Vikram Singh Barn (born 2 August 1995), better known as Vikkstar123, is an English YouTuber and

Internet personality An Internet celebrity (also known as a social media influencer, social media personality, internet personality, or simply influencer) is a celebrity who has acquired or developed their fame and notability through the Internet. The rise of social m ...

. He is a member and co-founder of the

Sidemen A sideman is a musician who performs live with a band of which they are not a permanent member. Sideman or Sidemen may also refer to: * Sidemen, Bali, a district in the Karangasem Regency of Bali * Sideman (bishop), a 10th-century Bishop of Cred ...

, a British

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

group.

Early life and education

Barn was born on 2 August 1995 in

Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, around southwest of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The name "Guildf ...

, Surrey, England, where he lived until eight years of age. He later lived in

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

where he attended Silverdale School. He is the youngest of three children. Barn was offered a place to study natural sciences at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

, but he ended up declining the offer in order to pursue his YouTube career full-time.

YouTube career

Barn joined YouTube in 2010; having played games with his friends he got into watching YouTubers and making videos of their own. Eventually he decided to launch his own channel, stating:

I got involved thinking I might be able to do a little bit better than they were doing, and get involved and have some fun with it. I started recording myself playing '' Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2''. I started making tutorial videos that people could watch – some of them were for knives and how you could throw them across the map. I made videos showing places where you could throw a knife or tomahawk and get a kill. I thought it would be cool to show off these ridiculous kills.

As his popularity increased, he began to take it more seriously, branching out into ''

Minecraft ''Minecraft'' is a sandbox game developed by Mojang Studios. The game was created by Markus "Notch" Persson in the Java programming language. Following several early private testing versions, it was first made public in May 2009 before being ...

''. In 2013, he joined the Sidemen, which caused his popularity to rise further. He would later move in with three other members, sharing a house with them from 2014 to 2018, when he announced he was moving out of the Sidemen House. He is also part of the

Dream SMP The Dream SMP (sometimes abbreviated as the DSMP and originally known as the Dream Team SMP) is an invite-only survival multiplayer (SMP) ''Minecraft'' server. Created by YouTubers Dream and GeorgeNotFound, they roleplay alongside many fellow ...

server. In January 2021, he announced on his channel that he was quitting playing '' Call of Duty: Warzone'' due to a proliferation of cheating, saying hackers would be "the death of the game" if it went unfixed. Along with criticism from several other high-profile streamers, the resulting uproar caused Activision to update the game's anti-cheat software.

Other ventures

Barn is an investor in

esports Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...

teams and has spoken about how he has invested in

London Royal Ravens The London Royal Ravens is a British professional Call of Duty League (CDL) esports team based in London, United Kingdom. London Royal Ravens is owned by ReKTGlobal, an esports parent company who also owns Rogue. History ReKTGlobal announced ...

, a ''

Call of Duty ''Call of Duty'' is a first-person shooter video game Media franchise, franchise published by Activision. Starting out in 2003, it first focused on games set in World War II. Over time, the series has seen games set in the midst of the Cold W ...

'' team, speaking of his desire to 'build a blueprint' for the wider popularisation of the sport.

Personal life

In December 2021, Barn announced his engagement to his longtime girlfriend.

Filmography

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* * {{Authority control 1995 births Dream SMP members English male web series actors English male writers English people of Indian descent English YouTubers Gaming YouTubers Living people Minecraft YouTubers People educated at Silverdale School, Sheffield People from Sheffield Video game commentators YouTube channels launched in 2010 YouTube vloggers English video bloggers