Dream, a popular gaming streamer has been an anonymous YouTuber for about 3 years, wearing a cartoon-smiley mask for his videos and finding his face from public. Earlier this week (October 2nd), Dream finally did a face-reveal to his more than 30 million YouTube subscribers, which has resulted in mixed reactions across the globe.
What I find interesting about people like Dream who hide their true identity is that the anonymity makes things mysterious. There’s a “cool” factor to the whole situation because it gives the public the idea that this figure (in this case, Dream) can be anyone. For all we know, it could be your neighbour, or your boss, though, the possibilities are narrowed down since Dream has never used a voice changer when recording his video, but you get my point.
On Sunday, Dream uploaded a video to YouTube titled, “hi, I’m Dream,” where he finally took off his smiley face mask to show his true identity to his fans for the first time. He said: “My name is Clay, maybe you’ve heard of me, maybe not. Maybe you clicked on this video out of pure curiosity, and you don’t care who I am.”
At first, many of his fellow YouTube creator friends were praising how Dream looked really good and they didn’t know why he was hiding his face behind a mask. Then, the comments began to turn ugly, and some people were even bashing his appearance, telling him to put the mask back on. There’s actually a hashtag that’s trending on TikTok and Twitter on this topic that I highly suggest you ignore if you don’t like reading rude comments (#PutTheMaskBackOn).
When I read the news about Dream’s face reveal over the past few days, I was tempted to write about this on my blog because I’m sadden by the public reaction. One would believe that we’ve come a long way from our past when people used to discriminate against people based on their physical appearance. However, this event, although not directed towards a specific race or group, reminds us that we haven’t grown up just quite yet.
On a side note, if we’re talking about views, then his video received over 1.1 million views within the hour, and the hashtag #DreamFaceReveal became the No. 1 trending topic in the United States on Twitter on Sunday. However, this also gave people the opportunity to comment negatively about his appearance, and although this might seem like a minor issue, Dream’s face reveal reflects a fervent fandom and how sometimes people don’t like it when you mess with what they are accustomed too (which in this case is Dream’s anonymity).
Many people are still a notoriously fickle lot, bouncing from one trend to another on a whim. One day we can be fans of some public figure, and the next day we can be haters who bash them. It’s almost like ever since Dream revealed his face, people forgot about all of his accomplishments in Minecraft speed-runs and challenges because they can’t stop judging him for his physical appearance. It’s sad. Really sad.
Personally, I think there’s a group of people who thought so highly of Dream that they viewed him as ‘Prince Charming,’ so they were upset that his looks didn’t meet their expectations.
It was upsetting to see how the public can be so mean and judge people based on their looks. Like I’m not an extremely attractive person myself and admittedly, am a bit self-conscious of my own looks, but the reason why I decided to not remain anonymous when I published my first book and broke out on social media was because I wanted my fans to know who I was, so they don’t have their own pre-conceived notions and get upset afterward. Obviously, I wanted people to like me for me, and for my writing to be judged for its quality, not by who I was as an individual (whether it be physical appearance, background, or other circumstances that are connected to my image).
Unfortunately, the world is a cruel place, and we are all victims of being judged by the way we look. Though, some experience the impact more than others. However, I want this to be a friendly reminder that we should respect everyone’s differences and that who we are as an individual should be held higher than our physical appearances.
I’m going to go back to my days in elementary school when my grade school teacher told the whole class on the first day of school. This advice I’ve kept in my mind ever since: “I’m not asking everyone to be friends, but at the very least, let’s respect each other and make our year an enjoyable one for everyone.” Respect is something that a lot of people forget nowadays.
Sometimes, we should take a step back and look at the other person’s perspective before we voice something that could be offensive or hurtful to the other party.
Let’s not forget all the accomplishments Dream has made to the gaming world and respect that he had the courage to reveal his face.