Go Fund Me

Since the start of University Challenge Series 48 in 2018, a Youtuber called Dave Garda has been uploading the episodes of the show so that they can be watched by those outside the jurisdiction of BBC iPlayer. These videos were not monetised for copyright reasons, so Garda was doing it out of the goodness of his heart. Tens of thousands of quizzers from all over the world used his channel as a resource for watching new episodes each week, and people training to go on the show would make use of the back catalogue as practice.

The comments sections under his posts tended to be far more wholesome than the dumpster fire on Twitter, as the quizzing community came together to support and celebrate one another. I was very grateful to him because I used his uploads as a reference and linked to them at the start of every post for the past five years.

Unfortunately, they are all now gone.

Dave Garda died this week at the devastating age of twenty-five from pancreatic cancer, leaving behind a partner and unborn child. A close friend of Dave's created a GoFundMe page to support Dave's partner through this horrific time.

More than £3000 has been raised through this fundraiser, and quizzers flocked from all over the world to pay their respects to Dave and his tireless work. It is clear that his channel brought a lot of joy to a large number of people.

There are only two problems with that statement.

Dave Garda never died.

Not only that, Dave Garda never existed.

This thread, by former UC contestant and Only Connect finalist Dr Alexandra Hardwick, details the detective story which led to this discovery, and this reddit post by u/SuspiciousPurple has even more information on the sleuthing.

It turns out it wasn't all that complicated a detective story. This close 'friend' of Garda's appeared on Countdown, meaning that there are very many images out there of him. The picture of Dave Garda on the GoFundMe page is of this 'friend'. There is also a YouTube clip of Garda supposedly reacting to a contestant giving his name as an answer on the show and the person in that video was also that same 'friend'.

The GoFundMe has been deleted. The Dave Garda YouTube channel (and with it the archive of the past five years worth of episodes) has been deleted.

I don't know what will happen next, but more than a day after the relevations I am still completely stunned.

I'd been planning a series of gentle posts about the highest scoring teams in UC history ahead of the new season, but that all feels a bit moot after all the excitement. So instead I'll just say I'll be back from Monday reviewing the new Amol Rajan-fronted series of the show - subscribe here so that you never miss a review if you've looked at too many other tweets.

Just need to find somewhere to watch it.