
Dream (YouTuber)

Dream is an American YouTuber known primarily for "Minecraft" content and speedrun videos. He began his YouTube career in 2014 and gained substantial popularity in 2019 and 2020 having uploaded videos based around the game "Minecraft", and is well known for his YouTube series "Minecraft Manhunt". , his seven YouTube channels have collectively reached over million subscribers and over billion views. YouTube listed Dream as the breakout creator of 2020. At the end of 2020, Dream was accused of cheating following an investigation by a major speedrun website.
Career.
YouTube.
Dream created his YouTube account on February 8, 2014.
In a video from January 2020, Dream and another YouTuber, GeorgeNotFound, connected an Arduino board to an electric dog collar which emitted an electric shock whenever a player lost health in the game "Minecraft".
In December 2020, in place of their annual "YouTube Rewind" series, YouTube released a list of their top-trending videos and creators. On the U.S. list, YouTube ranked Dream's "Minecraft Speedrunner VS 3 Hunters GRAND FINALE" video as the number seven "Top Trending Video", and ranked Dream as the number two "Top Creator" and number one "Breakout Creator". A livestream by Dream on YouTube in November 2020 with around 700,000 peak viewers was the 6th highest viewed gaming stream of all time as of January 2021. A December 2020 "Polygon" article stated that "2020 has been a tremendous year for Dream", describing him as "YouTube's biggest gaming channel of the moment".
"Minecraft Manhunt".
Dream's most well-known and most-watched series is "Minecraft Manhunt". In "Minecraft" "Manhunt" one player—usually Dream—attempts to finish the game as fast as possible without dying, while another player or team of players (the "Hunters") attempts to stop this player from beating the game by killing them. The hunters each possess a compass pointed towards the player's location and are allowed to respawn whenever they die. The hunters win the game if the player dies before beating "Minecraft".
On December 26, 2019, Dream uploaded the first video in this series, titled "Beating Minecraft But My Friend Tries to Stop Me". Dream would subsequently repeat this style of video on many occasions, increasing the number of Hunters over time. Many of the videos have received tens of millions of views. One of his Manhunt videos was sixth in YouTube's Top Trending Videos of 2020.
Nicolas Perez, writing in "Paste", described Minecraft Manhunt as "an experience that leaves me slack-jawed every time", stating that the format of "Minecraft Manhunt" "seems to guarantee the hunters come out on top. But more often than not, Dream pulls just enough aces out of his sleeve to narrowly beat the hunters, and eventually the game."
"Dream SMP".
The Dream SMP server is a private Survival Multiplayer "Minecraft" server owned by Dream, started on April 25, 2020. It is played on by Dream and other prominent Minecraft content creators. The server is divided into factions and includes heavy roleplay with major events being loosely scripted in advance, most other elements being improvisation, performed live on YouTube and Twitch. Cecilia D'Anastasio, writing in "Wired," described the Dream SMP as a form of live theatre and as a "Macchiavellian political drama", with over 1 million people tuning in to the livestreams during January 2021.
"Minecraft" competitions.
Throughout 2020, Dream was a prominent participant in "Minecraft Championship", a monthly "Minecraft" competition organized by Noxcrew. In 2020, Dream came first in the 8th and 11th Minecraft Championships. In September 2020, during the 10th Minecraft Championship, he played for charity, raising around $3,400.
Speedrun cheating accusations.
In early October 2020, Dream livestreamed a speedrun of "Minecraft" in the "1.16+" category, and submitted his time to "Speedrun.com". He was awarded 5th place for the record.
On December 11, 2020, following a two-month investigation, Speedrun.com's "Minecraft" verification team removed his run from the boards. The team published a 14-minute video to YouTube and a report analyzing six archived livestreams of speedrunning sessions by Dream from around the time of the record; they concluded that the game had been modified to make the chance of obtaining certain items needed to complete the game higher than normal. The report found that the odds of obtaining the items legitimately were 1 in 7.5 trillion. Dream denied the accusations in a YouTube video and responded with a commissioned report written by an anonymous statistician, who he claimed was an astrophysicist. "Dot Esports" said the report did not exonerate him, and "at most" suggested it was not impossible that he was lucky. The moderation team stood by their ruling. In a tweet, Dream indicated that he would accept their decision, without admitting fault.