Popular YouTuber Etika Found Dead at 29

Creator’s body found in East River less than a weak after sharing troubling video where he discussed taking his own life

Desmond “Etika” Amofah, who earned more than 130,000 subscribers on YouTube by reviewing video games, has been found dead, according to an update shared by New York Police Department on Tuesday morning. Amofah was 29-years-old.

His body was found on Monday night in Manhattan’s East River, nearly a week after he went missing and days after police found his cell phone and other belongings on Manhattan Bridge.

Amofah disappeared last Wednesday, shortly after he posted a troubling YouTube video where he discussed killing himself. The video was removed for violating YouTube’s rules but reposted on the internet afterwards.

“I’m sorry for leaving such a stained legacy,” Amofah said in the video. “I hope that my story maybe helps to make YouTube a better place in the future where people know boundaries and limits and how far things should go.”

“You know I wasn’t suicidal before — I really wasn’t. But one thing I didn’t realize was that the walls were closing around me so fast. I really had no intention of killing myself but I’d always push it too far,” he said. “I guess I am mentally ill.”

Amofah attracted a combined 800,000 fans through his reviews on both YouTube and Twitch, the popular live-streaming site, according to Kotaku. Amofah was particularly fond of Nintendo, making videos where he commented on and played its latest games. He’d increasingly talked about his mental health struggles in the last year and was detained last month in a hospital, after getting into an altercation with a police officer.

On Tuesday, YouTuber Keemstar publicly called for YouTube to restore Amofah’s last video, saying they were his “final words” and “should not be deleted.”

Several other fans and creators paid tribute to Etika on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/asteroiddbluess/status/1143582097422147585

https://twitter.com/flingposs/status/1143586975435362305

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