Did Team Fortress 2 YouTuber Sketchek Fake His Own Death?
By Zac Cameron ·
It looks like the former Pyro main might have some explaining to do, after resurfacing several years after his apparent demise.
In a strange turn of events for the Team Fortress 2 community, popular Pyro main and YouTuber Sketchek has returned to the scene after his apparent death in 2015. The popular content creator uploaded several videos in the past few days, more than three years after he stated he was leaving the community because of a terminal illness.
The last video posted on the channel before 2019 featured the content creator stating that he was “very ill”, and that his health was “gradually deteriorating”. He then announced that he was stepping away from making YouTube videos, and hadn’t been heard from publicly since. Until now that is.
In his new video, Sketchek apologizes for his actions, saying “About three years ago, I announced that I had contracted a non-specific terminal illness. I want everyone to know that was a lie. It was a sick joke, it was a ruse. I was never ill, not even a little bit. You might say that I was mentally ill, because I thought it would be fun to convince a lot of people that care about me that I would f**king die, but I’ve been feeling really bad about it lately, I can no longer bare the weight of my sins. Which is why I’ve decided to come out with the truth and apologize for lying. So I am sorry.”
“I’m sorry, and I hope I didn’t cause anybody too much grief: especially if you have someone with a chronic illness in your life,” continued Sketchek. “I don’t really have an excuse. What can I say, I just love the feeling of taking someone for a ride, but I took it a bit too far this time.”
“I don’t expect forgiveness: what I did was pretty indefensible. But I hope you can still enjoy my content regardless,” he says, ending the video. “Thanks for listening, and I look forward to seeing a bunch of e-celebs virtue signal over this.”
Sketchek was known through the community for his skill as a Pyro main in Team Fortress 2, to the point where Valve added a new passive to Pyro’s Axetinguisher item as a memorial, dubbing the new ability ‘Sketchek’s Bequest’ in reference to his final video. It remains to be seen if Valve will keep that in the game considering the latest update.