What is Grotto Beasts? The ‘very real’ ’90s monster card company owned by Jerma
Twitch, @Jerma985 / Twitter, @meekcheepDuring a bizarre Twitch stream, Jerma found a treasure chest in a Nevada desert containing rocks and monster card packs from 1997’s Grotto Beasts — a company which he eventually claimed to buy for $350K.
It is one of the weirdest, most creative Twitch phenomena in recent memory. The eccentric streamer had a whole shtick planned out, like some 2021 internet dweller’s version of . His archaeology stream including rocks, scientists, cans of Surge, and… mysterious monster cards.
In the end, it appears that the whole “Grotto Beasts” hype was simply a ruse in order to make fun of the Pokemon card pack opening craze going on. Similarly, it appears that the whole thing was staged — not just the treasure chest in the desert, but an entirely fabricated ‘90s company as well.
You wouldn’t know it from the stream, website, or the responses, though. Not only did Jerma perfectly feign surprise with this supposedly vintage company, but his fans have played along perfectly, and even gone so far as to pretend they’re digging up old theme songs from the now-canceled television show.
Grotto BeastsIf you just looked at the Grotto Beasts website, it’d look like an antique card company that went bankrupt. And, if you watched Jerma’s stream, you’d get the exact same impression.
Being told that the company is worth $350,000 during his “unboxing” stream, Jerma tells his staff to “buy it right now,” before confirming that “this is cool. I’ll own it” and getting back to excitedly opening cards.
If that got you curious and you then decided to google the company, you’d find that website alongside Reddit and YouTube content — including someone’s “Grotto Beasts Theme Song” that they claim to have “found on a cassette tape.”
With all of this recent content being uploaded on the day of Jerma’s stream, it definitely seems that his fans are in on the prank. On Twitter, Reddit and YouTube, they’re all pretending that this card game gives them serious 1997 nostalgia because some inside jokes simply snowball into alternate realities.
If you need extra convincing that this whole thing is fake, though, you need only to look at some Twitter bios for the cards’ artists. Melscribbles, who now-famously designed Meowdy, says she is 25 years old — meaning she would have been…one year old when the totally real, definitely not fake card company was created.
It’s not exactly clear what Jerma’s end goal is here, but it’s obvious that fans are enjoying the content and Pokemon may very well have a universe-bending competitor to watch out for.