humor shines through, in the crazy shenanigans of his friends and the way he edits the gameplay. Of course, this doesn't mean he's completely absent from the video as he adds some of his own (nonverbal) voice, such as running into the water (which happens right after GG says "If you're fine, say nothing." I guess he's not fine) or responding to GG's simple "Hello, OctoBoy!" by showing a sprite of his persona with a distorted face and the text, "When I have my powers back, I will burn the entirety of humanity until everyone dies in--", so personality-wise, he's not silent at all.

Also, he's not silent because there are a few videos where he speaks. The only two I've found were made in the past year, one on GG Gabriel's channel and one on JayMoji's, and his voice is actually very nice to hear. I hear there are more videos, but I haven't seen them yet. Why, then, do we not hear it more often? Well, I also found a video made three years ago of OctoBoy and Gabriel playing Super Smash Bros while speaking to each other in fluent French (with English subtitles).

Judging by that and noticing that sometimes his gameplay footage has French text on it and that his earlier videos have French subtitles and also this bit of his Splatoon 3 trailer reaction, I think it's safe to say that OctoBoy is French. My guess is that he's not confident speaking English, so he just doesn't. I never would have guessed it, though. His descriptions and pinned comments are written in near-perfect English. However, since we've heard him speaking English in recent videos, it might be a sign that he's gaining confidence in his English, and I hope to hear more of his voice in the future!

I decided to write a blog post about OctoBoy because he made me realize something: a YouTuber doesn't need to talk to be funny. Sure, there are plenty of YouTube channels that don't feature the channel runner's voice, but in gaming YouTube, it's typically expected of YouTubers to talk. Unless you're OctoBoy. Even though he doesn't talk, he finds his own ways to be funny. He was inactive for most of 2020, but he just came back (and even released a new Splatoon video today!), and I'm seriously considering subscribing to him. It reminds me of something I learned from watching Ferb: lack of words doesn't mean lack of personality.

Honestly, I didn't know OctoBoy was silent until I went to the comments on the GG Gabriel video, and several of them were like "OMG OCTOBOY SPOKE!" I probably would have never realized it if I hadn't checked out his videos, and I'm glad I did.

UPDATE: I just found his Twitter account. He's definitely French. I'm also subscribed now!