Dream
Popular YouTuber Dream has spent most of his career behind a mask, his true identity a mystery to even his fellow content creators.
The 23-year-old YouTuber rose to fame by creating Minecraft “let’s plays” and speedrun videos, building an audience of more than 30 million subscribers, while managing to retain his anonymity.
On Sunday night, after a masterful hype campaign, Dream finally removed the mask to reveal his face in a video posted to YouTube, which has since accumulated more than 22 million views.
Dream, the man behind the mask
In the video, Dream introduced himself as Clay, and explained that he decided to finally let go of his anonymity after maintaining his mysterious persona became too difficult and stressful.
“I’ve been bunkered up,” Dream said. “The people trying to leak my face, trying to find out what I look like… it’s just a tiny bit too much.”
Popular content creators such as YouTube’s Marques Brownlee and TikTok’s Addison Rae posted positive reactions to seeing Dream’s face for the first time — Brownlee called Dream’s reveal “one of the most interesting social media campaigns I’ve ever seen.”
Many fans were delighted by the reveal, and responded with excitement.
Others seemed oddly disappointed - it’s unclear what they were expecting. Soon, fans were posting memes comparing Dream’s face to cartoon characters.
Some of the jokes and memes were made in good spirits, but the tone soon shifted, becoming more negative and spiteful as Twitter users mocked Dream’s face, with the hashtag #PutTheMaskBackOn trending in response to the reveal.
The negativity soon became impossible to ignore, prompting some content creators to speculate that the predominance of face filters, carefully calculated angles and curated Instagram pages had warped public perception of what creators should look like, or indeed, what people look like.
The mental strain of being an enormously popular YouTuber already seems nigh insufferable - the negative effect of being constantly observed by a rabid crowd of obsessives is well-documented, but bullying a 23-year-old for revealing his face might be a new low for the parasocial crowd.
Once they grow to a certain level of fame, TikTokers and YouTubers seem to be viewed as brands rather than people; the content creator becomes flattened into another piece of content, and basic human decency disappears in the noise.
Unlike traditional celebrities, content creators tend to interact directly with their fans, on a regular basis. Backlash in response to controversy is expected at this point, but not in response to a face reveal.
In contrast to the toxicity online, Dream’s face reveal video ended with a positive message, with Dream telling his fans that he is “living proof” that anyone can achieve success.
“Anyone can be under the mask and I don’t want my face reveal to take away from that fact,” he said. “Dream could have been anyone from anywhere.”
