About

Dream, also known as DreamWasTaken, is an American YouTuber and Minecraft speedrunner who is known for his Minecraft player challenge videos and Minecraft Manhunt series with frequent collaborators GeorgeNotFound, Sapnap, and BadBoyHalo. Dream, George, and Sapnap are part of what is called the "Dream Team" while BadBoyHalo is an "unofficial" member.^[1]

Online History

Dream was born on August 12th, 1999 and lives in Florida, USA.^[2] Dream’s YouTube account was created on February 8th 2014.^[7] Before Dream became popular, he posted videos on this account that have since been deleted. The first remaining upload is a cursed Minecraft video posted on July 6th, 2019 (shown below, left).^[8] After this, he began posting a series of videos about discovering the Minecraft world seed of YouTuber PewDiePie (shown below, right).^[9] By August 2019, he had over 100,000 subscribers.^[2] After this, Dream posted several "Unsolved Mystery" videos before doing Minecraft player challenge videos with his friends GeorgeNotFound and Sapnap.

Dream's videos often start with the phrase "In this video…" Additionally, he often repeats a phrase at the beginning of his videos about YouTube subscribers as follows:

Also, according to YouTube Statistics, only a small percentage of people who watch my videos are actually subscribed, so if you end up liking this video, consider subscribing. It's free, and you can always unsubscribe. Enjoy the video.

A December 1st, 2020 YouTube blog post ranked Dream as the top breakout creator in the U.S. in 2020.^[21]

Minecraft Manhunt

Dream is known for his Minecraft Manhunt series in which he tries to beat the game’s final boss, the Ender Dragon, while one or more players try to stop him. The hunters can respawn if killed but the person being hunted loses once they die. Dream began this style of video in a player challenge with GeorgeNotFound called "Beating Minecraft, But My Friend Tries To Stop Me…" that gained over 6.7 million views in ten months (shown below, left).^[10] In April 2020, Dream posted the first of the "official" Minecraft Manhunt videos, receiving more than 23 million views in six months (shown below, right).^[11] Sometime after this point, the term "Minecraft Manhunt" was retroactively applied to all similar player challenges on his channel.

Many of Dream’s Minecraft Manhunt videos after his April 2020 video have tens of millions of views. On July 19th, Dream posted "Minecraft Speedrunner VS 3 Hunters FINALE" which gained over 29 million views in three months.^[12] The term "Minecraft Manhunt" trended on Twitter, prompting several gaming news sites to publish articles on Minecraft Manhunt.^[13][14][15] The most popular installment as of October 2020 is "Minecraft Speedrunner VS 3 Hunters GRAND FINALE," which, posted to Dream’s channel on August 7th, accumulated almost 40 million views in under three months.^[16]

Fandom

Online, Dream and the Dream Team are often the subjects of shipping and fanfiction. One video posted on April 27th, 2020 called "iconic dream and george stream moments #1" received over 3 million views in five months (shown below).^[17] Dream and George have stated that they do not mind the shipping culture.

Minecon 2020

For the Minecraft convention Minecon 2020, a vote was held in which people could decide which of three mobs the developers of Minecraft would put into the game's next update. Dream posted a since-deleted tweet in support of the Glow Squid and the mob later won the vote. This led some to believe Dream had influenced the vote by getting his fans to vote for the Glow Squid. Dream later apologized for the incident.^[18]

Speedrun Cheating

Dream Speedrun Cheating Controversy refers to confirmed allegations of cheating made against Minecraft YouTuber and speedrunner Dream in October 2020 which were supported with convincing evidence in December 2020, with Dream's version 1.16 Minecraft speedrun record being removed. In May 2021, Dream admitted to cheating but claimed that he did so inadvertently.

Dream's "Mask"

"Mask" is a 2021 song by Dream. The song released in May 2021, with the music video releasing in June. The video for the song has become a subject of jokes, spawning Normal Pills and You Are Not Normal memes.

Online Presence

Notably, Dream went from 100,000 subscribers in August 2019 to 8 million subscribers by August 2020.^[2][3] As of October 2020, he has over 11 million subscribers. On Twitch, he has over 1.7 million followers.^[4] He has a subreddit of dedicated fans, /r/DreamWasTaken,^[19] which was created on August 3rd, 2019 and gained over 81,000 subscribers as of October 2020. He also has over 1 million followers on Twitter.^[20] Aside from his online following, Dream is one of the world's top Minecraft speedrunners.^[5] At one point, he held the world record in the Any% Glitchless (Random Seed) category for Minecraft version 1.15 (shown below).^[6]

Search Interest

External References