YouTuber Etika’s death spurs conversation about how viewers react to creators’ mental health struggles

Following the death of popular YouTuber Desmond “Etika” Amofah on Tuesday, friends, fans, and other creators have opened up about the toll that being an online personality can take on a person’s mental health.

Balancing an intense upload schedule and coping with increasing pressures from being a public persona can worsen anxiety and depression, many creators have said in recent years. Amofah’s now-deleted final video, which has since reuploaded to YouTube by others, directly discusses the negative effects of social media on his health.

“It can fuck you up,” Amofah said. “It can give you an image of what you want your life to be and it can get blown completely out of proportion, dog. Unfortunately, it consumed me.”

There had been concerns among fans about Amofah’s mental health for months, but Amofah’s recent behavior also drew mockery from people who believed he was faking it or looking for attention, Twitch streamer Asmongold said in a stream on Tuesday night. In October 2018, Amofah forced YouTube to ban his account by uploading pornography to his main YouTube channel. He later streamed a standoff with New York police at his apartment after they were called because he posted a photo on Twitter of himself holding a gun.

“A lot of people think they can troll and abuse online personalities, forgetting they’re not immune to mental health problems,” Asmongold said. “Because they’re perceived as able to make a living online, they’re not allowed to have social or mental problems.”

The way people treated Amofah while he was struggling was a symptom of what creators have to deal with as public figures, said Cory Kensin, a popular gaming YouTuber who took four months away in 2018 to focus on his own mental health. “People on Twitter spamming clown emojis to him — literally you can feel like you have no one else,” Kensin said in a video posted last night, discussing the ways that people would mock Amofah’s behavior.

Deciding not to send an insensitive or trollish comment, even if it seems like a joke, is one step people can take to help people who appear to be struggling, according to Alan Bunney. Bunney is a former professional gamer who became a doctor of internal medicine and now runs the popular Panda Global e-sports brand and works with a number of prominent Twitch streamers in the gaming space. People are quick to forget that YouTube personalities and streamers are human beings with feelings, he says. And because of that, it might be easier for people to say something without thinking of the consequences.

“What you’re joking around with is a persona, not a person,” Bunney tells The Verge. “You know, you’re laughing with what you think you understand. A persona is only part of that person; you don’t really know who they are or what they’re going through.”

Fiona Nova, an actress and streamer who was a close friend of Amofah’s, criticized some of Amofah’s viewers for turning his mental crises into jokes. “He needed help, and we were very aware of it,” Nova tweeted. “I’m pissed beyond my mind that his very fucking obvious signs of mental illness was brushed off by not just the hospitals, but by a lot of his fans. Memes were made, jokes were made.” Alice Pika, a streamer and Amofah’s ex-girlfriend, said Amofah was “glued” to the negative posts about him. “He could be told by a fan how he changed their life and go back to the hate.”

Countless testimonials over the years from creators, including Elle Mills, Bobby Burns, Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg, and Kensin have talked about how the pressures of maintaining their YouTube presence has increased their stress and — in some cases — exacerbated existing mental health disorders. Kesin said it wasn’t until he took a several-month break from YouTube that he realized how bad his mental health had gotten. Bunney says he hasn’t met a streamer or creator who doesn’t work with a therapist on a regular basis. Isolation, anxiety, and mental health struggles are increasingly common in the space, he says.

“I know that you might feel that if you don’t upload, or if you don’t go on Twitter or Instagram for even one day or one week, you’re going to fade into obscurity,” Kensin said. “Social media is dangerous. It can have lasting damage on your psyche.”

YouTube has introduced a few methods to help address mental health concerns in the community, including launching new “Creator Courses” specifically targeting depression, anxiety, and burnout, and trying to be more transparent about how the platform treats YouTubers who take time off. YouTube Creators, an official YouTube channel, has published interviews talking about how creators can take more time away without worrying about their channel statistics falling. The company did not return a request for comment on whether videos on Amofah’s channel would run with suicide helpline messaging.

The conversation is continuing today on Twitter, YouTube, Twitch, and Reddit. Bunney, who spoke to The Verge after hosting a lengthy live podcast and talking to people in the community who were struggling to cope with Amofah’s death, stresses that this is common but is no one’s fault. What people can learn from the tragedy, Bunney suggests, is how to treat creators going forward.

“If you see someone tweet that they’re in a bad place — do you know how hard it is for them to say?” Bunney says. “They craft this public persona, and for them to break that image and say, ‘I’m not okay,’ that’s fucking hard, bad place. People need to immediately realize this is not a joke. They need to say, ‘We will support you, we will continue to consume your content when you are better. You can take a month away, and I will come back and watch your videos. I’ll still be there for you no matter what happens.’ It’s so important we say that.”