Mother's Basement Host Geoff Thew Built His Reputation in Anime From His Very Specific Location

When it comes to trusted critics and known personalities among Western anime fans, Mother's Basement has established himself as one of them. Having first joined YouTube back in 2015, Mother's Basement (real name: Geoff Thew) is best known for his analysis, critiques, and recommendations of new and popular anime. He provides his personal lists of Best and Worst anime of every season, breaks down fight scenes, and provides commentary on different shows.

And as his name suggests, he did all of this blogging from his mother's basement. Throughout many of his earlier videos, Geoff typically signed off with the phrase, "I'm Geoff Thew, Professional S---bag, signing out from my mother's basement."

In essence, Geoff built his namesake and his reputation all while presumably operating from his mom's basement. As of this writing, he continues to create content on the latest that anime has to offer, but does the host of Mother's Basement still live in... his mother's basement?

According to his LinkedIn profile, Geoff Thew currently lives in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Subsequently, he's generated much of his content from the comfort of his own home as he developed Mother's Basement into a full-blow channel. Aside from providing critiques on popular modern shows like Jujutsu Kaisen and Oshi no Ko, Geoff also provides plenty of video essays on underrated gems and the history of certain anime subgenres. He also plays a major role in several anime podcasts.

It isn't inconceivable to think that he could have accomplished all of this from his own mother's basement. While the name likely began as a lighthearted jab at his living situation, it has since become his namesake for most of his social media. And after becoming highly recognized among Western anime fans, there's really no going back on a moniker that everyone now associates with you on the internet. However, does Geoff still work on his mother's basement as of 2023? All signs point to no.

In fact, he may not have worked in a basement in quite some time. An AMA Reddit thread supposedly hosted by Geoff back in February 2018 states that he didn't live in his mother's basement at the time of the initial post, though he at least "[played] one on TV" and kept up the name.

Despite this, many of his videos up until and including 2021 include the same sign-off wherein he claims that he finished his recording in his mother's basement.

However, he provided more definitive proof of his living situation in his usual content. In his Top 5 WORST ANIME of 2021 posted in December of that year, Geoff revealed that he was getting ready to move into a new house at the time. Sure enough, most of his uploads following this video do not have his trademark sign-off from his mother's basement anymore. In fact, the About section of his YouTube channel states that he "lives in a nice apartment now."

It's safe to say that Geoff Thew no longer works in the same space that he did when he first began posting videos. However, he'll always be known to his fans that the professional anime nerd signing off from his mother's basement.