@boonsong: It is blatant disrespect to barge in on those in mourning, effectively shouting, "I know shady shit about this guy!" Because the opinion you hold, and the will to express it, is perfectly fine. The timing and choice of venue for expressing that opinion, however, is where you trample toes. I'm surprised it does not occur to you.

Death is held in certain reverence during certain occasions, while we choose to talk about it casually in other settings-- joke about it, even. But just as its scythe reaps another person, it is tactless and often ugly to disrupt those that choose to revere the life of one dead.

@rahf said:

Rahf pretty much covers it. I also think it adds weight when the "I know shady shit about this guy!" is actually shady shit most of us know. They aren't enlightening new people onto some horrible stuff this person is doing, nor are they making sure his entire story is covered. Lots of people have shown respect while acknowledging his wrongdoings. Making it entirely about that is selfish, and comes across as "I hate that people show any respect to this person at all in death, so I'm going to rub the mistakes he made in because I can." Which is why I think it's disrespectful. You can acknowledge the sins in a respectful way and still give the tragedy of his death some sort of reverence.

@rahf: I haven't seen anyone "barge in" on other peoples mourning, or at least that's not what I was referring to. All I've seen on Twitter, the ones that got attention, were threads started by various ppl in the industry who expressed condolences for his death but also brought up his involvement with GG and their experiences with that. I do not consider that blatant disrespect. What's fucked up though were the death threats and harassment one woman faced for her post that she effectively had to lock down her profile because people were trying to contact her work and get her fired like she had done some heinous crime which is hilarious, not to mention delusional.

That's the thing that's so different about TB though. He didn't just make a mistake, he was a champion of this culture. He bred a toxic culture from the beginning, long before GG came into the picture. To see this man celebrated when he was the epitome of what so many people despise about the internet is just... strange.

@boonsong: I think you are missing the egregious examples that these other people are referring to. I won't name a name, but there is a tirade by a public figure weigh STARTS with the following:

"Weird, the world just felt a little bit better some time around an hour, hour and a half ago.

Maybe it was just those new running shoes I got for my run home.

OH, wait, I know! It's because Totalbiscuit died!"

And ends with the tweet: "I'm saying this for myself but I might as well be saying this for those who were (and still could be).

Fuck that guy nine ways to sunday, and good riddance to bad rubbish."

So... Yeah, while I agree people are liable to act in outrageous ways, please try to understand that the "John bain criticism corner" isn't exactly right and honestly, in my opinion seems to be treating the man particularly unfairly in the first place.

Please stop off handedly dismissing everyone saying otherwise, because I don't think it is helpful in legitimizing the bad actors spreading unjustifiable hated on either end.

I think what I'm trying to say is there is a difference between addressing his faults and celebrating his death and that is where it crosses a line, especially for someone who (afiak, though admittedly I didn't follow or pay much attention to gg) realized his issues and apologized for his actions.

This is the biggest exaggeration I've seen in quite some time, I'd be impressed if the man hadn't just died a few days ago.

TB was the first person outside traditional media that I thought of as a serious games critic,he introduced me to many new interesting voices and was a big part of the esports boom during the Starcraft 2 era. He will be sorely missed.

Wow, this thread took a bad fucking turn.

@schnoo: People are multi-faceted and complicated. I know he did a lot of stuff people enjoyed a lot, and I'm sure he was a great influence to a lot of people. I don't even think he did most of the shitty things he did on purpose (I don't really see why he would). It's a heavy-handed comparison, but I really enjoyed a lot of Louis CKs comedy. That doesn't mean certain things he's done wasn't really really shitty.

@ares42 said:

As I never followed him, the information I found on his involvement in GG and being a champion of the culture you spoke of was tenuous at best, at least that is how it seemed based on following the two sides of the argument. He did not condone harassment and he did call for more inclusion and respect in games. But a lot of people also said he refused to stop hiding behind the "my influence is not my responsibility" side of the argument when it was proven that some of his fanbase was the ones doing the absolutely awful harassment.

I guess and again feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here that doesn't sound like someone who champions harassment. That sounds like someone who is ignorant to the ways in which his own influence can affect a legion of fans, and that he should of not only taken more responsibility for it, but also made clear that "fans" of his that harass people should not be respected nor tolerated in any fashion.

Again though I don't really see a lot of people "celebrating" the negative aspects of what he brought to the gaming industry on a whole. Let's also be real, TB didn't "invent" harassment nor did his fans. I'm sure people were getting bullied on the internet for a litany of things long before he came along, and will for years he's gone. All accounts from both sides also say he mellowed in the years to come, and tons of respected journalists who do not condone harassment talked with him about it. Danny has a whole thing on twitter about his back and forth Skype conversations with him, and seeing growth.

Keep in mind all we are asking from commenting is to show respect to his death and the positive contributions he had hand in hand with the negative. Nobody is saying "ignore the bad things that happened". It just isn't fair to hold everyone on the internet so god damn accountable to the finite point that they can't even be mourned without being disrespected as well imo. Not unless they did something so unforgivable y'know. Like crossing this huge line. I don't mean to belittle harassment or bullying, they are huge deals. But they are also some of the most commonplace things. All of us probably have been bullied at some point. So does that mean 10 years later, I get to throw shade at the person who bullied me when his kid dies of cancer? Thats tasteless. And keep in mind in this instance it wasn't even TB doing the bullying, just not acknowledging his association and part in how it was influenced, and how members of his fanbase were impacting other peoples lives. I guess I just don't see the argument that his actions simply by negligent association are so damning that years later, after the fact, after everyone already knows the associations and he has been rightfully criticized throughout that the man can't be respected at all, even in death.

I hate the internet.

On one hand you have the chorus of ppl lionizing him as some sort of patron saint of "gaming", the other side rushing to dance on his grave because he said some really shitty things.

@baal_sagoth: Some people just fail to understand that there's a place and time for everything (and I don't think this is the place or the time).

Anyway, I will miss his content. He was a great customer advocate and I generally found his views well thought out and honest. I've been a viewer since the early SC2 days. It's not easy to see someone that young struggle with cancer for a couple of years, take care of your health folks.

@zels: Yeah, really excellent, on-point criticism while it lasted!

I'd love to know where the huge myth of him being such a shitty human being even came from. The worst thing he's said was that cancer comment, and he even later called himself out on it and apologized, and that was like 8 years ago. Literally nobody I ask can ever point to anything he's said that was so horrible, he's always been against harassment and shit like that, pretty openly. His "GamerGate" ties have always 100% been about what the original purpose of that entire thing was supposed to be in the first place, not what it became.

Hmmm don't know how i feel about this gofund me page they put up. Sure everybody needs money but this feels to soon https://www.gofundme.com/TotalBiscuit

Getting conflicted feelings about this.

Seems fine to me. What exactly is the problem?

@soulcake: He has been living with cancer for years, there are no doubt very expensive medical costs his family have been paying for that comes with the American health care system. The initial ask was for $7500, people have simply been donating more than that. Just been reading up on it.

@evilmonkeyslayer: Yeah your right dealing with the American healthcare system is a pain in the butt. I had cancer once, my end bill was 500 Euro's guess i was lucky enough to live in a Country with decent healthcare and not having to worry about selling my house.

@soulcake: This was initiated by supporters of the family, not the family itself. I wouldn't say no to such a boon, in a really trying time.

That's what happens when you aren't part of a game "dev"/journalist clique, and you're honest with your game reviews. Fall in line or get F'ed.

It's the equivalent of that tired twitter trope of somebody exclaiming some bullshit then being cute and saying "I'm not debating this. This is fact, I'm muting my mentions, have fun!"

I started playing Terraria because of his terraria videos with Jesse Cox, and I started playing minecraft because I liked Terraria so much. TB basically introduced me to two of my favorite games indirectly and I'm sure others can relate. I've followed his content off and on through the years and I respect and count on his opinions for finding video games just as much as I count on the staff of this website. I can't say that for any other games journalist, besides certain people no longer working for giant bomb.

Fair enough, that twitter post you quoted in particular was in really bad taste and I do not doubt there are others like it.

RIP

@pilgrimm1981:

Ya, he was a fan of the site, and gave a very respectful segment on him and his impact

John 'Total Biscuit' Bain was one of the best. I'll miss his opinions even if I did not agree with all of them. I also always enjoyed his sense of humour. His coverage of Guise of the Wolf is hilarious.

RIP Total Biscuit

You will be missed.

@devise22: This is probably the only comment I've seen of someone who mentions trying to actually look into the various claims made by people.

I followed TB and the co-optional podcast crew off and on the past few years and TB was absolutely and unabashedly himself, which came off as pretty blunt and somewhat crude. It never felt like he was playing a character though, he was passionate about what he was involved in and what he discussed and in turn his voice showed that. Its not unsurprising to see people be on different spectrums when it comes to his death, but I do wonder how many people claiming he said bad shit, saying he was a terrible person, saying he championed this movement, can actually point to many key examples, and how much of it is just parroting what they've read by *insert game journo/random internet person here*.

I'll look forward to looking back at his work, and look ahead at what those he has influenced will do now that he is gone.

I wasn't exactly a fan, though aware of his presence. So it's surprising to hear that he's passed. My heart goes out to his family and friends, I can't imagine the loss.

@rk92 said:

Admittedly, the thing against him was not a huge mass of awful tweets. Although he did make an incredibly insulting tweet about trans folk joking about his pronoun being "toaster" and "toast" but that was also 5 years ago. (I don't blame people for not finding that exactly endearing in retrospect.) As for the main issue, GG was something that hit hard and hurt a lot of people, especially those who were already vulnerable in gaming and online culture at large. From where I was standing, that shit was toxic from day 1 (day 2 or 3 if we're being generous). Sticking by the "principle" of the matter any point after that comes across as callous if not naive, especially in retrospect.

And that's one thing but gleaning tweets from people who had spoken critically of TB (I won't mention them mostly to protect them), they had friends or direct experience of people receiving awful treatment from his audience or people acting in their stead around GG and again after his passing. This comes largely in the form of piling on people who TB had directed attention to in passing and in a critical manner. I'm not going to say that isn't a hard issue but ultimately when you have a huge audience, especially TB's, and the head has that kind of power, it can get ugly. The fact that soon after his passing, people had to talk around the issue for fear of getting harassed is a shitty situation but one that I don't think is entirely disconnected from the brand TB put out there. In any case, I think we should acknowledge the responsibility that comes with focusing attention on random people like that, especially when it can get so vicious so quickly.

If nothing else, I want to make it clear that from the perspective of the people who have their personal issues with TB and his audience, it's more than just a bad tweet or two. Hey, sometimes it is that much for some people and you might not agree but I'm not going to begrudge them for looking at a trans "joke" tweet and drawing the line immediately without knowing more. Mostly I wanted to lay it out and be accurate by the perspective of the people I know who made critical comments. Although I don't claim to share their experience.

I think anyone who genuinely enjoyed and followed TB could benefit from understanding the underlying issue behind the negativity even if they don't and shouldn't have to agree with the sentiment itself. I hope I did a good job breaking it down.

Casey Hudson made a statement about the Bioware employee who was celebrating TB's death.

https://twitter.com/CaseyDHudson/status/1000442738578370561?s=20

Here's the thing about death, especially when you're an internet personality or celebrity of any kind, is that your legacy defines who you were. Totalbiscuit did a LOT of good for the community as I'm concerned. He also did some bad. I personality don't know him too well or consumed a lot of his content, but his influence was unmistakable. The problem is your mistakes haunt you as well and because he died very early, he didn't have a lot of time to reflect on those mistakes and apologize. We all make mistakes. I can understand celebrating the death of someone who killed and reveled in people's suffering constantly for their own benefit, but Totalbiscuit? Absolutely not. If you celebrate his death..... honestly? Fuck you. How about you reflect on your mistakes and try and be a better person while you're still alive.

That being said...he did make mistakes, but we can learn from his mistakes ourselves without being dicks.

@petefic: I really wish some of the game Journalists who retweeted some very distasteful things did this, there's a specific one who I still can't believe tried to defend the indefensible. I honestly thought he was better than that.

I think i know who you're talking about and yeah, that really bummed me out

Of course it's Bio-Ware employees.

Let's get this back on topic please, if this turns into a Gamergate thread then I'm going to close it.

Was there a rivalry I didn't know about? Was it about the Mass Effect Andromeda debacle? If so that's kinda weird considering he definitely wasn't the only one who was vocal with issues on that game

That Content Patch video where TB was talking about Rayn's passing and a few other times before that him mentioning this website is why I became a fan of GB. Namely one time he tweeted about Big Live Show Live and I remember tuning in exactly where Alex Garcia was eating those MC nuggets. I tuned out because I had no idea what was going on. Then Patrick broke the XBOX1 policy reversal news and everybody tuned into GB, the website crashed. Nobody could believe what happened. TB also many times has referenced that he stole the idea for his WTF is...? series from the Quick Looks GB does.

He loved this website and many like here, he knew that it was an innovator and always 1 step ahead of the rest of the gaming press.

I've been watching TB for a while, almost 7 years maybe. He and his content has evoled a lot throught those years. His WTF is series changed, he started and abandoned many series where he was trying to find the perfect critique format for covering the increassing ammount of games released on Steam. He couldn't keep up, nobody can. Not even Giant Bomb and it's 10 employees could if they tried.

As time went he started covering less and less games. As the tumour grew inside him he had less time in a week where he would be able to dedicate to games and work. The Co-Optonal podcast became the place where he would talk about the things he played, especially towards the end. He snuck the occasional WTF is or first impressions, but they became less and less. It was painful to watch. Or to know that the constant pain he had to endure on a daily basis prevented him from playing games and producing his videos.

But he tried, he constantly promised he would cover this or that game, WTFs would come. Most never came.

What was there until the end was a person who wouldn't apologize for the mistakes he did, because he believed he could learn from them. He never deleted the "Get cancer" tweet. Because he wanted it to be there, always reminding him of the mistakes that make up a person. He wasn't perefct. I really didn't like the way he framed everrybody who voted for Trump on the day of the election results. But he owned up to it. He also had a reason, namely Trump's plans to cut on healthcare. Something he really needed.

And with all that said he never deserved most of the hate he got. He was rash, he was blunt, he was honest. It's really disgusting to watch people attack him on the eve of his death. As a last word in an Internet argument. Fucking grow up.

He always fought for the rights of the consumer. As he put it - for the working class of people who have to spend their hard earned money on video games. He recieved hundreds of keys and games to cover on his channel. Despite that he knew how much $60 was worth. It's a lot money to spend on a single game. It better be good. If it's on PC it better have those sliders for FOV, volume, options for subtitles, colourblindess, rebindable keys. He knew everybody's circumstances were different.

What he always championed was consumers power. He believed sometimes we should've kicked a fuss about a game like Shadow of Mordor. But maybe sometimes we shouldn't be that hyped for games like NMS or pre-order games in the digital era.

He was critical of all sides. Even himself. For the last of couple years he went to a shrink to deal with his obsession to consume feedback and respond to it. He was so passionate about the things he liked, a part of him coudn't fadom the fact that people dissagreed with him or didn't see the beauty in them.

The strength of his ethics and morals are to this day unmatched (well OK, maybe Jeff). As time went on, he distanced himself from interacting with developers, so he is less biased. He's talked a lot about influence from outside while covering games, sponsorships and how to do them, disclousure and everything.

And while being objective about some aspects, he acknowledged the personal side of critique and punditry. He knew there was the factor of taste and how important was to be upfront about it.

He really cared about the product and brand he built. In the last year he even talked about dropping the "Cynical Brit" aspect of it. He changed his YouTube name to simply TotalBiscuit. He didn't believe in the cinycal part of it anymore. He tried to see the better in the world and be optimistic about the future of the medium and the importance of highlighting the good games, while warning people about the bad, without giving them too much credit.

That's probably a reason why people say "he bred a toxic community". In reality he has told people like that to fuck off on many occasions. To stop watching his content and stop following him. Because stuff like that had no place in any community. What he tried to cultivate was vigilance and awareness. Some people bought into that too much. We can all atest to people taking things too far and disenfranchising themelsves.

He never believed in harrasment or mob mentality. He was a victim of it many times. On one occasion he even took the blame for something he didn't do to protect people who he knew wouldn't be able to protect themselves. I'm talking about the CoxCon incident where a random person in a panel asked Jesse Cox (Co-Optional co-host) the question "Are traps gay?", but he didn't hear it. There was an awkard silence and later that person was removed from the convetion. It wasn't Jesse Cox' or TBs desicion to do so. It was deiced by the people who ran the convention behind the scenes. There were complaints and people actually getting upset and uncormftable with what that random person said. And TB and Jesse took the blame for his removal. Because it was the right thing to do in order to protect the anonymos runners of the convention.

And they took a lot of flak for it. People making videos like "Why do all YouTubers eventually become assholes?" and the sort.

Another time he had to severe ties with a college/friend Laura Kate (respected journalist who has gotten a lot scoops, namely NS) after she wrote about online abuse and talked to TB about getting death threats in his career. The result was that people mob piled on Laura because she had the audacity to talk to TB and he questioned Kotaku's integrity when they didn't defend one of their writers. To protect her and her job he had to say "Don't associate me with her anymore."

But yeah, he is terrible.

EDIT: I'm also not too fussed with people being happy he is dead. Whatever gets up in the morning dude, but don't lie. Especially when those people can't correct you anymore.

@halidyusein: Very well said!

I'll add to this by saying that we can criticize what he did without celebrating his death. We should talk about both the good and bad he brought to the table. Maybe not right now on these forums, but yeah. Again, legacy defines who you were. If we lived in a more perfect world, he would've right the wrongs he did...

But anyway, that content patch mentioning Ryan's death was definitely heartfelt.

I almost wish he never got so involved with Twitter, Youtube comments (guess he did turn them off after it got too much) and responding to people. I'm pretty sure that helped contribute to his health problems in some way, most likely more mental than physical. Don't get me wrong it's great how you are so active in the community and respond to pretty much everything, but you could tell how some stuff really affected him.

I feel like there's a massive void in terms of PC gaming focused channels now. Anyone got any recommendations for other channels similar to what TB did?

@hakunin: That's not 'the internet' though, it's the same in real-life. Whenever someone with strong opinions passes away, some will be sad, others will be indifferent. A few tragic people will even rejoice.

@omgfather: 90% of Youtube gaming is PC oriented, Twitch as well. I seriously don't think you'll have any problems finding anything similar.

@bacongames: Alongside his verbal eloquence, TB also had a harsch and crude vocabulary, people conveniently seem to ignore that bit. He created a unique style of "polite rudeness" that many have copied.

It's not easy, or perhaps even posible at times, to divorce someone's fanbase from the person him/herself. How the fanbase behaves will reflect on the person at the source of it, after all he/she inspired the behaviour in some way. Unfortunately, he collected a rather extreme following, who were eager to attack those they saw as opponents of their hero. This in spite of TB's frequent complaints of Fanboy behaviour, … although I think he was refering to console fanboys per se, not "PC enthusiasts". As a consequence he probably had to face comments and messages from those his following had attacked or harassed at some point. It's not fair perhaps, but if you are aware that you work is polarizing people you should expect it.

He helped widen the rift between gamers of different systems or platforms, pitting PC gamers against console gamers, for instance. So I do get angry when people are now saying he "represented all gamers", he most certainly did not: he represented the interests of a select group of PC gamers.

This is just my take on the negativity pointed against him.

@bonbonetti: What exactly is the issue with TB having had a specific target audience? I personally have not heard this claim of him being a "general gaming representative" . All I can say, is I enjoyed his content specifically because it was PC-focussed. The negativity pointed towards him also does not seem to be centered around PC gaming at all.

@thechris: I think that was actually Genna, his wife and widow. I don't think he has ever done snarkathons with Dodger.

@bradbrains: Most of the big traditional games press outlets actually reviewed the game fairly well. IGN and Game Informer gave it 8's. If you look on Metacritic, Brad's review is literally the only one under the "negative" section. But I know TB also was advocating for people to boycott Mass Effect 3 back in the day because of it locking significant story content behind day 1 DLC, so some of it probably stems from that too.