Northernlion

"Stupid, stupid damage."

- Northernlion, multiple times during his The Binding of Isaac Let's Play

Ryan Letourneau, better known by his username Northernlion, is a Canadian with a love for independent video games. Rising to prominence through his Let's Plays, his videos generally consist of gameplay while providing amusing live commentary. A "Machinima Director and Let's Player Extraordinaire", Northernlion is a highly charismatic individual best known for his distinctive voice and sharp wit, as well as his usage of a variety of puns, idioms, and vague references to pop culture.

Aside from his Let's Plays, Northernlion has also made various video series, consisting of "Let's Look At", "Let's Hate", "Don't Play This", "Only in Korea", and "Indie Game of the Week", and his "Poison Mushroom" series on Machinima.

Personal life
For about a year, Northernlion worked in Daegu in South Korea as an English teacher for children. He returned home to Canada on 1 December 2011.

He was unemployed after returning home, but now makes money through YouTube, which he calls "a dream job", and he once jokingly described himself as "funemployed".

In October 2012, he moved across the country to live with his girlfriend Kate Kim in Vancouver.

Northernlion Live Super Show
Northernlion hosts a triweekly livestream event on YouTube called the Northernlion Live Super Show. Each show is three hours long, from 3pm PST to 6pm PST, and is scheduled on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

Northernlion usually spends the first hour and a half playing Dark Souls, focusing on invading other players, and the latter half of the stream playing another game. RockLeeSmile and JSmithOTI converse with Northernlion through Skype for the majority of each livestream, and other YouTubers such as michaelalfox and Ohmwrecker have also joined. The shows also feature a "Trivia Time" round, where participants can answer trivia questions for a chance to win free games via Twitter, and an "Ask Me Anything" segment, where Northernlion ends each show answering quick-fire questions.

Each show is uploaded to Northernlion's YouTube account the following day as a VOD.

Because each show is hosted on YouTube, rather than TwitchTV (a website dedicated to livestreaming video games), the Northernlion Live Super Show has suffered from a few technical difficulties, such as screen flickering and slowdown. Furthermore, because YouTube's comment system has not been adapted well for livestreaming, viewers cannot converse with each other or with Northernlion effectively; Northernlion asks viewers to instead contact him by tweeting him "@NorthernlionLP".

Northernlion has stated that he wants to host a 24-hour-long livestream in late April/early May 2013, and hopes to become proficient at livestreaming within a year.

Trivia

 * Northernlion once started a Let's Play of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, but had to abandon it after a few episodes due to legal issues. The Let's Play was notable in that it wasn't an indie game.
 * Northernlion is a YouTube Partner through his partnership with the Machinima Channel (where his "Poison Mushroom" series is posted).
 * His cat is named Lexington.
 * First mentioned in an episode of his Let's Play of Cave Story, he is afraid of deep-sea creatures, specifically tentacled creatures such as jellyfish.
 * He has a pet hedgehog named Allegro (it may also belong partially to his girlfriend).
 * Northernlion's birthday is on 28 November.