Syndicate (gamer)

Thomas George Cassell was born on 23 June 1993 in Manchester, England, and is the brother of Alice Cassell. His father worked in construction as a project manager and his mother, Karen Cassell, worked as a children's day care worker. He attended Hyde Clarendon Sixth Form College in Ashton-under-Lyne and studied software development and video game design in 2010. After leaving college, he briefly worked at McDonald's to purchase gaming equipment to record YouTube videos. ==Internet career==

2008–2012: Online beginnings and corporate recognition Before the start of his YouTube career, Cassell uploaded commentary videos on various channels for three years. In October 2012, Eurogamer reported that Cassell had attracted the attention Call of Duty publisher Activision during a 2011 GameCity convention. At the convention, Cassell drew video game journalists' attention to the YouTube gaming community and said that endorsement from a prominent company "is the best thing ever". Kevin Dowling of The Sunday Times recognized him as the UK's most popular gamer and estimated that he earned £700,000 a year, or £60,000 a month. Dowling said that the engagement Cassell attracted was "because he led [an exciting life] beyond his gaming videos". 2013–present: Vlogging ventures and advertising violations Cassell co-founded the entertainment company 3BlackDot with YouTubers Evan Fong and Adam Montoya in 2013, along with former Machinima executives Angelo Pullen and Luke Stepleton. Cassell reached one billion views on his gaming channel in late 2013. Rob Waugh of Yahoo! News commented on Cassell's viewership as having "more viewers than hit TV shows such as EastEnders". In January 2014, Cassell's gaming channel reached 6.7 million subscribers. He began to vlog on his "Life of Tom" channel between his residences in Los Angeles and the UK, the start of which he began to receive sponsorships. Cassell's Twitch channel became the first to reach one million followers on 17 August, before Riot Games passed the milestone. On Twitch, Cassell reached 120,000 concurrent viewers on a Call of Duty livestream on 24 August. In November, Cassell signed to 3BlackDot's MCN Jetpak as the service went live for a better payment model. Gamasutra later reported that Cassell uploaded Let's Play videos of 3BlackDot's game Dead Realm, In November 2015, his gaming channel was nearly at 10 million subscribers. Wired estimated Cassell's earnings to be a year. Cassell attracted media attention in July 2016 when he promoted the skin gambling website CSGO Lotto along with Trevor Martin without disclosing a conflict of interest as vice-president of the company, in conflict with FTC regulations. In his videos promoting the site, Cassell had disclosed the endorsements in their descriptions and responded that he would be more transparent about these disclosures in the future. The FTC later reached a settlement agreement with Martin and Cassell in September 2017 for disclosing their legal relations and sponsorship deals with companies. There were no financial charges held against Cassell. In 2016, Cassell's gaming and vlogging channel reached 10 and 2 million subscribers respectively, and in August 2018, his Twitch channel accumulated 2.6 million followers. Throughout his vlogging career, Cassell had travelled to Abu Dhabi and the Acropolis of Athens, and received further recognition for his livestreams, as Insider ranked Cassell as the 7th most popular Twitch streamer worldwide. ==Content==

Online content Cassell maintained his schedule of two gaming videos daily. He advised others that consistency and quality was necessary for success. Kotaku described him as a daily vlogger. He has frequently played Lisa Mitchell's song "Neopolitan Dreams", as it was one of the first tracks he received a free music license from. Audience and reception Cassell set goals for himself for content creation, which included channel viewership and subscriber milestones. In an interview with the BBC, Cassell said that he did not intend to target a specific audience but "would not advise a 10-year-old to watch [his] videos". He described the demographics of his audience as "60% Americans, Canadians and [others] scattered around rest of the world". The initial purpose of Cassell's videos was to sustain an audience to work at a video game company. His goal changed towards engaging people and making them feel involved. Will Porter of Eurogamer described him as a "cool older brother" and "the kid everyone wanted to be friends with at school". ==Other ventures==

Inspired by a trip to the US in 2011, Cassell was a guest star at the premiere of the Call of Duty: Black Ops III (2015) Zombies map "Shadows of Evil" at San Diego Comic-Con 2015. He raised £75,000 for the Motor Neurone Disease Association in two weeks, In May 2016, he produced the compilation album Sounds of Syndication through record label Heard Well. The album is composed of 12 tracks of various artists, including electronic trio Klaypex and Lisa Mitchell. He initially contacted the record label at a charity event to produce the album. ==Personal life==

at the Silverstone in 2023 At the age of 19, Cassell had a "£1 million house" designed and constructed by him and his father. He has said that he prefers to be near his hometown. Inspired by the British television series Grand Designs, he reconstructed the house in order to create a space for gaming. In June 2020 during the MeToo movement, Cassell was accused of sexual assault by Witcher during their relationship. That same month, Cassell was accused of sexual assault by Twitch streamer Natalie Casanova, known as TheZombiUnicorn, while the two were filming the Legends of Gaming show in 2016. Cassell denied the allegations, stating that all activity was consensual, and described the situation as a "character assassination by social media". In July 2023, Cassell announced that he and his long-term partner, Lydia Hewitt-Lee, were expecting their first child together. In November 2023, their son was born. In August 2024, Cassell purchased 110 acres of land close to his home. In December 2025, Cassell announced that he and Hewitt-Lee were having a second child. == Awards and nominations ==