In high school, I played a lot of Call of Duty. But it wasn’t the multiplayer death matches I liked; I was drawn towards the Zombies game mode. For the uninitiated, the premise of Zombies is simple: survive endless waves of undead. There is no end; you do not win. You only lose slower. You can get points by killing zombies to unlock new parts of the map, buy new weapons, get perks, etc. Unlike the fast paced action of online multiplayer, Zombies is a slower paced game of knowledge, patience, and ability.
As I started playing more, my skills improved, but I still needed help. This was back in 2011, where Zombies was not nearly as popular as it is today, but Youtubers were beginning to find their niche uploading Zombies videos and building their channels around it. One such Youtuber was Yoteslaya. He uploaded a video where he got to round 151, which was, at that point, the highest round ever. That was the first Zombies video I ever watched. I've been hooked ever since.
Yoteslaya was something else. His jokes had me in fits. And he was by all means a redneck, but I liked that about him. It helped him stick out. Yote was always positive, always upbeat. He was a daddy to two boys, and sometimes he would upload videos of playing Zombies with them. The kids were terrible, but that didn’t matter. I used to always to always think that it would be so fun to play Zombies with my kids one day. Hell, I still think that. Yoteslaya was dad goals.
By the time this article goes live, it will have been 3 years and 1 day since Yoteslaya, whose real name was Brian Rickard, died in a drunk driving accident. Beer cans littering the floorboards, Rickard—who was behind the wheel—stopped at a railroad crossing. His pickup was struck by an oncoming train. The other two passengers in the car were killed as well.
You can take from that what you will. Yes, he was at fault, and his foolish mistake cost his life as well two others, and left his two boys without a father. Yet I mourned him, and to this day, Yoteslaya still hangs heavy on my heart. Even with his fatal decision, I often recall the joy he brought to me and hundreds of thousands of his other subscribers. Whenever I rewatch his old videos (at this point, they are ancient relics in internet time), I'm overwhelmed with nostalgia. I remember the almost childlike wonder of stepping into a new Zombies map for the first time, be it a dilapidated Nazi theater or the damn moon. Yoteslaya's videos guided me as I navigated these new worlds; he helped me improve, and eventually I got to be pretty good, beating most of his highest rounds on different maps.
But that was not the real reason I liked Yoteslaya. Sure, he was good at Zombies, and he helped me become good at Zombies too, but he wasn't anything special. These days, Yote would be considered a mediocre player, at best.
Instead, I liked Yoteslaya so much because he was a genuinely nice guy. He interacted with fans, offering positivity and encouragement, often through humor. One of his taglines was “I do make the average person dumber but better at Zombies.” If that doesn’t tell you everything you need about Yote’s sense of humor, then nothing will.
I connected to him. He’s the kind of person I seek out—genuine, funny, witty and doesn’t take himself too seriously. At that time, I didn’t have many friends. I was awkward. Weird. Scared. Depressed. That’s why I confined myself to my bedroom and played Zombies for hours on end; I didn't have to talk to anyone or deal with anything outside of my game.
My friends were few, Yoteslaya was one of them, and I know that’s sappy, but it’s true. I talked to him in livestreams once or twice, and that was enough for me to consider him my friend. He offered me relief. He made me laugh so hard I’d tear up. In a way, he made me feel appreciated. The videos he made had people like me in mind, who liked Zombies and wanted a good laugh.
I lost a friend when he died. It really, really sucked. It sucked. I think about him sometimes. I bet he’d be impressed by how much I’ve improved over the years. I don’t play much these days, but whenever I pop in Black Ops, I’m taken back to that much simpler time, where I didn’t have much to worry about. Yote is still there, stuck in that time. His videos will not be going anywhere. And whenever I want to go back there, I can. And he will guide me.
Don’t make the same mistakes he did. If you’re too drunk to drive, don’t. Just don’t do it. It’s not fair to you, and it's not fair to everyone else.
