ZeRo

About

ZeRo is the alias of professional Chilean Super Smash Brothers player Gonzalo Barrios, who is known for his prominence as the most dominant player in competitive Super Smash Bros. Wii U play, notably winning 56 consecutive tournaments.

Online History

Barrios began his competitive Super Smash Bros. career in 2006, playing Super Smash Bros. Melee in his home country of Chile.^[5] While much of his early competitive history is unknown, prior to his first international tournament appearance at Apex 2012, Barrios became the best Super Smash Bros Brawl player in his home country, utilizing Meta Knight. With continued appearances and strong tournament showings in the United States, he became one of the best players in Brawl prior to the release of Super Smash Bros for 3DS and Wii U.

In early competitive Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, Barrios dominated the tournament scene by winning 56 consecutive tournaments in a row, including the prestigious Smash for Wii U event at EVO 2015, before his winning streak ended at MLG World Finals 2015 when he lost to Nairoby "Nairo" Quezada in the finals. After a brief hiatus from the game due to medical reasons, he returned to competition. Though not as dominant, he still held a reputation as one of the best players in the Smash for Wii U scene up until his retirement from the game.

On November 7th, 2018, Barrios announced his return to competitive Smash Bros. upon the release of Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, along with signing to eSports team Tempo Storm, and hosting a Reddit AMA on r/smashbros^[7].

Reputation

Gonzalo Barrios' dominance at Super Smash Bros for Wii U was covered by gaming journalism outlet Kotaku in a piece focusing on the most notable gamers in the year of 2015.^[1] Barrios' dominance was also included in the Guinness World Records Gamer Edition 2017 as a result of his uncontested 56 (misprinted as 53) tournament win streak.^[2]

Barrios is proficient in other Smash games as well, known for being the best player of the Brawl mod Project M for a time, and being a respectable player in Super Smash Bros. Melee, having gone toe to toe with top players such as Adam "Armada" Lindgren and good friend Jason "Mew2King" Zimmerman.

Personal Life

Gonzalos Barrios was born on April 17th, 1995 and grew up in Chillán, Chile. He became engaged to his girlfriend in November 2015. Barrios' signature scarf was a gift from his mother when he left Chile. Prior to his retirement, Barrios had a bodyguard attend him at tournaments after receiving numerous death threats from those envious of his dominance and proficiency at Smash for Wii U.^[6]

Barrios has a YouTube channel where he posts gameplay analysis and highlighted clips from his Twitch streams.^[3][4]

Involvement In 2020 Sexual Misconduct Allegations

On July 2nd, 2020, Twitter user @JisuArtist accused popular Smash player Zero of showing her graphic sexual imagery when she was underage. At first, Zero denied this in a Twitlonger post, but apologized the following day in a second Twitlonger post. On July 3rd, an account named "Katie" accused Zero of talking inappropriately with her when she was underage. In his second Twitlonger post, Zero says he did not know she was underage and upon learning she was, ceased contact with her.

On July 4th, Zero posted a third Twitlonger post fully apologizing and saying he was not going to make any more videos. "I really want to atone, and I just want this discussion to stop. I'm not a good person, and it doesn't matter how terrible my life was, I did terrible things and that's the end of it. I don't deserve for people to defend me," he wrote. JisuArtist tweeted, "After 2 twitlongers, blatant lying, and several attempts of damage control via messaging figureheads and victims only for you to realize you're finally screwed-- you finally fess up. Except this isn't all of it. I'll be releasing my statement and everyone's accounts soon."

Zero's gaming organization Tempo released a statement saying they were cutting ties with him.

Return To YouTube

On November 16th, 2021, ZeRo returned to YouTube with a video responding to the allegations.

In an upload to his channel, he recanted his confession and denied all allegations. ZeRo claims that the stress brought on by the allegations and his inability to disprove them caused him to spiral into depression and self-sabotage by confessing. He says his confession was intended to be a suicide note. ZeRo attempted suicide in March 2021.

“My confession is nothing more than a suicide letter that I wrote during a tremendous mental breakdown. I had fully planned to take my life right after posting that document because I pretty much lost all faith in that scenario,” ZeRo said.

ZeRo's return appears to be prompted by a pair of videos from YouTuber Technicals, each of which is roughly an hour-long, that investigate the wave of allegations from last year and present evidence that challenges the allegations against Sky Williams and ZeRo, in particular.

Related Memes

"So A Lot of People Have Been Wondering…"

"So A Lot of People Have Been Wondering…" is a phrase that was often said by Barrios at the start for his videos discussing his thoughts on topics relating to the meta of competitive Super Smash Bros for Wii U. Due to the repeated usage among his earlier videos, it became a memetic phrase associated with Barrios within the Smash community.

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References