Suds Richardson
Staff Reporter
Dream is a massively popular YouTuber who has gained a mass following in the years 2020 and 2021. In his following, he has also found himself in deep controversy from everyone in affected communities such as the LGBT, Minecraft fans, and POC. He isn’t worthy of his massive following for many reasons but these are just a few of his most prominent examples of misuse of power.
His biggest (and least harmful) offense is how he cheated in Minecraft speedrunning. In a livestream of Minecraft version 1.16, he was trying to beat the game as fast as possible in what is known as speedrunning. In order to beat the game, you must also acquire two items, ‘blaze rods’ and ‘ender pearls.’ However, while playing the game, avid Minecraft fans noticed something was up, a quote from PC Gamer, “moderators at speedrun.com analyzed six of Dream's speedrun streams and found that the odds of getting those drops were an "unfathomably small" 1 in 177 billion.” This is to say that most fans noticed it was virtually impossible to get said necessary items at the rate he did, and it landed him in his hottest water to date.
Later, a quote from Ginx, “Dream admitted that he was playing with a modded version of the game during his 1.16-speed runs,” and said he hadn’t realized it would affect the game as it was designated for servers rather than single-player gameplay. Of course, not many fans bought that he had done it on accident as he also “claims that it was only way later after denials, the hired statisticians, and the public spats, that he realized he may have in fact been running a modded game after all.”
That’s by far the best of it. Another boiling pot he found himself in is queer bating in his merchandise. ‘Queer baiting’ is when media will portray characters as part of the LGBT community but then proceed to not represent them in their entirety or just use them for good PR. However in this case its meaning is a bit different. In this case, Dream had promised to stream throughout the month of June for pride month and to donate all of the money he made to the Trevor Project. But instead, his Twitch went dead. According to Pink News, “Dream was criticized by fans for not streaming throughout June after promising to donate any money raised throughout the month to LGBT+ causes. His Twitch account instead lay dormant.” On the final day of June, he raised money in a livestream of 140,000 dollars and though that may look like a lot, many fans cited this stream just as a way to please the masses and to keep a good image.
Of course, he is also seen to make very racist comments as well. With no introduction needed, one tweet of his read, "Native Americans don't ‘own’ screaming while flicking your tongue around. Of course war is offensive, people die. Saying ‘give la resistance’ is I'm sure offensive to french people, plus, I literally have native American in my blood.” He also wrote in another, "If you're offended, [expletive] off, literally could care less, It's not offensive, and don't be a baby. Get off my account if you want to critique people having fun in a block game." Even aside from the comments themselves, his defensive nature and need for derogatory words prove that he has to put others down for any of what he’s saying to make sense.
Dream isn’t a good person and puts on an image for his fanbase of 12-year-olds. His deep controversy is not unfounded and he does not deserve the massive following he has gained in the past two years.
Image Credit: Niccijade Reeves-Alhark
Comentarios