p>YouTuber? Dream has broken records and generated millions of views, but the man behind the avatar is a mystery. With 16.4 million subscribers on YouTube, Dream is one of the fastest-growing YouTube channels on the platform. - Though he has faced controversy however, the Minecraft expert is still one of the most loyal and committed fans on the internet. Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
/p>
p>Minecraft YouTuber? Dream has rapidly risen up the creator hierarchy and is now one of the fastest-growing YouTube channel's of 2020, and the second overall creator of the year according to the platform. The unassuming green avatar with a knack for uncovering "Minecraft's" cavern-filled secrets has managed to gain more than 16 million subscribers in under two years. But what exactly is it that makes Dream so special and popular when there have been thousands of content creators who have created worlds with Minecraft's characteristic blocks?
/p>
p>Who is Dream?
/p>
p>Dream's personal life and identity are still unknown, with the sleepy-named YouTuber? preferring to keep his image private. His online avatar is a simple neon-green model. The figure's aesthetics are well-known and easily identifiable to the typical "Minecraft" viewer.
/p>
p>Mysticat, a YouTuber? states that Dream's brand is "unprofessional but that doesn't mean it's not good." Dream uses a Microsoft Paint drawn character that's super doofy and appealing to kids, which is Minecraft's core viewers."
/p>
p>Dream created his YouTube channel in 2014 but it's not clear if the channel was regularly updated until July 2019. In his first video, Dream "triggers" viewers by playing the game as bad as he can. He does this by putting blocks on the top, killing sheep for their wool, eating rotten flesh, and even placing blocks on top.
/p>
p>After his first upload, Dream started posting content fairly often. https://minecraftservers.cc/ Felix Kjellberg, known online as the wildly popular PewDiePie?, was playing "Minecraft" for his huge audience of more than 100 million followers at that point. Dream was able to find an opportunity to alter Kjellberg's "world seed," meaning, the randomly generated world his "Minecraft" game created, using tricks he learned from forums. The video was viewed by 200,000 viewers within two days. Dream then created three videos that would garner over two million views each. At the end of July, Dream had gained 54,000 subscribers and his star was born.
/p>
p>For the next few months, Dream's channel will continue to increase millions of views and thousands of subscribers but his breakthrough moment occurred in November 2019. After uploading a series of videos that capitalized on the trend format "___ but ___ is changing every time,"" Dream struck diamond. His video , titled "Minecraft, But Items Drops are Random and Multiplied ..." became a viral hit and racked up 32 million views and giving him 600,000 new subscribers.
/p>
p>In the following year, Dream would upload fairly regularly, steadily increasing his number of subscribers a month and millions of views on video. His "Minecraft Speedrunner vs." series, in which Dream would choose to complete the game while certain NPCs or non-player characters, chased after him, or objectives needed to be completed was a huge hit. He would also start working with GeorgeNotFound? as who was a friend and a future participant on Dream's server for roleplaying which he founded in the month of May of 2020.
/p>
p>Dream has been accused of cheating in Minecraft
/p>
p>Dream's channel was reaching its peak of subscriber growth, reaching 2.6 million subscribers by August 2020 and becoming the mainstay of the game. He had uploaded a speedrun of the 1.14 version of Minecraft in March of 2020 and 1.15 in June, so when version 1.16 version came out later in the year, he had to go with it. He finished his run in fifth place and was pleased with where he settled on the leaderboard.
/p>
p>On December 11 of 2020, moderator of the official speedrun forums Geosquare uploaded a YouTube video titled "Did Dream Fake His Speedruns Official Moderator Analysis." Geosquare and his fellow Minecraft moderators had looked over the livestream runs and believed that Dream had recorded events that were statistically unlikely to have occurred without the help of mods or cheats. In a document that spanned 29 pages the moderators reached the conclusion that the chances that Dream was able to locate the two items needed to complete the game quickly was 1 in 1.75 trillion.
/p>
p>Dream has denied any wrongdoing or cheating in multiple Twitter threads and videos. In his own video addressing the claims made on December 23, Dream shared a research study which he had commissioned by his analysis of his company Photoexcitation which came to the conclusion that the chances of his run occurring were in fact 1 out of 100 million.
/p>
p>The speedrunning mods later released a new five-page document discrediting Dream's studies. Dream responded with an official tweet, stating that "this drama has been a stressful time for the majority of the Minecraft community and a large portion of that was probably due to my original response to the drama. I take full responsibility for that."
/p>
p>Dream has faced harassment including doxxing
/p>
p>On January 1, 2021 Dream fans managed to locate his house using a photo of his kitchen that was posted to his second account, and shared the details, a violation of privacy, referred to as doxxing.
/p>
p>In a Twitlonger from January 7 Dream talked about the incident and his ex-girlfriend, whom believes is spreading false reports about him. Dream denied what he claimed were her accusations, that he "doesn't really care about YouTube" and that his friends who appear in his videos do not receive a "revenue" taken from his channel.
/p>
p>How Dream mastered the YouTube algorithm
/p>
p>The massive growth of Dream between 2019 and 2020 can be attributed to his knowledge of the YouTube algorithm.
/p>
p>He makes use of keywords in the right spots and leverages trends to create thumbnails that viewers will be compelled to click. Similar to the genius of Jimmy Donaldson, the highly-popular Mr. Beast uses in his videos, Dream has figured out how to be successful on YouTube.
/p>
