The gaming community is 'devastated' and 'heartbroken' after a YouTuber's dad shared his final message to fans, written hours before his death

• Prominent influencers are paying tribute to Technoblade, a YouTuber who had millions of subscribers.
• The YouTuber's father announced his death in a video on his channel on Friday.

Prominent YouTubers have been paying respects to Technoblade, a gaming YouTuber with over 11 million subscribers who died of cancer at 23, his father said in a video uploaded on Friday.

Technoblade was known for uploading "Minecraft" gameplay videos on YouTube and never showed his face in videos. A statement his father read in the Friday video revealed his name was Alex, though he'd led followers to believe his name was Dave.

In the video, titled "so long nerds," the YouTuber's father called him "the most amazing kid anyone could ever ask for" and read a message he said his son wrote to his fans hours before his death.

The message began: "Hello, everyone, Technoblade here. If you're watching this, I am dead. So let's sit down and have one final chat."

"If I had another 100 lives, I think I would choose to be Technoblade again every single time," the message said, adding, "I hope you guys enjoyed my content and that I made some of you laugh."

In the video, which has been viewed over 20 million times in less than a day, Technoblade's father said the YouTuber had planned to film a final video revealing his face to fans before his death.

But his father said that as time went by, Technoblade had trouble focusing and could not film the video, so he talked with his dad about reading a statement he wrote. "I got down on my knee at his bedside, and I said to him, 'Alex, you don't have to do anything else. You've done so much for so many people, millions of people, and if you want to now, you can rest,'" his father said.

About eight hours later, Technoblade died, his father said.

Following the announcement of the YouTuber's death, several gaming influencers with large fan bases shared tributes to Technoblade on Twitter.

Jackscepticeye, whose real name is Seán William McLoughlin — the most followed YouTuber in Ireland, with 28.5 million subscribers — tweeted: "RIP Technoblade. An absolute legend in the community whose influence was felt far and wide. Fuck cancer."

TommyInnit, an 18-year-old British YouTuber whose real name is Thomas Simons, tweeted: "Technoblade is a fucking legend. From being a massive fan, to one of his actual friends, I can't describe how thankful I am to have been in his life."

Matthew Beem, a YouTuber in Denver who has made videos about building real-life versions of props seen in "Minecraft," tweeted that he was "devastated by the news."

Technoblade "is such a inspiration and will be missed greatly," he added. "Truly heartbroken."

Technoblade's fans shared tribute art alluding to the YouTuber's "Minecraft" avatar, which was designed to look like a pig wearing a yellow crown, with captions like "Rest in peace, king," and "Rest well, king."

Technoblade revealed his cancer diagnosis last August in a video that's been viewed more than 13 million times. He said he had experienced pain in his right arm and thought it was an injury from frequent gaming but then learned that he had cancer.

The gaming-news website Dot Esports reported in September that Technoblade had helped raise over $323,000 for cancer research through a "Minecraft" livestream.

Technoblade launched his YouTube channel in October 2013 and consistently uploaded footage of himself playing video games, individually and with other creators, with a focus on "Minecraft."

His channel gained at least 400,000 subscribers after his death was announced, surpassing 11 million on Friday.

Technoblade filmed videos with prominent members of the gaming community such as Daniel Robert Middleton, aka DanTDM, who has 26.1 million subscribers, and Dream, who has 29.4 million subscribers.

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