Minecraft YouTuber Brandon Dylan Ashur, known to his fans as BashurVerse, Toasty, or ToastyTime, passed away this week due to COVID and complications surrounding the disease. The news was confirmed by his family following Ashur’s battle with the illness, which he partially documented on his Twitter account. Ashur was 36 years old when he died and had been undergoing treatment having contracted the illness from his father at the beginning of August this year.

Ashur was at one point a significant face in the Minecraft YouTube scene, long before the recent explosion in interest in that game led by the likes of Pewdiepie and Dream. A series of controversies, which were amplified and capitalized on by Daniel "KEEMSTAR" Keem, led to Ashur slipping into depression and eventually stepping away from his online persona for years, only to return in 2019.

Prior to his death, Ashur urged his followers to get vaccinated, stating in no uncertain terms how unpleasant his situation had become. Sadly for his family, he lost his mother earlier in the year after she passed away suddenly, and had taken her death as the motivation to try and fully recover from the mental and emotional struggles he had endured as a result of the end of his career on YouTube and surrounding controversy.

Tributes to him poured in on Twitter and Reddit, with fans of his from the early 2010’s reminiscing about his work with names like SkyDoesMinecraft and CaptainSparkles. He had over 1.5M followers across his two platforms despite his years away from making online entertainment, and there were rumours he was working on a TV project prior to his illness. He spoke often about using his influence to try and make a positive impact on the world by bringing light to the struggles even successful people endure.