Advertisement
Technoblade, a YouTube personality who garnered a following of millions with his tongue-in-cheek comments on videos in which he plays Minecraft, has died, his father announced in a video posted to his son’s account.
More than 11 million subscribers have made a habit of watching screen recordings of Technoblade’s Minecraft gameplay as he commented from the off. While he usually focused on what was happening in the game, in a few videos he described life events as as mundane as going to the DMV or as devastating as getting a cancer diagnosis.
A video titled “So long nerds,” posted to Technoblade’s YouTube channel on Thursday, which has garnered more than 26 million views as of Friday afternoon, departs from the channel’s usual aesthetic of brightly colored, pixelated bricks. Instead, a man posing as Technoblade’s father appears, seated in a chair against a crisp white background with a small white dog on his lap.
His father, who does not give his name, reads a message from his son that begins: “Hello everyone. Technoblade here. If you see that, I’m dead.”
The news further reveals Technoblade’s first name, Alex, which he has not used online. The video also includes a handful of photos of Alex with loved ones. He had rarely shown himself in his YouTube videos, preferring instead to present himself as his avatar: a crowned, sword-wielding pig.
“If I had a hundred lives left, I would choose to be Technoblade all over again,” Alex’s letter reads. “Those were the happiest years of my life.”
His father, who remains emotional throughout the video, says he and his son have been talking for months about whether to record a final video. Instead, Alex decided to write the letter and died about eight hours after he finished, his father says.
“I don’t think he said everything he wanted to say, but I think he got the main points,” he says.
The video ends with a written statement attributed to Alex’s mother, who is not named. She wrote that her son avoided personal fame and was self-deprecating despite his channel’s growing popularity.
“Since Technoblade’s earliest online days, he’s always strategized to please and reward his audience, run online prizes, encourage good sportsmanship, and most importantly, share his Minecraft adventures for entertainment and laughs,” she wrote.
Alex’s family could not be reached on Friday. Hypixel, a gaming company that has worked with Technoblade, said the family asked that requests for comment not be forwarded to them. “The video they shared contains all the information that they are happy to share at this time,” Don Pireso, the company’s senior administrator, said in a Twitter direct message.
Alex first publicly announced his cancer diagnosis in a video posted to his channel in August. Like the others, the video showed the game while he spoke off-camera. He maintained his self-deprecating, humorous style and refused to get too serious. He also revealed his age at the time, 22.
In the video, he described how the first round of chemotherapy left him so exhausted he could barely sit up for a virtual doctor’s appointment. He then joked, “Am I sitting in a chair, am I Superman?”
He said he was diagnosed after experiencing severe pain in his arm. He initially dismissed it as a repetitive strain injury from playing video games, but even after a few days of rest, he said his shoulder was “swollen like crazy.”
He also implored people to get a Covid-19 vaccine, saying the cancer treatments had weakened his immune system, putting him at greater risk of serious illness from the coronavirus.
“I will go ahead and speak on behalf of all cancer patients when I say that it is incredibly upsetting when hospitals are overwhelmed by people dying from preventable diseases,” he said in the video. “I’m just saying we have these hospital beds.”
Taking to social media, Technoblade friends and fans praised him for his humor and for being a role model among Minecraft players.
Minecraft differs from most games in that its owner, Microsoft, does not control the servers where players meet online. Players can instead create their own servers or join a server created by someone else, creating a sprawling network of worlds in the Minecraft universe.
Hypixel, which runs a network of Minecraft servers, said it created a digital memorial book where people could write messages that would be printed and sent to Technoblade’s family. The company’s tribute featured an illustration of Technoblade’s pig avatar as a statue. “In many ways, the success of many of us is linked to the success of Technoblade,” the company said.
One of Technoblade’s friends, YouTuber Thomas Simons, better known as TommyInnit, described him on Twitter as a “legend”.
“I just know,” Mr. Simons wrote, “he’s plotting in heaven to beat God.”
Claire Fahy contributed reporting.
