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On Etika and Authenticity
The YouTuber, whose body was found yesterday, was mocked for seeking attention. With hindsight, it was a cry for help many ignored—caused by cynicism of an inauthentic creator class
When 29-year-old Ghanaian-American YouTuber Desmond Amofah, known to his hundreds of thousands of fans as Etika, went missing from his Brooklyn apartment last Wednesday, some people questioned whether to raise the alarm with the authorities.
Amofah had gained a reputation amongst some of his peers for what they viewed as attention seeking — twin episodes in October 2018 and April 2019 that had seen Amofah in the throes of a mental breakdown were cast by some as attempting to attract controversy to his YouTube channel, bringing him money, fame and power.
Certainly, some of Amofah’s behavior encouraged that viewpoint: he began one interview with Daniel “Keemstar” Keem, a YouTuber who hosts DramaAlert, a TMZ-like series covering the controversies of the world of online video by comparing himself to the antichrist, and saying “I’ve come to purge the planet of all human life.”
What could have been considered by cynics as flagrant attempts to court controversy have been shattered with the benefit of hindsight. A body was fished out…
