He is Finally Unmasked!

Dream, a famous content creator on Youtube that uploads Minecraft gaming videos, received considerable amounts of backlash from his recently uploaded face reveal. Many people have expressed disappointment for his facial appearance, and for this reason people are hurling disrespectful comments towards him.

Who is Dream anyway?

Dream started his YouTube channel in 2014, and as the channel continued to grow, he started posting Minecraft content regularly from July 2019. As of the time of writing, his YouTube channel has earned 31.1 million subscribers. He is most notably known for his Minecraft speedruns, where he attempts to complete the game by beating the Ender Dragon as fast as possible – breaking several records in the process. The majority of his viewers also tune in to enjoy his Manhunts, where he does a speedrun while trying to avoid death from multiple of his friends hunting him down. Finally creating a calmer series named Dream SMP (Survival Multiplayer) in April 2020 with fellow YouTuber companion GeorgeNotFound, it is a roleplay-based series where Dream’s friends gradually get involved in the world of colonization, drama, and the exploration of distant lands.

But throughout his YouTube career, one thing has stood out from him - his anonymity that has been protected by his iconic smiley face mascot. The 23-year-old YouTuber has always avoided showing his true identity to the world - even to the majority of his YouTuber friends. This smiley face has been the highlight of his identity online, and has even been applied on his merchandise and his Minecraft skin.

The long-awaited face reveal

His three years of anonymity changed on October 3, 2022. Dream had finally taken off the smiley face mask he has been hiding behind, through a video named “hi, I’m Dream”. This video was pre-announced on a community post in YouTube on September 19. This post obviously sparked lots of interest on the long-anonymous content creator, and consequently lots of hype and huge hopes from his fans. This is how the video quickly earned 1.1 million views in the first hour of its premiere. He introduced his real name as Clay, and admitted that hiding his true identity as a globally known content creator had become mentally challenging and difficult.

And it was not only YouTube that saw the face of Dream. The first selfie he posted on Twitter blew up and was witnessed by millions of people, fan or not, all over the world, earning more than 800 thousand likes. On the same day, the hashtag #DreamFaceReveal became the single most popular hashtag on Twitter in the US, spreading his newly revealed face like wildfire.

What did the community have to say?

Much of his fans have responded with modest and uplifting comments, praising his appearance and various different aspects of his face. Additionally, famous celebrities and other content creators like Addison Rae have shared positive remarks regarding Dream’s face reveal - in a video uploaded to Tiktok, Addison Rae gasped while reacting live to Dream’s face. Another content creator, Shane Dawson, posted an Instagram story regarding Dream’s face and entered the caption, “How is this not me?”, implying that Dream looks similar to him.

On the other side of the spectrum, people have harshly criticized his facial appearance, comparing him to fictional characters that generally have sharp chins and a grin. Some of these jokes were made lightly - although coming off as quite disrespectful - and some other criticisms outright condemned his looks and straightforwardly called him ugly.

As a result, the hashtag #PutTheMaskBackOn quickly arose and went viral following his face reveal, urging him to go back undercover due to his “ugly face”.

Why the hate?

As unexpected and harsh the insults are, this could be traced back to the hints and clues Dream has given over the years. Previously, details about his appearance have been given implicitly in his videos, which suggest that he has blonde hair and green eyes. In past videos he has stated that his height was 6’3” (or 1.91 meters). Furthermore, in a collaboration with the musician Alec Benjamin and for modeling his merchandise, he has presented a thin figure in the pictures taken. All of these features fit the beauty standard for western men, and fans raised their hopes and expected a supermodel with impressive facial features.

The Aftermath

Only a day after the face reveal, grooming accusations were broadcasted in Twitter, stating that Dream has revealed his face to some fans, allegedly minors, through private chats while flirting. This allegation was spread far and wide, prompting a clarification from Dream. Dream had cleared up that he was having “friendly conversations” in the absence of inappropriate messages and the person who he was conversing with lied about their age – they actually were of legal age. Moreover, because of his anonymity, fans have been speculating what his face actually looks like based on rough descriptions and sometimes sneak peeks from himself. This brought huge amounts of attention and relevance towards Dream. However, fans do not need to speculate what he looks like when he has revealed it, which dried up online conversations about Dream.

He’s not a supermodel. He is just a content creator seeking to entertain viewers with his videos. There was no need to put immense amounts of pressure and hate towards him just because he did not satisfy the expectations of some fans. He definitely did not deserve the bullying directed towards him just because of showing his true self. It certainly took courage for him to unmask himself, but that was met with extreme disrespect that potentially hurt him mentally and emotionally. “Fans” should not treat any of their favourite content creators like this, as if the same was done against them, they would experience the same emotional trauma as their content creator did.