YouTuber and video game critic John “TotalBiscuit” Bain passed away today. Bain was diagnosed with terminal cancer in October 2015 after it had metastasized to his liver. He is survived by his wife, Genna. He was 33 years old.
Bain’s condition, after multiple bouts of wavering stability over the years, took a turn for the worst a few weeks ago, which pushed him into an early retirement. His subreddit announced the news that his body became resistant of all forms of conventional chemotherapy along with his increasingly failing liver. Genna announced his passing today on Twitter with a poem called Love Constant Beyond Death from Spanish poet Francisco Gómez de Quevedo.
Before Bain started doing video game criticism, he studied law at De Montfort University in England and hosted an extreme metal radio show during his stay. He hosted World of Warcraft Radio in 2005 until he started his website, CynicalBrit.com, in 2010. He then quickly grew to prominence on YouTube and became on the platform’s most respected and popular critics, gaining over 2.2 million subscribers over the years.
His podcast, The Co-Optional Podcast, and his “WTF is…” series were some of regular series along with his stream-of-consciousness-like rants about specific topics. He was most known for his focus on PC gaming and has the most followers out of all of Steam Curators. Bain even won Trending Game at The Game Awards in 2014, beating out fellow YouTuber PewDiePie.
Despite overwhelming odds, Bain was open about his cancer. He was on the H3 podcast back in October 2017 and detailed his hellish chemotherapy treatments and was generally upfront about the hardships of cancer. Doctors considered him “stable” at the time even though he had small tumors in liver and a small one in his lung. He persisted that a good mental attitude was crucial, as he said it was about “90%” mental. Before he passed, he expressed his gratitude towards his fans.
“It’s been a privilege, thank you all for letting me into your life and do something so important as to have an impact on how you spend your hard-earned money,” said TotalBiscuit during his final post.
