Etika

Prior to the Etika branding, Amofah was active in modeling and rapping, having released an independently produced mixtape titled Written in Ice in 2007 under his pseudonym "Iceman".[9] He started modeling in 2011 and continued until 2015.[10] Amofah stated in a tweet that the name Etika came from the 2003 video game Sonic Battle, of which he was a fan of in his youth. In the game, players could input a cheat code titled "EkiTa", and when Amofah was 12, he simply switched the T and the K to create his username as he "liked that result better."[11] He started using YouTube to broadcast his gaming and reaction streams in 2012 under his original username "EWNetwork" (meaning "Etika World Network"). It was originally planned for the channel's content to be produced collaboratively by a variety of users including Amofah himself, but such plans never materialized.[12] Prior to the closure of his main channel on YouTube in 2018, he had more than 800,000 subscribers between his YouTube and Twitch channels, and within months after creating a second YouTube channel, known as "EtikaFRFX", he had gained more than 130,000 subscribers.[13][14]

Amofah's content was typically Nintendo-focused.[15] He frequently streamed reactions, often over-the-top, to Nintendo Direct presentations, which usually involved him screaming and falling out of his chair in elated shock.[16] He dubbed his fans the "Joy-Con Boyz", after the Nintendo Switch controllers known as the Joy-Con,[13] and would frequently end his videos with his signature catchphrase "Take care of yourself. Have yourself a damn good one!"[17] Despite focusing on Nintendo related content, Amofah also did playthroughs of indie games (e.g. Undertale and Doki Doki Literature Club!), and played on the Minecraft server 2b2t.

Amofah briefly changed his channel name to Young Ramsay in 2015 after cooking scallops, having been inspired by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay. Soon afterward, Ramsay himself followed Amofah on Twitter.[18]

In November 2016, two videos of Amofah's where he purported to have a Nintendo Switch console before its 2017 release gained notoriety and were scrutinized by fans. It would eventually be learned the model Amofah was using was 3D-printed by fellow YouTuber "Sandqvist" at his request.[15][19]

In November 2016, Amofah claimed he had gotten the Nintendo Switch early; he then revealed an accurate model of the console. Various drama channels such as "DramaAlert" reported on it. He would later reveal it to be a fake.[20]

In June 2017, Amofah revealed himself to be the victim of multiple "fake donations", or "chargebacks" of large amounts of money sent to his PayPal account via stream donations, which would jostle Amofah with hundreds of dollars in processing fees.[21]

On October 25, 2018, Amofah uploaded pornography to his YouTube channel EWNetwork (then titled Etika), which violated YouTube's policies and consequently led to the channel's termination. He later had his second channel EtikaFRFX terminated in April 2019 for the same reason.[22][23] He was also banned from Twitch that year for using a homophobic slur during a stream.[24]

Following the termination of his EWNetwork channel, Amofah posted cryptic messages to social media, including the statement "it's my turn to die", coupled with a screenshot of his terminated account. Several of his followers felt that the messages and posts were suicidal in nature, which quickly created a panic within his following.[22][25] Amofah took to social media that evening to confirm his well-being, along with other streamers who professed to having seen him safe and sound in person, so as to allay his followers' fears.[26] He later apologized on his subreddit r/EtikaRedditNetwork.[22] On October 29, 2018, Amofah confirmed on his Twitch stream that he purposefully deleted his channel due to the fact that he does not receive ad revenue from the channel.

On April 16, 2019, Amofah tweeted that he was going to kill himself with a pistol he bought from a gun store in Long Island, which subsequently led to his arrest and hospitalization. Christine Cardona, who had dated Amofah from 2011 to 2017, confirmed his well-being, and that she had been "observing him all day".[27] Days later, he posted a photoshopped picture of himself holding a gun, which Cardona later confirmed was fake. On April 29, after tweeting a vast quantity of cryptic messages, including homophobic and ethnic slurs (that were promptly deleted),[28] he blocked close friends of his, including fellow YouTuber Sky Williams.[24][29][30] Later that day, he live-streamed himself being detained by police to over 19,000 viewers on Instagram Live, after a concerned fan notified police about his alarmingly erratic nature during the livestream.[22][31][32][33] He was detained again later that same week for assaulting a police officer.[34] Amofah would then make an appearance on the YouTube channel "DramaAlert" for an interview, in which he stated he was the "antichrist" and that he wanted to "purge all life".[31][35]

Amofah's death highlighted social media platforms' handling of posts by users who appear at risk with mental illness or who are contemplating suicide. YouTube, in removing Amofah's final video, stated that removal of such videos is standard practice to "reduce the potential for copycat acts of self-harm, videos that express suicidal ideation", and as part of this, sent information to Amofah's account related to national suicide hotlines in order to provide help.[23]

Amofah's erratic behavior in the months prior to his disappearance led some of his followers to take the events preceding his suicide as a humorous performance by Amofah, rather than signs of him struggling with his mental health. Following his death, mental health researchers found several videos Amofah had posted that showed evidence of his troubled state but were taken as jokes by some of his viewers, rather than as signs of mental illness. As a result, some took Amofah's final video as another joke and disregarded any concern over his well-being; Keemstar initially thought Amofah's final video was a pre-meditated publicity stunt, stating after Amofah's death, "I was never fully convinced that he was mentally ill or in trouble because of our private convos."[16] The aforementioned mental health researchers stressed the need to make more people on social media informed about the signs of mental illness, depression, and suicidal thoughts, so that they are able to recognize when people in a mindset similar to Amofah's are in danger and need support.[16][44] Keemstar briefly became a target of some of Amofah's fans, who blamed him for Amofah's suicide due to the "DramaAlert" interview and statements made in tweets prior to and following the interview. Amofah's mother wrote to these fans in attempts to assure them that Keemstar was in no way responsible for Amofah's death, stating that "Etika loved Keemstar's show" and only wanted to make a memorable appearance on it.[35]