What Dream’s Face Reveal Says About the Internet
Dream’s mask is easily recognizable by fans and non fans alike, and he literally has a song about wearing this exact mask to hide his true self.
October 24, 2022
Unless you have been living under a rock, you probably know about the face-reveal of the famous minecraft youtuber known as Dream. Ever since 2019, Dream has been gaining a lot of attention and popularity due to his use of interactive roleplay in his games. This was known as “dream SMP”, and the Dream team gained millions of fans because of their unique way of streaming. Another important detail about Dream himself is that he never shows his face, and even though on the surface this doesn’t seem like such a big deal, the more popularity he gains, the more people start to wonder about what Dream really looks like.
About 2 years after his initial rise to fame, Dream filmed a video titled “hi, I’m Dream”, where he takes off his mask and shows his face. Instantaneously, this video was the hottest topic on every social media website, and people began discussing their personal opinions on his face. Some-mostly his dedicated fans- sent positive messages and expressed that they were happy he revealed his face to the world. Others, however, started calling him ugly and making memes out of screenshots from the video. Some people stayed indifferent, expressing that they never cared for the guy, so they don’t necessarily care about what he looks like.
People have very high expectations on internet celebrities’ faces. It’s not their fault for not meeting those. — Kimberley-Mae Jeves (12)
In Dream’s case, his fanbase is huge, and many people drew fanarts on what they wanted him to look like. When his face was finally shown, many people reacted badly because of this expectation that their favorite minecraft youtuber looks the same as their art. Some commentators believe that it is cruel to judge someone based on your expectations, while other people feel that it is absolutely fair to bash celebrities online since they have made a clear choice to show themselves. If they made the active decision of showing their face and personality, then that means they are allowing others to comment on it.
So why am I talking about all of this then? Well, the thing about celebrities is that there is a parasocial relationship that is created between the celebrity and the people that follow their content. Basically, this means that the celebrity doesn’t know anything about their individual fans, but their fans know a lot about them. This is especially prominent when it comes to internet superstars because streaming platforms like twitch allows for the experience to feel more intimate. The problem is that people tend to forget the fact that no matter how much time you spend watching and interacting with your favorite creators, they are still strangers at the end of the day. Whether you hate or love a specific creator, you are free to say and do whatever you want, which causes many people to live in this tight bubble of thoughts about a person who they don’t personally know. This is causing more and more creators to stop showing their faces because of how scary the internet can be even if it’s coming from a place of love. Dream’s face-reveal shows the true powers of building a huge platform on the internet and the negative effects that it can potentially cause.
