Memes

The issue with the suicide wasn't at all Linus's fault and is just being thrown around sensationally to make him look as bad as possible.

Linus's old workplace, NCIX (kind of like Canadian Circuit City) went out of business, and he went to the out of business auction to try and get the YouTube silver play button from the NCIX youtube channel that he had started. A young dude that has started his own youtube channel that got screwed out of his own silver play button won the auction, and he just wanted to have one since the marketing network his channel was a part of screwed up and he didn't get one from YouTube despite earning it. Linus approached him and asked to buy it back from him, and the guy agreed. But after Linus saw his YouTube channel and understood his situation, he decided to let the guy keep it since he was being cool about Linus paying him for it at cost of the winning bid, and not trying to extort anything from Linus.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=545&v=cDZfh5IjGv8&feature=youtu.be

But his fans got upset anyway since they're bored teenagers, and started harassing the guy constantly to give the play button to Linus. When he found out, he told the community to stop-

https://twitter.com/LinusTech/status/973694443902533632

But of course they didn't, and eventually the guy stopped making videos. He was already depressed and bullied at school and his personal life, and according to the reddit post by his father, he took his own life a couple years later, and his mother ended up committing suicide as well because of it.

I'm pretty angry about the whole situation and the allegations of harassment, but trying to pin a double suicide on a person that didn't cause it for article clicks and up votes is just sickening and unethical, IMO. Linus already has plenty to answer to, but piggybacking off of the recent controversy to try and pin an incredibly sad and serious situation on him that he didn't cause is a disgusting move by shitty media outlets.