Byron Bernstein, a popular twitch streamer and World of Warcraft champion died at the young age of 31, on July 2nd.
Given his prominent success in World of Warcraft, overtime, Byron gained almost a million dedicated followers.
His family and the entirety of the World of Warcraft community are coming together in order commemorate Byron’s unfortunate passing.
On a tweet, Byron’s brother, Gary Bernstein wrote: My baby brother Byron is gone. RIP. He left in a similar way as my older brother Guy. I’ve no siblings left.” And asked for the gaming community to share photos and stories of his brother, should they have any.
Upon learning about the sad news, big corporations such as Twitch and the World of Warcraft have also issued commemoration notes of their own, on Twitter.
Twitch wrote: “Byron was someone who talked about his struggles to help make room for others to do the same. As we process their loss, we have to recognize that the stigma around mental health and treatment often prevents people from seeking and getting the help they need.
Many sources say that Byron’s death was caused by suicide. The influencer struggled with mental health for a long time; as such, he openly discussed on his channels. Byron had been receiving unkind comments and messages through his online platforms, which affected his mental health. Some of such comments have also been captured and shared by his fans, where anonymous accounts left harmful comments on his media.
His fans are calling for Twitch to install a better system for sourcing out comments and messages which might promote harm.
This issue goes beyond Twitch and should be extending over to all social platforms. The algorithm which should catch harm promotional comments should operate not only in English but also in all other languages. Because suicide isn’t limited to English speakers.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (US): 800-273-8255
Suicide Hotline (UK): 116 123
