I'm gonna be honest, I have sat here for probably the past
10, 15, 20 minutes trying to figure out how to start this video. I knew that this was something that I wanted to make
But honestly sitting down here, it's very different
And it's really tough
Obviously
by the thumbnail and the title and the fact that it's probably gotten all around the Internet at this point a
Good friend of mine passed away. His name was Ronnie Edwards also known as Ronnie "Oni" Edwards
He ran a show called that Garcia insight questing and he is also very famous for editing the hit show game theory
As many of you guys know I was a member of the game through his team for a decent while I had two shows
Crossover and smash history and I'm considered to be one of the original four something like that and Ronnie being one of them
I've known him since the beginning
I've known him since before I was even associated with the game theorist in any real way shape or form and
It really sucked to hear a
lot
Honestly, look, I can't minimize it. It really hurt to hear that Ronnie passed away and even worse that it was a suicide
I've known for about a week and I've gone through the grieving process as much as I possibly can right now
and I still I
Still can't fully process it but especially as someone who was close to him. I
need to give a statement but also
There was so much happening
Surrounding Ronnie, even before his passing that I felt like as his friend
I wanted to just do something to share some good memories with him so that the last thing
That's out there isn't just
negativity and
Miscommunication confusion anything like that?
I'm not going to comment on any of that stuff because frankly, I don't know I wasn't there
But I can tell you about what I was there for the good memories that I had with Ronnie. I
first met Ronnie
circa late 2012 2013
I've known Matt Pat for probably since of the beginning of the game theory has a show back when I worked
It's great calm and that's how I met gaijin Goomba and Ronni as well, and I had talked to him
Ronnie because of course, this is we're talking about him. I
- Ronnie just over the internet never met him in person until SGC 2013 and it was funny because
Matt had just checked in to the hotel
We were at the Hyatt Regency and I went over to say hello
And then I'm giving I'm giving Matt this big hug
And then this dude is like oh, well, I guess I'm chopped liver
And I didn't realize who was at the time it was Ronnie
I'd never actually seen what he looked like so I didn't I didn't even put two and two together
But then when he like yeah, hi, I'm Ronnie. I I lost it. I gave him a hug
we we snapped a picture and we hung out and
Even though we had talked online
It was never anything really in-depth and that
those three days were
When I really first started getting to know him and that's whenever I realized that I actually had a good new friend on my hands
We hung out and party the entire time and pretty shortly thereafter
Probably a few months after that. I started actually working for the game theorist originally the show was going to be on game theory
But then it had beyond ScrewAttack for a six-month period as for mine on non-compete
But still during that time where I was workshopping crossover for ScrewAttack getting ready to bring it on to the theorists
I had built a friendship up with Ronnie and again
not necessarily a huge one because we were only talking online at the time and
Even then we weren't coworkers quite yet
it wouldn't be until I actually started working with the game theorists on a
Regular basis that I started going to meetings and actually having a conversation with everybody involved
Ronnie I was a
Major nihilist and oh my god. He had the most deadpan sense of humor and
Sometimes you couldn't tell if he was joking or not
And well, honestly
I still don't know if he was joking a lot about everything
But he had a very unique sense of humor that I gravitated towards very quickly
it wouldn't be until the following SEC SGC 2014 where I would really actually start to hang out with Ronnie on a
more personal basis we shared a hotel room for for the convention and I spent
Honestly, most of the con with him, playing games, doing panels all of that.
I took a trip to Los Angeles to hang out with a bunch of my YouTube friends that lived in the area
Bharani was one of the first people I went to visit
I went to his place in Koreatown and
When I got there, I was blown away by the fact that there was no furniture
He had a mattress, um on the ground in his bedroom, and he had a box that he put his laptop on to edit
He had a couple of boxes full of random odds and ends his bathroom had all the normal toiletries
But otherwise he had a living room that had no furniture at whatsoever
It was weird. I'm not gonna deny it. It was really really weird
We played bouncy ball in his living room
Ronnie had this had this
This bouncy ball and we threw it around the living room and it was bouncing off all lanes
it was bouncing off the
Floor the ceiling the walls and it was just throw the ball as hard as you can and try to catch it try not to
Get hit by it. It was it was an experience
We just we just sat there shooting the shit throwing this ball and it was it was a very very relaxing experience
It was just a mindless busy activity
We walked to this to this Korean place not too far from his apartment
I I don't know the exact type of know the exact type of food
It's whatever the table with the the stove in the middle. It wasn't quite Korean barbecue, but something like that
We we got a bottle of soju
And it was probably about 11:00 in the morning and we're sitting there drinking soju and just having a good time
It's interesting because on the LA trip the first one I took I really spent more time with Ronnie than anybody else
He later went back to to my Airbnb and we filmed the stupid little vine of of my new rap song. Yeah
Oh and Ronnie would beatbox and I'm sitting there. Yeah, I
Was so dumb
It was so dumb. I ended up
Calling Matt and hanging out with him and Ronnie came with me
where Matt told us that there was a wrap party for his YouTube red show Gamelab and so, uh
Ronnie and I were
hanging out with wicker before christening Osteen and
The three of us all went to the wrap party and had it just a great time. Many drinks were had
Many conversations were had a grand experience
Matt told me that a couple weeks later
I forget the exact time timeframe that there would be the red carpet for Gamelab and he invited me out
So I went back to LA a second time faster than than I was anticipating
Because I was going for that I was there for a short amount of time hung out with Ronnie
Mostly my ex-fiance was with me and so the three of us hung out
We went to this this boba place
But it was boozy boba. It was it was a very and they were all like named after Pokemon
So we got like the Bulbasaur and it was in the back of this other restaurant entirely
We were very confused as we walked in. We didn't know where to go. And then it was it was very corny toidy
We didn't know anything and they're like, oh you looking for the mobile place? Yeah. It's in the back
And so we walk through the restaurant through it
Like people sitting there eating their meals we go to the very back and and we just sit there
drinking gonna boba we catch we catch an uber to the YouTube space and
We actually ended up getting there early
Nobody was there and we didn't know how to get in
Matt was filming a
livestream with jake from vsauce3
but I
Somebody from the YouTube space Levison matt vouched for us
He got he got pulled away for like a couple seconds to actually do that
The Ronnie and I were on the or on the stream. It was it was a grand time
We're playing like like would you rather kind of situation?
Then we had we had the red-carpet premiere and it was it was a lot of fun really really good stuff
Outside of hanging out with Ronnie in person though
There is this time where I
Got a call on my phone from Matt. I
was trying to get a hold of it and and I kept getting voicemail voicemail voice when I got a call back and
I
Matt was saying what what do you need? I'm taking a drive with my wife and my friends and you're you're bothering me and I
my face
drained of color I start apologizing profusely and hear this laughing in the background and I I just like, oh no,
What did I do? What did I do? And so I start freaking out and I'm honestly about to burst at it serious
I thought I was gonna lose my job
I thought that when one of my friends was mad at me that I had done something to upset him and
And then the phone hangs up and I'm sitting there just kind of like in a little bit of anxiety
Get about to have an anxiety attack and I get I get a call back and it was Matt
saying that that was Ronnie the first time he they were driving and Ronnie had taken the phone and and called and
pretended to be mad, but since it was on speakerphone and with the the distortion of
Low quality phone audio. I was convinced
It was convinced that it was Matt talking and Ronnie had just pulled the ultimate
The ultimat dukbokki. I was so relieved to hear that I wasn't in trouble. I wasn't losing my job
It was a real dick move
But it went over it went over it pretty interesting Lee
Before crossover got onto the game theorists Channel
I had a short-lived podcast with my co-creator on crossover Kenny
It was called the sappy zap podcast. It was this a dumb little thing
We had Ronnie on for an episode only that we just talked. It was just a conversational podcast
the subject of I want to say rollercoaster 10-q take you and came on talking about kenny was mentioning that
He would speed up time and he would just go my ostriches are having babies
Ronnie lost it the way Kenny exclaimed this he said I want that soundbite and they gave it to him
I didn't know what he was gonna do with it. I
Then watch an episode of digressing insight questing and suddenly at the very end of the episode
You just hear my ostriches are having babies and Ronnie's character goes. Oh
Okay
And it's funny cuz nobody really knew what that was about what that clip was
It was just from a random dumb podcast that nobody watched like maybe like 20 people watched and it was just a stupid
Minor in joke and it made it into a video with a shit ton of views. I
Would talk to Ronnie about any of my personal stuff whenever I was
really getting down some dark paths
He reached out. I reached out to him and we we bonded a lot over over depression and negativity
not really a great thing to bond over but
He listened to me
And it was nice. I
He didn't say much about himself like he would
More or less whenever I would I would say something he would he would say yeah
Yeah, totally. I feel the same and then he would have some crazy random insight. He was a very
very insightful, dude
He read a lot of a lot of books. He would quote people a lot. I
Wish that I had done more to actually ask I figured that he wasn't saying a whole lot of his personal experience as
You know
he wasn't comfortable with it and you know if he wanted to just listen I
But I wasn't going to push but I figured he would open up to me whenever he was ready
And I got bits and pieces, but nothing to concrete we never really talked about him he never really seemed to want to
end it
When I got the email from Matt
About everything that happened
With stuff because I've been there anybody who is familiar with me knows that I I
Am I have clinical depression and I've attempted suicide on many occasions and
All my most recent attempt aroni was there to comfort me and
I got better. I realized that suicide is a permanent solution to temporary problems. I
Wish I could have done more and done the same for him
But really that's the way it is it's always shoulda coulda woulda
I don't have
any ads on this video it's not monetized and if it is monetized and that's
Something must have happened with YouTube. That's not that should not be the case
However, I do want to put a donation link in the description directly to a charity
focusing in suicide prevention
I'm personally going to be contributing to it and I would urge you guys to do it as well if you are willing enable
Suicide is sadly getting more and more common and depression is
It's Sabu and we don't talk about it enough
I really don't know what I'm supposed to do with this video
All I knew is that I want to do a long-form ramble talk about a few happy memories
That's why I'm not using my regular camera
I'm using my webcam because my normal camera shuts off after 12 minutes and this was probably gonna be longer than 12 minutes
It really sucks I
Lost a
personal friend
Someone that I was able to be vulnerable with me good listener a man who gave good advice
He made me laugh a lot and you realize that
Sometimes people that make us laugh the most or sometimes the people that need the most support
They're the ones hiding the most
Positives though
I've talked to some people that I haven't talked to in a while and
As we've grieved together
I'd like to think it's brought us back together
Positive is I hope that
This shows that you know
depression and suicide are
Very real things and I hope that at the very least
People are more comfortable talking about it
I'm not saying this was a good thing by any means because it's not
But if we can make something out of it then that's something
Ronnie was a good friend. He was a friend. I wish I got to know better
And it hurts that I'm never going to get to
Actually get to know him better
These are just some minor stories that made me happy
Hopefully you guys know him a little better from outside of just a screen and hopefully
Hearing me talk about him
No, I really don't know
This is a very different type of video and I normally make and
Yeah, I can just sit here saying I don't know I don't know
I don't know. But like I said, I spent like 10 to 30 minutes. Just trying to figure out how to start the video
I sure as hell don't know how to end it
So I guess I'll just I'll just end it here
if
You are depressed. If you are getting to that point where you think that taking your own life is an option, please
Please please please please please seek help. It does get better
It absolutely does get better
Find professional help if you need medication there is nothing wrong with that
Talking to other people getting help it doesn't make you weak
It doesn't make you broken or incomplete there are plenty of people going through the same stuff and
Feeling this way is sadly normal. It shouldn't be the case, but it's getting more and more common
Please seek help because I guarantee there are people that care even if you don't
really believe it in the moment if you think that nobody does I
Guarantee you those people that do
We're just gonna end it here