I am sitting at my desk, listening to Ashly Burch. She highlights Kind Words – which is about anonymously writing and receiving letters, while also offering words of encouragement to those who need it – as a game which can benefit someone’s mental wellbeing in this, as she calls it, often complicated day and age. She’s right, I think to myself.
Burch is known to many for her video game roles: Aloy from Guerrilla’s Horizon series, Chloe Price in Life is Strange, Borderlands’ Tiny Tina, The Last of Us Part 2’s Mel. The list goes on. Then on top of all that, away from these video game-centric roles, she has also shared the screen with Rob McElhenney in Mythic Quest, while often appearing on table top web series Critical Role, and I am really only naming a small handful of her other credits.
She has now added yet another credit to her name, as creator of YouTube series I’m Happy You’re Here, which she describes as “like Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, but for adults” (so, yes, there are swears). Burch’s latest project is all about the many mental health hurdles adults face today: addiction, anxiety, depression, divorce and more. However in true Burch style, these topics are all explored with plenty of comedic flare, complete with a bonus cast of puppets.
Mental health is an incredibly important topic for Burch, who tells me that, “just like any good millennial,” (although these sorts of things are, of course, not exclusive to millennials) she has plenty of her own inner demons to face as well.
“I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and I had pretty bad OCD [Obsessive Compulsive Disorder] when I was young, and I feel like our ability to talk to kids about mental health has gotten better, but also think that adults still need a lot of help,” Burch tells me over Zoom.