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Dream, the YouTube star who has built a 30-million subscriber following playing Minecraft, has finally revealed his face to his legion of followers.
The previously unseen gamer, who ordinarily obscures his face with a smiley face mask in his “Minecraft Manhunt” series, reintroduced himself to followers on Sunday night and quickly notched the No. 1 trending spot on the platform. The reveal amassed more than 19.8 million views by Monday morning.
“My name is Clay, maybe you’ve heard of me, maybe not,” the Orlando, Fla.-based gamer said in the video. “Maybe you clicked on this video out of pure curiosity and you don’t care who I am. But now you’ve seen my face.”
The once-mysterious 23-year-old said he felt compelled to show his face because he is meeting his best friend George for the first time in real life. He said that George, whom he’s known since he was 11 years old, was in the U.K. trying to get a visa so that he can move to the United States.
“George is going to be in the airport and I’m gonna meet him for the first time. I’ve known him so long. It feels like my entire life,” he said.
George, for the uninitiated, is the popular YouTuber George “GeorgeNotFound” Davidson, who often collaborates with Dream and fellow streamer Sapnap “Nick” as “The Dream Team,” making Minecraft videos and other content for Dream’s channel. Last year, Davidson said that he’s planning to move in with Dream and Sapnap, who are already roommates.
But meeting George appeared to be part of a bigger plan that involves Dream taking his digital work into the real world.
“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 said.
The award-winning YouTube personality said he’s been “bunkered up” while people try to “leak” what he looks like online. He also spent the last few days revealing his face to friends and other online content creators on FaceTime “just to get a little more hype as well.”
“What does this mean for me? I’m going to keep making the same content. I’m gonna make Minecraft videos. I don’t plan on adding a face cam, to be honest, but I will make more IRL content as well, where I’m with my friends and we do things,” he said.
“This channel is living proof that anyone can do anything. Anyone can be under the mask,” he later added. “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. Dream could’ve been anyone from anywhere.”
The YouTuber has been a polarizing personality on the platform, has been doxed and accused of cheating in Minecraft. Not surprisingly, his massive following has also come with a lot of negative side effects. Addressing some of that head-on, Dream said he knew that many might still doubt the authenticity of his video or might believe he was an actor standing in for the gamer.
“I feel like I’ve gotten so desensitized to hate that I find a lot of it funny that I maybe shouldn’t,” he said, adding that he recently got a text message from an FBI agent that he didn’t take seriously: It was about a threat on his life.
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