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YouTuber and Game Critic John Bain, aka TotalBiscuit and The Cynical Brit, has announced he is retiring due to his advancing cancer.
The announcement was posted on Bain’s behalf to Reddit, detailing his oncologist’s belief that chemotherapy treatment would no longer be effective. The post reads, in part: “Obviously we’re going to keep looking for other trials but I’m currently coming to terms with the fact that I don’t have long left and right now at any rate, there is literally nothing I can do about it other than try to manage the pain as best as possible and stay as hydrated as possible to ease the pressure on the liver.”
Bain first announced he had bowel cancer in 2014. It spread to his liver in 2015 and doctors told him it was inoperable. He continued, however, with a regular posting schedule and remained popular with over 2 million subscribers on YouTube. Bain said his decision to retire as a critic is due to the schedule being too hard to keep up with while he’s on several medications and his health is failing.
That said, he will be continuing several projects. His podcast, Co-Optional, will still release weekly episodes, though they’ll be two hours instead of three, and he’ll still stream gameplay on YouTube and Twitch with his wife Genna. He’s even teased that Genna may take over the TotalBiscuit channel when he’s gone.
Though many fans are asking where they can donate to his medical expenses, Bain says he has rejected setting up a GoFundMe, believing that he shouldn’t ask for money while he’s still able to make a living through existing projects. Still, fans have created a thread on Reddit to share what Bain has meant to them. One user wrote: “He helped me fight my depression during tough years of being a nerdy teenager and he helped to foster my love for podcasts.” Bain has asked his fans not to speculate on how much time he has left – and he’s grateful to have already outlived many who received his same diagnosis.
That said, it’s a particularly frustrating time for many YouTuber fans as Simone Giertz, a YouTuber who builds robots, also announced her own diagnosis. Though Simone’s tumor appears benign, she will require surgery to have it removed. After that, doctors will be able to determine if there is any cancer present. The surgery is extensive, and she details in her videos some of the many problems she could face.
It’s, of course, a very heavy announcement from a delightful YouTube personality who only started making content in 2015. Within a year of posting her first hilariously unsuccessful robots, she was showing how she does it to Stephen Colbert on The Late Show.
Simone says she plans to continue making content, but it might be a little less frequent as she goes through treatment for the tumor. She also plans to post updates about her treatment to Twitter and Instagram. For now, Simone has a Patreon, which her fans and friends are sharing as a way to support her during her hiatus from making content.
Our hearts go out to John Bain and Simone Giertz as they fight their respective illnesses.
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