Niall Anthony Murphy (born: May 14, 1997citation needed] better known online as Pyrocynical (or simply Pyro), is an English commentary YouTuber who was formerly recognized as one of the early adopters of well-known commentary formats, such as colored borders surrounding video clips shown during videos.
),[Currently, Niall uploads various types of commentary and analysis videos, especially those featuring trend-related content, on his channel. He occasionally refers to his viewer base as the "Bruh Army," a jab at PewDiePie's fanbase, who were formerly known as the Bro Army. Most of his descriptions would even contain an ASCII drawing of the Brofist, something PewDiePie originally had in his descriptions in the early days of his career.
History and career
Niall created his YouTube channel in 2013, but did not upload any videos until 2014, mostly MLG montage parodies, which he later claimed to be embarrassed about. On October 30, 2015, a video was released on Niall's channel titled "IT'S JUST A PRANK BRO", a commentary-style video which was a noticeable deviation from the montage parody content. Since then, only one other equivalent of a montage parody video was released on his channel titled "SHREK HAS SWAG 2". This was a commentary video, although the actual montage parody was not the bulk of the video and it was short compared to his previous montage parodies.
In 2019, Niall's content is a mix of trending topics, gaming videos, and commentary. He has also begun interacting with others more frequently in skits, the largest being a Reddit video browsing many Despacito memes. However, by 2020, the amount of commentary videos has declined noticeably.
As of 2021, Niall's content is now predominantly in depth reviews and analysis of games, tv shows and movies along with a limited upload of commentary videos. I'm November 2021, he announced that he would upload to the first and second channel once every week per channel and would be focusing more of the content output on Twitch. In January 2022, he announced that he created a VODs channel for stream archives.
Niall's emblematic trait is his ginger-brown, now platinum blonde almost white hair, which many joked about, saying he looks as if he were "a cute little lesbian". Niall's commentary videos started off mostly having gameplay of first-person shooters in the background, notably CS:GO or Overwatch, and occasionally having other games, like Connect 4 (IRL board game version) and Garfield Kart. In the later days of his pre-face reveal, he would employ his commissioned fanarts of his channel icon. But nowadays, he has completely phased out the format in favor of real-life footage of himself in his bedroom. An early exception is when his fans convinced him to put "Connect 4" gameplay in the background. Later videos displayed gameplay of "Garfield Kart" (advertised in the descriptions as "clinical depression"). Niall claimed he had compiled over 12 hours worth of Garfield Kart footage and 100 hours of total gameplay.
Prior to Niall's face reveal, pictures of his face were leaked from his private Facebook page by DramaAlert host, Keemstar, to Twitter. However, Keemstar claimed that he had never leaked information from Niall's private Facebook page and that the picture he tweeted had already been leaked onto Twitter and Google Images. Also, Niall uploaded a video of him brushing his teeth on Twitter, which was later deleted. On October 12, 2016, Niall unexpectedly uploaded a face reveal video, titled "who i'm voting for president (face reveal)", mocking the Casey Neistat controversy about the 2016 United States presidential election. He has included his appearance in almost every video since the reveal, changing his video format once more.
Sony's Beach Walk copyright claim
On July 20, 2019, Niall uploaded the video "YouTube doesn't pay me anymore", explaining how hundreds of his videos got copyright claimed. The claims are aimed at the outro song of his videos called Beach Walk by Whitewoods. Niall explained that Whitewoods gave him permission to use a part of the song. He also explains Whitewoods got a copyright claim from Sony. The song Beach Walk apparently contains a sample from Grace Jones' La Vie En Rose, to which Sony has the rights of. Niall explained in the video he was in the process of appealing the claims and looking for a different outro. In the videos following he experimented with outros every video, until September 4, 2019, where he uploaded the video "I paid $2000 to meet morgz". Since then he has consistently used the same outro, one made by Levi Niha.
Collaborations
Niall has done a lot of collaborations and gameplay-related content with other fellow YouTubers such as NFKRZ (who made his old intro animation) and Bamanboi. He can also be seen with other YouTubers including most of the commentary genre such as Memeulous, WillNE, ImAllexx, Jameskii, Squizzy, Vargskelethor Joel, Trollzous, Dolan Dark, and Colossal Is Crazy.
Niall has made several positive effects on other YouTubers such as LtCorbis when he promoted her channel, as well as BionicPIG when he promoted his music.
Niall occasionally collaborates with creators like Jack Manifold and Schlatt. He once featured in a podcast of Schlatt’s, called Sleep Deprived. In August 2021, Niall once was a guest on CodeMiko's twitch, where she turned him into a V-tuber.
Most recently, Niall is in a podcast named TBH, along with Colossal Is Crazy, Nerd City and Dolan Dark. It started with the release of the first episode in March 9, 2022.
Niall used to be frequently criticized for being a "LeafyIsHere clone" due to the great similarity of their content, despite the difference in their personalities. Niall responded by self-deprecating himself and making more of a resemblance to Leafy by using clickbait and content more favorable over Leafy's. Despite all of the drama, Niall and Leafy remained friends and appeared on DramaAlert with a playground insult match as a joke. Pyro and Leafy frequently collaborated in videos. A video made by HeyWatchYourMouth, claimed that Leafy secretly hates Niall and still adamantly believes Niall copied his style. However, people are split on whether this is true or not.
Personal Life
Niall was, from around 2016 until late 2018/early 2019, in a relationship with YouTube animator Hyojin Choi, better known as Squizzy. Hyojin confirmed the split on Twitter on April 19, 2019. She stated that she and Niall left on good terms and remain as friends.
During the Slazo controversy, in the immediate aftermath of him explaining his side, Hyojin and ImAllexx received lots of backlashes, mainly in how they handled the situation. Hyojin ended up involved in 3 more controversies, one of which rumoured that she cheated on Niall with Dolan Dark. Dolan said it didn't happen as he and Niall are still good friends and even collaborated during that time, and Hyojin said it wasn't anyone's business.
Niall had little to no involvement in the controversy and didn't seem too fazed by the end of it. Niall was (and still is) in a relationship with a girl named Ida (who goes by Daflummify on Twitter) back in 2019 and 2020.
Many believed him to be bisexual because of the Ivory drama, but he has clarified that he is heterosexual and has no interest in the same sex.
Pyro had a Staffordshire bull terrier mix named 'Buddy' for over 14 years, and was put down on August 22, 2024 most likely due to old age.[1]
Controversies
Grooming Allegations
On October 29, 2020, a Twitter user known as Ivory Rasmus claimed that Pyrocynical "groomed" him when the latter was 15 years old, and Pyrocynical was 19 years old.[2] According to Ivory, Pyrocynical sent a variety of inappropriate material to him, including drawn NSFW and fetish videos.
Initially, the screenshot evidence Ivory supplied was assumed to be falsified, due to the Discord user with whom Ivory was conversing, whom Ivory claimed was Pyrocynical, being shown as deleted, inaccurate dates, Ivory censoring parts of his own DMs, and the DMs being on the desktop version, which led to many believing the accuser fabricated evidence by using Inspect Element to alter the text.
Later, Ivory posted a TwitLonger[3] on October 31, 2020, with alleged proof that the allegations were true and the DMs were real. The TwitLonger also included a link to a video on Imgur of Ivory scrolling through Twitter DMs between himself and Pyro's girlfriend, Ida.
Many people have pointed out various holes in Ivory's claims, such as there not being any evidence of Pyro acknowledging that Ivory was underage, Ivory’s hesitance to contact Discord or law enforcement, and claims by another user that Ivory has lied about his age before. Later on, in an interview with Tommy C, Ivory admitted that he did not know the true definition of grooming, and only referred to his experience with Pyrocynical as such because a friend told him to do so.
On November 10, 2020, Pyrocynical released a statement on his subreddit addressing the allegation.[4]
Fandom
There are many common jokes that he and his fans often use:
In-jokes/memes
- That his father is in prison;
- When he was accused of grooming some joked he would be joining his dad in prison. However since the evidence proved that he was ultimately innocent and not a groomer, this meme has been discredited.
- " So guys, we did it!" (a line from his 250k subscriber special) followed by a sentence detailing an event;
- Also, the cat in the wheelchair meme, which usually co-related to the 250k subs meme;
- Calling himself a lesbian or being called a "cute little lesbian" in relation to his hair or his cosplays
- Replacing any word relating to killing or harming someone with "game end" so the video doesn't get demonetized, which is obviously a joke referencing Fortnite short films on YouTube.
- The fanbase constantly asking for Petscop 2, in reference to an in-depth analysis he made on the Petscop YouTube channel.
- The fanbase joking that he spent £3.000 on Belle Delphine to play Minecraft with him yet complains he can't afford a car. His reply is always that "it was an investment".
- At the end of the day, she didn't play Minecraft with him due to her being uncomfortable with it.
- He promoted his 2019 spring merch by saying the line: " It's not ethically made but epically made".;
- He made a meme out of being sponsored by Raid Shadow Legends - a mobile game - because he and a lot of other Youtubers got sponsored by them.
- As of 2020, Niall's been sponsored by them 3 times.
- The 'I can't believe Pyro did X' meme, in which viewers would take the title of the video and make it out that it referred to him, and sometimes just saying that he was selling fruit flies illegally.
During and after the PewDiePie vs. T-Series subscriber battle, Niall made frequent claims that his subscriber base (which he referred to as the Bruh Army, or PewDiePie's "Bro Army, but better") could overtake PewDiePie's subscriber account, showing both of their subscriber counts and clearly being sarcastic about it.
- He'll either say we're only x million off or I believe we can close that gap.
- After the PewDiePie Vs. T-Series battle, Pyrocynical began begging his viewer base to subscribe, as he feared the channel of Morgz Mum would overtake him in subscriber count.
- He made the joke for several videos in early 2019 since they were close in subscribers for a while. However Jill has never overtaken Niall, she's also about 500.000 subscribers behind him.
- In his Fat Cry 3 video, he jokingly and satirically referred that it would be "self-defense" to kill Morgz Mum to prevent her from overtaking him in subscribers and played a clip of Morgz Mum being hit with a plastic baseball bat.
Subscriber milestones
Note: The following dates are according to Social Blade. Dates may vary by one or two days due to differences in time zones.
- 1,000 subscribers: May 27, 2014
- 2,500 subscribers: June 6, 2014
- 10,000 subscribers: June 22, 2014
- 25,000 subscribers: July 16, 2014
- 100,000 subscribers: September 28, 2014
- 250,000 subscribers: March 21, 2015
- 1 million subscribers: June 7, 2016
- 2 million subscribers: October 28, 2017
- 3 million subscribers: March 9, 2019
- 4 million subscribers: January 15, 2020
Trivia
General
- He is an atheist.
- He has an inflation fetish.
- Before 2015, where he became one of the great drama channels, he made several MLG videos, with "mlg teletubbies" becoming its most viewed video and one of his five videos that broke over 10 million views.
- Between 2016 towards mid-2019, his main genre of videos is comedy and gaming though he has posted several serious videos as well.
- At around late 2019, his uploads became less frequent, focusing more on media products, such as TV shows, books, Movies and Tiktok.
- Despite never really doing much harm, he always somehow manages to get his Twitter account banned. He was once banned for threatening to grind Cold Ones' lard into his mid-roll ads as a build-up to a "funny" skit.
- Niall has mentioned he has been suspended for over a year. However, on February 2022, he has made a new Twitter account and created a competition where the most-liked reply will be his banner.[5][6]
- During the time when Niall's Twitter account was suspended, his friend nopeify was often confused to be Pyrocynical.
- He is well known for using "funny" props in his videos, which include Minecraft tools, a Roadhog mask, several hats including Niall's hat, a gas mask with a ushanka, etc.
- In the last half of June 2019, Niall uploaded several pictures of himself cosplaying female anime characters, for example, Ryūko Matoi from Kill la Kill and Mt. Lady from My Hero Academia on his Instagram.
- According to Dolan Dark's comment on Niall and Dolan's Cold Ones episode, Niall wore makeup during their entire trip to Australia and he is into crossdressing, this has since been confirmed false on the TBH podcast though.
- He has also cosplayed as Vanessa from Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach, showing it off not only on his Instagram, but also on his community page.
- For over four years, Niall has had the same background (first appearing in this video) including a room with a wide archway leading to his bedroom. In 2021, he finally moved into a new house (first appearing in this video.) In this one, it has a bland wall with a light on the ceiling and a door.
- Niall is right handed. He states this in the Cold Ones episode in 2019.
- Niall loves putting references to Breaking Bad in his videos.
- According to Pyro, every LithuaNialllln is 7 foot tall by default. He also claimed that in LithuaNialllln culture, each family plants a 200m oak tree with an apple on top, and the first person to reach the apple becomes the alpha male of the tribe and is allowed to carry on their genes[7]
- However, if a LithuaNialllln is shorter than 7 feet, their family disowns them
- In his video essay about the British 2013 TV series Utopia, he states that the show's musical composer, Cristobal Tapia de Veer, is his favourite all-time composer.
- For a long time it was thought that his last name was Comas. It was confirmed to be Murphy by his sister's Instagram account
- Pyrocynical has said the n word multiple times in his old videos and has even referenced it in a TBH episode.[8][9]
Gaming
- His favorite Overwatch hero is Roadhog, with Ana being a close second.
- His most fond memories of his "lonely" childhood were of playing Spyro The Dragon.
- It seems that he is very fond of the video game series Dark Souls, due to the number of references he edits into his videos.
- Niall has shown in videos he does not like Fortnite.
- One of Niall's favorite games of all time is Cry of Fear.
- In the "This Youtuber Faked His Death" video on the LIVE channel, Niall
states that one of favorite games of all time is Team Fortress and that he has over 12 hundred hours on the Xbox 360 version of the game.[10] He would confirm this in his "I messed up" video[11] as well.
- Niall also claims in the same video that the word "Pyro" in Pyrocynical comes from the class Pyro in Team Fortress 2.[12]
- Niall doesn't like the class Soldier in TF2, saying the class has no downsides.
Gallery
References
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUU3wKZcrqg
- ↑ https://twitter.com/IIovebird/status/1321798971275251712
- ↑ https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1srf0ia
- ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/pyrocynical/comments/jrsu4v/addressing_the_false_allegations/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
- ↑ https://youtu.be/q0Dl_kn91gA
- ↑ https://twitter.com/Pyrocynical/status/1496584440159608836
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpAyz1wnwAM&ab_channel=shibemeister
- ↑ https://youtu.be/Up3SML_FpCo?t=284
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF-fqoYh_Xc&pp=ygUXcHlybyBuIHdvcmQgY29tcGlsYXRpb24%3D
- ↑ https://youtu.be/YeO7aMPsoT0?t=27
- ↑ https://youtu.be/vo-hGBxK5K8?t=20
- ↑ https://youtu.be/YeO7aMPsoT0?t=34