I picked up my 16 year old son from swim practice and on the drive home he mentioned the death of a Youtuber he used to watch, Technoblade. Technoblade’s real identity is largely unknown other than his first name was Alex, but as Technoblade the Youtuber Alex connected with and touched millions.
A Youtuber is someone who makes Youtube videos for a living. How exactly a person makes a living by creating videos, or content, to post to Youtube is beyond me but it entails payments from Youtube for the number of viewers and subscribers the posts and Youtuber has (a form of general advertising revenue paid by Youtube), paid ads embedded in the Youtuber’s posts (a form of specific advertising paid by the sponsor directly to the Youtuber), merchandising (T-shirts, etc.) and perhaps fees for personal appearances either in person or virtually. Technoblade was 23 when he died of colon cancer and is roughly estimated to have made around $3-4,000,000 on his Youtube channel.
Technoblade started making Youtube videos when he was about 13 or 14 years old. At the time of his death he had millions of followers. My son started watching his videos when my son was 9 or 10. My son doesn’t really follow actors or athletes or even musicians. Youtubers and the like are the ones many in the up and coming generation connect with. These content creators, for the present generation, are the song writers, authors, and performers of yesteryear.
Technoblade’s niche was videos of him playing Minecraft. Minecraft can best be described as virtual Legos. Technoblade recorded himself playing Minecraft while giving a running narrative of his game play. I’ve seen my son play Minecraft in the past and have seen videos similar to Technoblade’s but the appeal of the game is beyond me. I once saw a cartoon, though, where a little kid was talking about his Dad complaining about the kid watching videos of other kids playing videos games and the little kid said something like, “And you spend your weekends watching people play football, right?” Touché.
One example of Technoblade’s commentary that I think made him so relevant to his fans was the following regarding a particular Minecraft game:
I think Skyblock is at it’s core the ultimate challenge in resource management. You spawn on a tiny island in an empty universe. All you have is a tree, some supplies, and some dirt to stand on. You have to treasure every dirt block because if one falls into the void there’s no way to replace it. As you carefully navigate your absurd circumstances you get a new appreciation for the few things you have as you meticulously use them to their fullest effect. With nothing but some ice, lava, and saplings you slowly transform this empty expanse into a world of your very own. Skyblock teaches us that no matter how ridiculous the odds may seem, within us resides the power to overcome these challenges and achieve something beautiful, that one day we’ll look back at where we started and be amazed at how far we’ve come.
the hypixel skyblock experience – YouTube
This is a pretty good message, even a profound message, to give to a preteen, teenager, or early adult just starting out in life. Granted much of the Technoblade’s commentary is not as well thought out as that above, much is just kind of silly banter, but thrown in are certainly gems. Later in this same video Technoblade says, “Is this really what I wanted to do with my life, stare at my monitor until meaningless numbers increase?” Don’t a lot of successful adults do just this as we look at our investment accounts?
The interesting thing to me about being a Youtuber like Technoblade is that the barriers to entry are really quite low. The technology is so user friendly that the content creator doesn’t need to find an agent, a publisher, a producer, or even a venue to play in. A computer, internet connection, and camera are all that is really needed. Of course the numbers of viewers is very much dependent upon the ability to make a connection with people. Technoblade obviously had that talent. Youtube certainly has at times been and has great potential to be a tool for democratization and egalitarianism, to give a platform for individuals like Alex to become Technoblade, throughout the world.
Youtube and the like are certainly not without flaws, as the demonetization of posts deemed inappropriate by Youtube is most certainly a serious problem. Demonetization is when Youtube decides that it is not going to pay the content creator for a particular post because what is said in the post is for some reason deemed inappropriate. How transparent the criteria for demonetization is and how fairly the criteria is applied is certainly debatable. Plagiarism and disinformation are also endemic to the platform, but aren’t those dangers endemic to the New York Times as well?
Technoblade was one of the early pioneers on Youtube. His death has impacted millions simply by the sharing of his day-to-day existence. After Technoblade died his father read a note in a post called “So long Nerds” that Technoblade had written to be read upon his death. In that note, which began “If you are hearing this I am dead,” Technoblade said the following:
If I had another one hundred lives, I think I would choose to be Technoblade again every single time, because those were the happiest years of my life. I hope you guys enjoyed my content and that I made some of you laugh. And I hope you all go on to live long prosperous and happy lives. Because I love you guys. Technoblade out.