After the death of a popular YouTuber by the name of Desmond “Etika” Amofah a few weeks ago, his friends, fans, as well as other creators decided to speak up about how much damage can be on the mental health of a person online.
The task of regularly making uploads at a given time whilst dealing with the pressures on the increase for the fact that one is a public figure can deepen the feelings of anxiety and depression as many creators have stated over these few years. The final video that was uploaded by Amofah on YouTube that was deleted and then reuploaded by other people states explicitly the negative effects that social media had on the creator’s mental health.
In the words of Amofah, “It can fuck you up. 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.”
Before the creator’s passing, fans had raised a few concerns about his mental health for many months, however the behavior he was displaying shortly before he died only caused people to mock him and they even believed that he was falsifying it in a bid to garner attention. Twitch streamer by the name Asmongold said in a stream that as at October 2018, Amofah drove YouTube to ban his account when he uploaded pornography to his main YouTube channel. Later, he streamed a repulsion with the New York police after they were called because he posted a photo of himself holding a gun on Twitter.
Asmongold said that, “A lot of people think they can troll and abuse online personalities, forgetting they’re not immune to mental health problems. Because they’re perceived as able to make a living online, they’re not allowed to have social or mental problems.”
Cory Kensin, a well-known gaming YouTuber who himself took a four-month leave in 2018 so as to focus on his own mental health commented saying that, the way individuals dealt with Amofah during his time of struggle is exactly one of the things that creators face on a daily basis since they are public figures. Kensin said this in a video illustrating how people mocked Amofah’s behaviour, “People on Twitter spamming clown emojis to him — literally you can feel like you have no one else”.
People believe it’s fun to make nasty comments about other people online, but it’s not right especially when the victims are going through a struggle, we have to end it, the whole insensitive comments online, need to stop.
