“Hi, I [am] Dream.”
On Oct. 2, popular Minecraft content creator Dream revealed his face in a long-awaited face reveal titled “Hi, I’m Dream”. The video garnered more than 38 million views a week later.
Dream is a 23-year-old Minecraft content creator. So, what’s with the big hype about a person showing their face?!l? Up until now, Dream’s identity has always been disguised, hiding it behind his famous smiley face mask. He has exploded in popularity over the last 3 years, having 30.9 million subscribers as of currently and this recent face reveal surged his popularity on social media platforms. The tag #dreamfacereveal began trending on Twitter immediately after publishing the video.
However, not all receptions were positive. Among the top trending topics on Twitter was “He is Ugly,” with people on the internet soon insulting the influencer’s appearance.
In an age where looks are everything, especially with the rise of faceless content creators, it is sad to see people limit celebrities and influencers down to just their looks behind their personas and immediately trash them online when their faces do not meet expectations.
With a massive fan base that Dream has, it is easy to see the high unrealistic expectations that they put into Dream’s face. His fanbase fan art depicted him in blonde and light brown hair, along with youthful and charming facial features that depicted Dream as a very attractive man.
Also, it does not help that a couple of days prior, Dream’s online celebrity friends teased to the public that they have been on a FaceTime call with Dream, expressing positive emotions at seeing his real face, furthering fan’s expectations about his face.
For example, Karl Jacobs, a popular influencer, Twitch streamer and YouTuber known for his Minecraft content tweeted his live reaction to his facetime with Dream, a day before the planned reveal, saying how “…he looks like a baseball player, has a bit of a mullet” and most importantly, “You [are] actually handsome! You [are] not supposed to be handsome!” Fans quickly reacted to his tweet, with most of the replies under Jacob’s tweet being someone laying on the ground, indicating that they are “deceased”, excitement and anticipation, as well as numerous tweets about how “antis are gonna be simping.” This further raises fan expectations of Dream being someone who is conventionally attractive.
Unfortunately, along with such a massive fanbase are also haters and internet trolls. Soon, Twitter began attacking Dream, with tweets such as “He [is] so ugly” and “Keep the mask back on” as well as other tweets hating the influencer’s appearance.
Sadly, this is not the first time that Dream has received backlash for his appearance. Even before his face reveal, trolls online have supposedly uncovered alleged photos of Dream, posting them online as well as calling Dream out for “catfishing” his audience.
This kind of negative attitude reinforces the idea that looks are the most important part of a person. Personally, when I first saw Dream’s reaction, I admit his face was not what I was expecting, but at the end of the day, he looks just like a normal person, and there is nothing wrong with his appearance. The internet’s reaction to Dream’s face reveals an issue with internet culture. People want influencers and their celebrities to be perfect people, with perfect appearances and if someone does not meet such expectations, they are subjected to hate online.
Such reactions and high expectations placed on influencers are exactly the reason why other famous faceless content creators, such as Corpse Husband purposely hide his face. Famous for his music and his hidden face, it is easy to see why Corpse has garnered such popularity and why his fans are dying to see a face reveal of him.
Corpse himself spoke on the subject of face reveal, explaining why he won’t be showing what he looks like in a stream. “When you have millions of people who think I look like this or that and you look different from their expectations, it [is] going to let down a lot of people and I do not want to do that,” Corpse explains.
At the end of the day, Dream’s face reveals an ugly side of the internet, one filled with high expectations for influencers’ and celebrity’s appearances and that people somehow think it is now okay to throw hate at them for not meeting their expectations. Although Dream has many fans that support him and his face reveal, there will always be people out there who will bash others just for not meeting their expectations, which is really sad and unfortunate.
