What’s in a name? (A quote from the great William Shakespeare, but don’t worry, if you fear we’re going too high brow, here’s our take on the Hawk Tuah Girl).
We just love that this question posed by the Bard could apply to the stranger-than-fiction coincidence of Kayla Sims – the woman whose last name also happened to be her eventual claim to fame.
Kayla Sims might not be the name you know her by best. It might instead be Lilsimsie, queen of The Sims and a YouTuber with an impressive 2 million plus followers. Did she happen to check out The Sims thinking it was about her family? We’ll never know. But this member of the Sims family has united a family of The Sims players all over the world through good videos, great content, and a masterclass in setting boundaries with an online community.
Sims is the name of the game
Since 2015, Lilsimsie has lived up to her gaming birthright and made The Sims her calling card, making nearly 3000 videos (as of October 2024) dedicated to the simulation game, and her YouTube videos leave no corner of The Sims untouched.
From showing the basics (building entire houses in timed challenges) to elevated tips (how to make the most out of using limited packs), her content isn’t just based on a genuine love for the game, it’s educational without feeling like a user guide comes to life.
As a gamer, she understands how her gaming community engages with The Sims and she finds new ways to celebrate that. Whether it’s enjoying the seasonal shifts – building cozy homes for the fall worthy of Gilmore Girls vibes – or being brutally honest with her reviews of new packs.
And, because this back-and-forth of trust and authenticity has been built, Lilsimsie has earned herself a spot as one of EA’s favorite collaborators.
The game developers regularly send new packs and editions to the YouTuber to review and experience in real-time with her community of over 2 million YouTube subscribers and nearly 875,000 Twitch followers.
How Lilsimsie built Kayla Sims into her world of The Sims
Her impressive Sims (Simpressive?) skills are one thing, but Lilsimsie also stands out from other creators as she brings a lot of her real world into The Sims world.
If Lilsimsie is the online alias on which her foundation is built, Kayla Sims is everything that made it great. Like a game of The Sims itself, she built everything from the ground up (only instead of a Bonsai Tree here and a Treasure Chest there, she did so by sharing more of her real life with the community she cultivated.)
Who could ever question the commitment and transparency of a creator who would share intimate, vulnerable parts of her life, like her father’s cancer journey
During such a dark period of her life, Kayla shared her worries for her father, and her own struggles during his cancer battle, using her massive platform to bring everyone a little closer. Suddenly, the world didn’t seem so big, so disconnected, and her family’s health fight (a fight many of her followers would’ve been going through too) didn’t feel like such a lonely battle.
This breaking down the boundaries of Lilsimsie and Kayla had even helped raise over $500,000 for St Jude Children’s Research Hospital by 2023.
Play by her rules
When you play The Sims, you get a taste of playing God. You control everything in your world. Some of us might use that power in extreme ways (let's be honest, how many of us have done some seriously weird stuff to our Sims? We aren’t judging…) But Kayla, aka Lilsimsie, has flexed her authority for the greater good.
In a world where a simple game of The Sims can be invaded by screaming antivaxxers, questionable mods, or spam commenters wanting to offend for the sake of offending, Lilsimsie’s Twitch streams are known for being a safe space. There’s no swearing. She’s mindful of her language choices. She’s not afraid to learn alongside her community (there was a whole chapter involving why it’s racially insensitive to use the term ‘master bedroom’ – and she was happy to share this with her massive platform).
And best be warned: you will be blocked if you cross her boundaries. Some on Reddit (where else?) have hit back with criticism and claimed this is a sign of a big ego or someone afraid of being challenged. But others applaud Lilsimsie’s ability to protect both her online persona and the real-world Kayla, to bring real-world matters into the simulation world.
Content without compromise. In this day and age, that’s a rare achievement.
