John Bain, more commonly known by his username TotalBiscuit (born July 8, 1984) is a British YouTube commentator on gaming and the games industry, a professional Starcraft II commentator, the owner of Axiom eSports and is part of the Polaris Network.
On October 15th 2015, John announced that his colon cancer had spread to his liver and had gone terminal.
History
John began broadcasting when he was just 13 years old and was a founding member and beta-tester for Live365 , John went on to become the Head of Specialist Music at his University’s radio station and host a prime-time extreme metal show called Demon FM after which he took his talents to the realm of talk radio, hosting the groundbreaking World of Warcraft show “Blue Plz”, which is still the most popular solo-hosted WoW show on the internet. After 5 years at WoW Radio, 4 of which in the role of managing director, John decided to take his rigorous standards, work ethic and extensive experience and apply them to a new site. Thus “The Cynical Brit ” was born.
In-Yogiverse
- TotalBiscuit was the guest host of the Yogscast's playthrough series of Magicka with Lewis and Simon.
- In the Minecraft Shadow of Israphel series, TotalBiscuit has had his own reference. His grave can be found in the Mistral City graveyard, saying "He was here once, we swear", jokingly poking at the fact that he refuses to make Minecraft videos.
- He was also added in as a NPC during Granny Bacon's Funeral and he appeared at the livestream of said event in mid-2011.
- TotalBiscuit joined Simon, Lewis and Duncan (known then as Lalna) on their videos through the Cataclysm version of the Deadmines dungeon in World of Warcraft.
- TotalBiscuit hosted the 6th TGS podcast episode along with Jesse Cox and Dodger when Simon was the guest of said episode.
- He was a host of the 24th episode of the TGS podcast along with TotalBiscuit and Jesse Cox when Martyn was the guest of said episode (although Martyn was not a member of the Yogscast at that point).
- TotalBiscuit also hosted the 11th episode of the Co-Optional Podcast along with Jesse Cox and Dodger when Sips was the guest of said episode.
- TotalBiscuit also hosted the 22nd episode of the Co-Optional Podcast along with Jesse Cox and Dodger when Strippin was the guest of said episode.
- In March 2015, after Simon negatively replied to TotalBiscuit on Twitter, for negatively criticizing a comic book, John commented on Simon's reply by saying "We have no working relationship with Yogscast anymore as Simons petty tweets should make clear." He followed this up by saying "That's a bridge they burned themselves. I can say no more because some of us actually respect our network disparagement clauses" and "As with many "former friends", they used my promotion to get ahead then conveniently forgot who their friends were later.". Later, he clarified that Sips would still be a guest on his podcast a few weeks later, as "There is no beef there." The Yogscast have never officially commented on the apparent falling out between Simon and John, though it looks incredibly unlikely that John will ever work with the Yogscast, aside from Sips and Strippin, again.
Series
- The following table shows the games and series John Bain has played or participated in. Please note that the Current list only contains series uploaded to the creators channel in the last 30 days.
| Series Guide | ||
|---|---|---|
| Current | On Hiatus | Finished |
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Quotes
- "I'm the archmage of the entire freaking universe!"
- "Angbadang, get on the treadmill."
- "Welcome to the Co-Optional Podcast: we occasionally talk about video games."
- "Shameful dispray!"
- "Simon!!"
- "Husky, the most useless member of this podcast."
- "I have more youtube money than God! I can afford these games!"
- "U fuckin wot m8"
- "Your authority is not recognised in Fort Kickass!"
- "The hidden dick is the most dangerous dick!"
- "I have a hammer...Like, stop."
- "Morphine is good shit"
- "You can't see far in a shitstorm"
Trivia
- TotalBiscuit had a YouTube series based on the game Terraria played with Jesse Cox (OMFGcata). Simon and Lewis have since also created a three-part series and have tutored Jesse Cox on how to play Minecraft.
- TotalBiscuit refuses to upload any kind of Minecraft footage to his channel as he is afraid of what his channel would become, he stated that "That sort of thing really does turn your channel into a Minecraft channel" He does however, like to play the game whilst not working as stated in a mini interview with MalvinStudios, "Minecraft is a game I like to play and enjoy and not actually work".
- TotalBiscuit was ranked #1 on King of the Web in December 2011. He donated all of the prize money ($50,000) to charity. His King of the Web profile page can be found here.
- TotalBiscuit is a very picky individual when it comes to games, some people think he is an unlikeable grump because of that but it is also why they can trust him in giving an honest opinion on games.
- TotalBiscuit is from Newcastle upon Tyne.
- TotalBiscuit suffers from dyspraxia.
- TotalBiscuit's favourite dice is a D20.
- TotalBiscuit's most played Team Fortress 2 class is the Scout.
- TotalBiscuit despises onions, to the point that he will send meals back if they contain them.
- TotalBiscuit's first trip abroad was to Toronto, Canada. Whilst there, he went to an EB Games store and, having read about it in a magazine, he persuaded an older kid to buy Dungeon Keeper for him. On another occasion, he faked glandular fever for 2 weeks to avoid school and keep playing it. At the Co-Optional Podcast Panel at PAX Prime 2013, a guest gave him a copy of the Canadian version of Dungeon Keeper as a memento.
- TotalBiscuit voiced the character "Vinnie & Spike" in the game Awesomenauts and the "Steampunk Disciple" alternate avatar of the "Corrupted Disciple" character in Heroes of Newerth.
- He also voiced the "Crystal Ball" in the adult animated series Broken Quest and the "Medivac" in HuskyStarcraft's show HuskyTales.
- On his Big December Q&A livestream, Bain claimed that he had contacted the Yogscast about being on for the Dairy Drive 2013, but he never got a response.
- On April 30th 2014, TotalBiscuit announced that a cancerous tumour had been discovered inside his colon. He also expressed his frustration and regret that he did not speak to his doctor after noticing strange changes to his toilet routine, and urged people not to be so reluctant when it came to their health.
- TotalBiscuit operates two different YouTube accounts: 'TotalHalibut' and 'TotalBiscuit'. TotalBiscuit is the channel where his general gaming content can be found like well-known video series like WTF is..., Content Patch and 15 Minutes of Game. He also regularly streams Starcraft 2 in a series called "ShoutCraft" (later rebranded as "ShowCraft") and showcases professional Starcraft 2 matches in a series called "Procraft" on his "TotalBiscuit" Starcraft 2 channel.
- It was TotalBiscuit who first introduced and referred the Yogscast to The Game Station.
- For the Yogscast Honey Drive in 2012, TotalBiscuit held a livestream on the 20th of December in which he played XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Awesomenauts with Jesse Cox and MyndFlame on Team TGS against the Yogscast Mods Team of SteelCyro, Janedash and VeteranHarry. Team TGS were originally to face the Yogscast team but they chickened out according to John. The livestream finished 49 minutes early due to internet problems, the same time the stream normally played Area 11 music (11:11).
- A Korean newspaper translated John's username from 'TotalBiscuit' to 'SumCookie'. Jesse Cox then heard about it and made a joke about it on a TGS Podcast episode when TotalBiscuit wasn't present and it has stuck with John's fans since.
- In a Q&A with Jesse Cox, TotalBiscuit stated that his original username was going to be 'SoulCake', which came from the Terry Pratchett book series, Discworld. He elected to change this however, as it was a very common username at that time and other people kept taking it on other websites.
- He is a fan of Terry Pratchett's books.
- He has worked in the UK line of gaming shops, GAME.
- He is one of the hosts of the Co-Optional Podcast, Polaris' gaming podcast along with Jesse Cox and Dodger.
- It was mentioned by Lewis in a subreddit post about TotalBiscuit's opinion on YogDiscovery that because John referred Yogscast to TGS / Polaris, John (to this very day) receives a small percentage of all revenue made across all of the content the Yogscast makes.
- John is known to have a large amount of respect for the gaming website, Giant Bomb, and has even went at far as to say that they are an inspiration to him.
- When one of the founding members of Giant Bomb, Ryan Davis, passed away in 2013 at the age of 34, John talked about how much Ryan's death affected him in a Content Patch episode covering the passing. John also played a remix of the Super Mario Bros. 3 World 3 Map theme at the end of the episode in honour of Ryan's outspoken love for the game.
- John is also known to have some amount of respect for Adam Sessler, the former editor-in-chief and producer for Revision3 Games.
- In his early years of media production, John was known to prefer doing podcasts and live streams than video as he states it is "much easier to do the former".
- John worked at a financial advisory before making YouTube videos.
- During his university years, John was the Head of Specialist Music at his university's metal radio station, Demon FM, as discovered in his Linkedin page.
- John has mentioned in passing that he has a brother who works in the music industry. This is futher elaborated on when he mentioned in his vlog on 29th July 2015 that he has a sister and brother who live in England.
- John has specified many times that his username "TotalBiscuit" has no space between the "Total" & the "Biscuit". To this day, many people, mainly mainstream news websites, still punctuate John's username incorrectly, and this is poked at every once in a while by John himself.
- John met his wife, Genna, at Blizzcon 2010 and moved to America (more specifically, North Carolina) to live with her and her son.
- John has a step-son named Orion.
- John and Genna own their own Starcraft II team named Axiom.
- They currently owns two dogs: Kumo, a White Japanese Akita and Maya, a Red Shiba Inu. They also own a cat called (name to be added).
- TotalBiscuit became friends with Jesse Cox whilst hosting WoW Radio when Jesse entered a competition John was running called WoW Idol, in which contestants had to make their own song or a cover of an existing song based on World of Warcraft. Jesse submitted an entry with his song "Raid With Me", a cover of the song "Take on Me" by A-ha. Jesse won 3rd place in the contest and that's how Jesse and John became friends through that although John knew of Jesse before this.
- John was a guest on Tabletop, a board gaming show hosted by retired actor Wil Wheaton.
- John is a big fan of the Warhammer 40K universe.
- John has a fear of flight and as a result, hates travelling by plane. This fear of flight came about after a plane he was on dropped by about 10,000 feet according to Bain on a Co-Optional Podcast episode.
- Whenever John does facecam, he always had the UK flag in the background. Whether this is because John is patriotic of the UK or just wanted a more interesting background than the back of his office is unknown.
- This flag was deliberately hung upside-down to frustrate his British viewers and due to the fact that John cannot "be bothered to put it up the right way round" according to John himself on a Co-Optional Podcast episode.
- The flag was eventually taken down however, due to the fact that it came across as unprofessional and John was expanding more and more into the mainstream media, which is a much more professional environment according to John.
- John doesn't have a driver's license; however, he did state in his Big December Q&A in 2013 that he was almost certainly going to get one (as well as a car) in 2014 so he doesn't have to rely on his wife, Genna to drive. Whether he actually did get a license and a car of his own or not is unknown.
- Whilst he was still a regular of the Something Awful forums, TotalBiscuit occasionally listened to the YoGPoD, as it was "quite funny" as revealed in his big December Q&A of 2013.
- John is known to despise the game Spelunky for its many random instant death scenarios amongst other things.
- John attended De Montfort University and studied Law between 2002 and 2005, as discovered on his Linkedin page.
- John was interviewed for BBC Radio 1's documentary on gaming on YouTube, Rockstar Gamers.
- John is known to despise motion blur visual effects.
- Turpster once made a song called Buff Up based on World of Warcraft which featured John as a guest singer.
- John once did a promotional video of the MOBA game, Strife from the developers of Heroes of Newerth with PyrionFlax.
- In a SoundCloud audio podcast, TotalBiscuit stated that "his father was a priest and his mother taught at the school".
Links
Gallery
John "TotalBiscuit" Bain
TotalBiscuit in deep concentration.
TotalBiscuit's avatar (most notably used for his YouTube page).
John Bain
TotalBiscuit interviewing Bioware veteran and Lead Writer for Star Wars: The Old Republic, Daniel Erickson.
TotalBiscuit's King of the Web picture.
John wearing a lot of hats
TotalBiscuit's "most embarrassing photo" which he told his wife "not to post". She posted it.
John attempting to play Crypt of the Nekrodancer with the Crypt of the Nekrodancer Dance Pad
Totalbiscuit's guess at what MintyMinute looks like in XCOM: Enemy Unknown
John in a Skyscraper?
TotalBiscuit, as seen in Simple Simon Animated