American YouTuber and Twitch streamer who is known primarily for creating Minecraft content, Dream is finally revealing the man behind the mask.
Dream is a Minecraft streamer and YouTubers are kings and queens of their own sprawling ecosystem, and some of the most popular creators on the entire internet. And the most popular of all may be Dream, who up until tonight, had never actually shown his real face to his fans, or even his friends, known only by a simple, iconic smiley face.
Dream revealing his face was, to put it mildly, a big deal for his community and Minecraft as a whole. Dream has an astonishing fanbase with 5.6 million Twitter followers, 3.1 million Instagram followers and 30.4 million YouTube subscribers. For context, Fortnite’s Ninja has 23.8 million. Dr. Disrespect has 4.1 million. Taylor Swift has 47.5 million. Dream is a big deal, according to Forbes
"Hi, I'm Dream, and this is what I look like," he wrote underneath his video. "After years of being completely faceless online, I finally decided to do a face reveal."
He’s a 23 year old named Clay, and before this reveal, he built this up as an event, facetiming many of his gaming friends for the first time, and they all posted their reactions to his face, but the audience reveal was saved until tonight, and premiered on YouTube with 1.2 million people tuning in to catch a glimpse of him. This is what celebrity is in 2022. And you can get there without showing your face.
There are not too many big YouTubers left who are completely anonymous. Corpse Husband comes to mind as another gaming figure who has never revealed his face intentionally, but Dream is certainly the biggest person to do something like this. I remember years ago when face reveals were a pretty common thing on YouTube and Twitch before most streamers went live with little boxes of themselves in the corner, but these days if you’re streaming, you’re probably doing it with your own face, albeit it not your own name. One exception to this is the fascinating rise of Vtubing, where players controller virtual avatars synced to their real-life movements standing in for themselves. It’s a little bit “metaverse,” if you want to go there.
"Probably a lot of you are wondering why now? Why are you finally revealing your face? You haven't shown your face the entire time," Dream said. "And it's 'cause George, he's my best friend, he's been in the U.K. trying to get a visa to come to America to come move here and move in with me and Sapnap….George is going to be in the airport, and I'm going to meet him for the first time. I've known him so long, it feels like my entire life."
As for Dream and why he decided to do this now, it has to do with one of his friends moving to America, and he’s just tired of being “bunkered up,” he said in the reveal video. It certainly opens him up to create a wider range of content, and do things with his friends in real life without the need for secrecy or fear of leaks. At a certain point, being hidden for so long with this much build-up has to be exhausting. Though I do not envy being a 23 year old revealing your face to 30 million people after years of build-up and speculation, even if it turns out you are a perfectly good looking kid. We’ll see what Dream does next from here, and how often we’ll see his face going forward as he enters this new era.
George of the account GeorgeNotFound and Sapnap are also Minecraft YouTubers, and Dream posted photos of the trio hanging out, writing on Instagram, "The dream team collection is complete."
And ultimately, Dream noted he was ready for a change. "My goal was to just start doing things, get out, meet creators, say hi to my friends finally, just get out in the world, be an actual creator, be a person," he continued in his YouTube video. "I've been bunkered up—you don't know the people trying to leak my face, trying to find out what I look like. There's too many. It's just a tiny bit too much."
Dream said he's spent the last few days "face revealing" to his pals and fellow creators on FaceTime. And he hopes his followers will continue to get to know him, too. While
Dream said he's going to keep making Minecraft videos—and at this time doesn't plan to add a Facecam—he noted he also wants to share more posts of him and his friends, according to E! News.
He plans on adding real-life content as well and do more creative executions that he did not get the chance to do before.
"This channel is living proof that anyone can do anything. Anyone can be under the mask and I don't want my face reveal to take away from that fact because it's true and it can be and you can do it if you want to."
He also thanked everyone who supported him all these years.
"I owe you all everything and will do my best to always give it to you and give it back to the world," he said.