The Untold Truth Of Technoblade
"Minecraft" is known for the relaxing gameplay loop of mining and crafting — and shouting after a creeper destroys all your hard work — that is easy to play but difficult to master. But one player who definitely mastered the beloved game was Technoblade, who sadly passed away in June 2022 at the age of 23.
Technoblade was a prominent name in the "Minecraft" scene. Between creating and uploading hugely successful videos on YouTube, he also participated in (and won) numerous Minecraft Mondays, Minecraft Championships, and other competitions. Much like his "Minecraft" rival Dream, very little has been revealed about Technoblade over the years, as the creator liked to keep to himself and never showed his face while streaming. All audiences seemed to nailed down about him for a good long while was that he was very good at "Minecraft," has a piglin avatar, and likes to scream "Blood for the Blood God." But if you know where to look, you might find some nuggets of info about one of the best "Minecraft" players ever to hit the internet.
Before he was Technoblade
Countless streamers have reinvented themselves over the years. PewDiePie, for instance, was a prolific horror game streamer before he dropped Let's Play videos in favor of reaction-based content and then returned to more generalized gaming streams. But unlike PewDiePie, Technoblade decided to start over from scratch, which may have been the best decision of his career.
According to Technoblade, he began uploading at the tender age of 10. His first account was StudioLORE, which consisted of, in his words, "terrible 'ROBLOX' machinimas." He eventually moved on to "bad 'Team Fortress 2' videos" (again, his words), but in four years of content creation he only amassed around 47 subscribers.
Around the time the young content creator was set to graduate middle school, he discovered streaming and decided to give that a try. So, he ditched his original account and started a few collaborative channels where he made "Minecraft" videos with friends. Those didn't pan out, so he reinvented himself again. That next attempt, which started in October 2013, resulted in the Technoblade most audiences know and love. He had previously prowled small "Minecraft" PvP servers, but after he created his new identity, he started visiting (and dominating) Hypixel.
Though Technoblade started from scratch, he made up for it quickly. After six months, he had amassed 300 subscribers. One year after that, his fanbase had grown to 13,800 followers. This upward trend persisted throughout Technoblade's career (except for 2018 when his numbers stalled and he tried "Fortnite" for a bit), and now well over 10 million people have subscribed to his channel. Just goes to show that persistence pays off.
He dropped out of college for Minecraft
In 2019, Technoblade posted a tell-all video that chronicled his attempt to pursue a higher education fittingly titled "i dropped out of college to play minecraft lol." Several times in the segment, Technoblade stressed that this was a calculated move and not a spur-of-the-moment decision.
According to Technoblade, he attended college as an English major. He barely had time to play video games and received a 4.0 GPA in his second semester. However, his motivation was anything but healthy. He only made it through college thanks to "constant deadline anxiety." To make matters worse, he eventually realized that he only liked non-English curriculum courses.
When Technoblade crunched the numbers, which factored in his subscriber growth and income, his calculations demonstrated that an English degree wouldn't pull in as much cash as YouTube. And so, he concluded that playing "Minecraft" and posting his videos on YouTube was the "safer" option. He didn't regret going to college for what little time he did, but he also never regretted his decision to leave it behind.
Technoblade's parents are divorced
During a 2016 Q&A, one fan asked how Technoblade's parents reacted to his YouTube career — a pertinent question, since some guardians dislike the idea of playing video games for a living. According to the video, his parents were too preoccupied at the time to respond to his decision since they were going through a divorce. However, he did joke that they were "legally obliged to be competitively supportive." But his answer raised another question: Who was he living with? Technoblade never addressed this directly, but he may have accidentally provided the answer.
While playing "Minecraft" one day, Technoblade paused the game and muted his microphone on Discord. Unfortunately, he forgot to do the same on the stream, allowing audiences to hear what seemed to be a conversation with his dad. This seemed to reveal that Technoblade lived with his father at the time. During a later stream, Technoblade and his friends discussed the green screen studio he used for his 100,000 follower plaque reveal. One person asked why he had a green screen that he used for only one video. Technoblade explained that his father owns a movie studio and he'd offered to let him use it in the past. It seems Technoblade finally took his dad up on the offer to honor that career milestone.
Technoblade and ADHD
Every now and then, Technoblade mentioned his ADHD to fans, providing blurbs on how ADHD can affect the thought process. In one instance, Technoblade posted on Twitter that, because of his ADHD, he would occasionally put so much energy into listening to people that he would miss what they actually said. According to another tweet, Technoblade once somehow went from editing Bedwars footage "to researching King Henry I's rule and lineage" thanks to ADHD.
While Technoblade typically didn't openly discuss his ADHD, odds are audiences got to see it in action. For example, during the fourth round of his legendary fight against Dream, Technoblade seemingly forgot about his opponent as he sheared the ground for 10 seconds. The streamer attributed this to ADHD, stating that he wanted to raise his shield but was distracted by what his character did instead. Turns out he had forgotten to take his medication that morning, but rallied by reminding himself that he was fighting for $100,000.
'Blood for the blood god'
Certain streamers have a catchphrase. For instance, Jacksepticeye begins some videos with a hearty "Top 'o the mornin' to ya!" Technoblade had a similar motto, as he could be heard occasionally screaming, "Blood for the Blood God!"
Tabletop wargaming aficionados might recognize that mantra from the Khornite worshippers in Games Workshop's "Warhammer" and "Warhammer 40,000" products. In both franchises, Khorne is the titular Blood God, and his followers try to spill as much blood as possible on every battlefield — the more blood, the better.
Since Technoblade adopted this motto as one of his catchphrases, surely this must mean a huge love for the "Warhammer" games and the armies affiliated with Khorne, right? Not so fast. According to one member of the Hypixel server forums, Technoblade once said in a video that he took the phrase from "Warhammer 40K," and a Reddit user claimed that the content creator hadn't even heard of Khorne until 2020. Assuming these statements are true, then Technoblade likely adopted the phrase because he thought it sounded cool. To be fair, it is an awesome war cry.
Technoblade refused face reveals
While many streamers and content creators like to show their faces so audiences can see their reactions, Technoblade was never really one of them. As a result, many fans begged for a face reveal. But the joke's on them, since Technoblade actually showed audiences what he looks like on numerous occasions.
This probably happened for the first time during a "Cooking with Technoblade" video. However, this clip didn't give audiences a good look because he spent most of the segment facing away from the camera. Technoblade later showed his face on camera when he unboxed his silver play button award from YouTube, but that video had similar problems and didn't focus heavily on Technoblade's features.
The only time viewers got a really good look at Technoblade was after his legendary "Minecraft" hard mode run when he beat the game using a steering wheel. As the credits rolled, viewers begged for a face reveal, and while Technoblade protested, he eventually peeked over to the camera. For the most part, however, Technoblade stuck to his guns. He even said in the past that he thought people aren't all that invested in what a streamer's face looks like, and he claimed that showing off his elbow made for a better 1 million subscriber milestone.
How Technoblade's rivalry with Dream started
Audiences have seemed split for quite some time over whether Technoblade or Dream is the superior "Minecraft" player. In the past, Technoblade and Dream have fought for the title and have essentially been rivals — but like all rivalries, their competition had to start somewhere.
Nobody knows for sure how the rivalry between Technoblade and Dream began, but followers have pieced together some convincing theories. One such hypothesis, floated by TheBestGinger, revolves around Keemstar. As the story goes, Keemstar essentially kickstarted the "Minecraft" competitive scene with Minecraft Monday. Technoblade was one of the first entrants and swept the competition. While Dream joined the contests on Week 9, he didn't start competing directly with Technoblade until the sixth Minecraft Championships. Though neither won, Dream and his team pulled ahead in terms of performance, which might have started his unofficial rivalry with Technoblade.
Another theory, proposed by EvanMCGaming, claimed that the Dream vs. Technoblade standoff didn't develop because of anything either streamer did but because of their fans. Audiences might have unintentionally sparked the competition by arguing about who was the better "Minecraft" player. EvanMCGaming believes MrBeast truly set off the discussions — and therefore the feud — when he collaborated with Dream in one of his first "Minecraft" videos and joked about Technoblade.
He may have maintained several alternate accounts
While Technoblade started on YouTube as StudioLORE, he also went by many other names throughout his "Minecraft" career. One of the more well-known examples of Technoblade using an alt was during the so-called Potato War, during which he fought im_a_squid_kid to harvest the most digital potatoes on their personal islands. The two were using in-game pet rabbits to speed up production when Technoblade accidentally discovered he could send an alt account with a low-level rabbit to im_a_squid_kid's island and hamstring his progress for as long as it stayed there. And that's exactly what Technoblade did.
This reportedly wasn't the only time Technoblade has used alts. The content creator Chickenator once recounted an experience in a PvP server during which Chickenator and his friends purportedly encountered two suspicious opponents. What made these adversaries set off alarm bells? They were new accounts that used the same equipment and tactics as Dream and Technoblade, and they were far more skilled than they should have been. While Dream allegedly admitted that one of the accounts Chickenator's group found belonged to him, Chickenator merely suspected the other belonged to Technoblade — until Dream also supposedly confirmed it.
Redditors have compiled a list of the alternate accounts they believe Technoblade used over the years, and it's long. Based on this, if you have ever bumped into anyone by the name of Asiyn, Whitelisted, Whitelisted 2, PommesDeTerre, NoHaxCanJustFly, Ender_Game09, or BizarreZzz, you might have encountered Technoblade in disguise and not realized it.
Technoblade made his own ads
YouTube is full of ads. Shocking, but true. Some ads are for online services, while others are for mobile games. If you have visited a dedicated "Minecraft" YouTuber's channel in the past, you might have even seen an ad for Technoblade. When Technoblade was 15 years old, he had accrued around 14 thousand subscribers, but like many content creators, he wanted more. So, he decided to grow his fanbase by churning out content as normal while also attracting new viewers via ads. Technoblade made a Google AdWords account and his own trailer and occasionally funneled all of his YouTube money into buying ad space in "Minecraft" videos.
By Technoblade's calculations, his fanbase grew by three subscribers for every dollar spent on the ads. He eventually quit due to diminishing returns, but by that time his gamble had paid off. In 2021, as Technoblade's channel approached the 10 million subscriber milestone, he released one more ad to, well, ask people to subscribe to his channel. It looks like the ploy worked, given the fact that Technoblade's numbers rocketed upwards.
Technoblade almost lost his arm to cancer
In July 2021, Technoblade's right arm started to hurt. He thought it was a repetitive strain injury (a reasonable assumption because many gamers suffer from it), but rest didn't help. In fact, his right shoulder swelled up, so Technoblade assumed he had broken a bone. However, doctors told him that the news was even worse: He had cancer. Technoblade joked that he wouldn't mind if doctors had to cut off his arm to get rid of the tumor, but he had no idea how close it would come to that.
While Technoblade initially went on chemo and radiation therapy to treat the cancer, it didn't really work. As a latch-ditch effort before surgery, doctors tried to suffocate the tumor by cutting off its blood supply. At first that strategy seemed to work, but then the dying cancer cells ballooned to a dangerous degree, which forced Technoblade's doctors to schedule an emergency amputation. However, the surgeons had one final trick up their sleeves: While they could completely sever Technoblade's arm, they also could try a limb salvage operation that cut out the tumor and the surrounding muscle and bone. Technoblade opted for the salvage since his odds of survival were the same regardless — and because it let him keep his arm.
Technoblade is now a part of Minecraft: Java Edition
On June 30, 2022, Technoblade's father posted a video to his main channel to tell fans the horrible news: Technoblade had passed away. In his final hours, Technoblade wrote down a message thanking his fans for their support over the years, particularly following his cancer diagnosis. He reassured his viewers that he had no regrets, and looked back on his years in the public eye with great fondness.
Technoblade's family likewise thanked fans and asked for privacy in their time of grief, and this was met with an outpouring of love from the gaming community. Major streamers like Pokimane and Ludwig sent their best wishes to Technoblade's family and shared their appreciation for his content. Joining in the tributes to Technoblade was none other than "Minecraft" developer and publisher Mojang, which also found a way to immortalize the YouTuber in his favorite game.
A few days after Technoblade passed, the launcher for "Minecraft: Java Edition" was updated to include a crown on the head of the pig on the left side of the screen. Fans immediately recognized this as a shoutout to Technoblade's avatar, and rejoiced at the sight of this in-game tribute. The official "Minecraft" Twitter account also paid its respects to Technoblade, writing, "He meant so much to our community and brought so much joy. He will be missed dearly."