Aaron Swartz. Persecuted for something he had legal right to do, only because some FBI fuck wanted to climb ranks after building a case against "dAngERouS Hax0rman!1"

And then 10 years passed and tech bros did the same thing on a larger scale, and it was suddenly OK

Gonna say Tom Brier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Brier

An amazing rag pianist, with the help of a friend he got really popular for various video game songs he would sight read (playing for the first time with no practice) for the camera.

In 2016, he was rear-ended in a car accident and had a brain injury that paralyzed him from the neck down. He has since been healing and as of 2023 was starting to be able to write again but as far as I’m aware still can’t play the piano and may never do so again.

Check out the talent: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7hrGrzVqaHaPngRcsE-gNrwxdVvByiiC

This is still one of my favs. He improvised an entire song based on a small melody from Legend of Zelda: https://youtu.be/vhRBGCS8mlc

I'm thinking of John Baine aka TotalBiscuit.

Ten years ago he was the only person i watched on Youtube. He did gaming related content, originaly about WOW and Starcraft 2, later branching out into Indi and AAA games. While he could be controversial as a person he had deep knowledge of the industry and made videos that where 100% made with gamers on mind. The man was a fucking ledgend and there is nobody who has been able to take up his work with the same integritity and knowledge he had.

He was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2014 and died 2018. In his last videos you can hear him slowly withering away.

Here is is talking about living with cancer.

Here is him playing the 2016 Doom release and getting more and more happy / exited the longer he plays it.

I used to be a massive AvE fan, but then Covid and angry Canadian truckers happened and he went completely of the rails.

Physics girl is finally ambulatory but still recovering from long covid after being bedridden for 3 years

https://youtu.be/B3m3AMRlYfc

Beyond politics and drop in quality, I hate channels that lean too hard into the parasocial stuff. LinusTT is a good example. I stopped watching that channel after every other episode was about Linus' house, his wife, or his employee's personal life.

I don't know if it's super tragic, but - the fouch family off-grid

They were documenting buying land in the middle of nowhere and building a self-sufficient homestead there. From a yurt, to building a house off their own trees.

They went on some holistic farming retreat, gave it a not-so-shining review on YouTube and got sued for slander. They took their off-grid living one step further after that.

Eurtan: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrvczGINBiBV-N9mZybHCZQ

Erutan on TIDAL: https://tidal.com/artist/18310839

She had the most beautiful voice, an amazing talent for composition and performance. Some likened her to Lúthien Tinúviel from J.R.R. Tolkien's legends. She was struck by some autoimmune disease, which attacked her throat and stole her voice. Reading her last update is really heartbreaking: https://www.erutanmusic.com/drinks

Grandpa Cooking. I watched his funeral on YT. They tried to keep the channel alive without him, but with losing the central figure...

I'm sad that the kids lost him, he helped them a lot.

Camping with Steve started with a homeless guy who eventually got his life back together after much trauma and got married to a lovely woman who then died suddenly and it absolutely destroyed him. Then his neighbour and friend died a while later. He still makes videos and seems to be doing OK but geez that guy has had a rough go-around.

Desert Drifter's death made me cry. It was very unexpected and unnecessary and he seemed like a really positive guy. I loved his videos. They were pure adventure and really highlighted amazing treasures throughout the American West, all in such a zen, peaceful package.

Probably Technoblade or any other youtuber who literally died.

It’s hard to drop out of the basement because they don’t have windows, but I’ll throw in Chris-Chan for consideration. Uh… you all can Google that rabbit hole.

3blue1brown held a contest in 2021 to inspire people to create math explainer videos for a more or less general audience during the isolation of the pandemic. One of the submissions was the very good Hackenbush: A Window to a New World of Math, which dives into combinatorial game theory à la John Conway's Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays. Going by the comments under the video, it appears the creator Owen Maitzen commit suicide sometime in the year after publishing the video. It's the only video on the channel. There could have been many more.

I didn't follow the events up close personally but my impression of the whole Jenna Marbles controversy was that she could've just stopped reading comments and kept making videos but instead she let a small online mob bully her out.

Nikocado Avocado comes to mind, hope that guy is okay

I’m blessed that I don’t know any YouTube personalities.

That fat radio/podcast guy with the deep gravelly voice.

Aaron Kyro