July 17, 1980 - July 25, 2024
Gut punched. That's how I feel.
Just found out that someone who I followed for years has died.
Aside from the early adaptation to the art of blogging, as evidenced by this blog of course, I also became mesmerized by some of the early vloggers on YouTube. One of these vloggers was a young gay guy who lived quite a solitary life in the Netherlands who went by the name of Leander. Aside from our “family” connection, he disclosed a lot of his social anxieties which I could immediately identify with as well and his affinity for technology and the burgeoning social media scene. Not to mention of course his love of interior design, fashion, art, cuisine, culture, travel, and, the gayest of all gay iconic affinities, the worship of Madonna.
I'm not precisely sure of exactly when I started following Leander's vlogs but based on this post that I made about him back in 2012 where I mentioned that I had followed a catfishy online romance he seemed to be pretending to have and that had been ongoing for about a year and a half at that point and I remember it from the beginning so I would guess at least a year even before that perhaps even sooner than then, so we'll say circa 2008 or 2009. I mean, really early on old school YouTube.
His daily posts from his red walled apartment warmed my heart for years.
I would often look forward to listening to the easy way that Leander had speaking to the camera as if we the viewer were his best friend just popping by his little apartment for a glass of wine and a visit. We'd sit and chat, sometimes peek out the window and watch the street traffic go by. Summer would change into fall, which would change into winter and then spring would return and we'd still be visiting with our friend Leander, chatting away morning noon and night, discussing all manner of things important or not, but always honest and caring.
Aside from the dubious long-distance relationship he’d created with Colin as referenced in the above link, he shared quite a lot about his personal life, including his struggles with mental illness and depression. Sometimes he’d break down and cry. And I’d cry with him. And I think he realized the daily vlog thing was a bit too much of an exposure and so he revamped his YouTube channel and started to exclusively focus on doing gaming videos which were becoming the newest trend of the 2010s. And of these he found an audience with The Sims 4 fans. I like The Sims but to watch someone play it or build houses on YouTube isn’t a big thing with me so I tapered off missing the old vlogs but realizing that they weren't coming back despite Leander saying he would do them “here and there.”
Overtime I kind of lost track of Leander and though I touched base every now and then to check on him it seemed he was doing his own thing with his Sims videos and then later revamping his YouTube site yet again to focus on reaction videos when it became the newest thing. He was like that, always reinventing himself, but not reinventing his personality to be fake, but just simply to fit the changing of times to be relevant. I guess that's what kept him young at heart, as well as quite young looking. I mean, the photo above was taken just this April when he was 43 years old
I remember a couple months ago or so I checked on his YouTube channel and saw that he hadn't updated anything in a couple months or so and I thought it a little strange since we're talking a man who literally is glued to his computer as much as I am so I knew he was doing something in the electronic realm but he had made some passes on his YouTube channel before when he focused on Twitch during his Sims 4 videos for a time so I thought maybe that's what he was doing and went on my merry way thinking nothing much of it. Well I checked again today and still nothing so I went and I started checking his other social media accounts including his website: leander.net.
Now this website; he's had it since before YouTube, and if I'm not mistaken he started his YouTube channel probably back at the beginning of YouTube so we're talking maybe 2006. And it was down. That's right his website was down. A website he had maintained religiously for over 20 years. Now I knew something was up.
I checked around a bit more and it wasn't long before I found out the sad news that yes, Leander had passed away. My first thought, of course, thinking back to his history of depression and mental illness, was that it may have been suicide, but no it turns out that just this past May he was feeling sick, went into the hospital, got diagnosed with terminal cancer, and died in July. How fucking sucky is that?!
I have nothing more to say, I'm heartbroken. It was nice to read all of the nice comments people wrote on his Facebook page. He was a lonely man, but he was not alone. I don't think he knew how much he was loved.
This one's for you Leander…