Dream is entering his VTuber era

Dream is back with another face reveal.

Well, sort of.

A few years ago, he was one of the most popular and prolific gaming creators on the internet. The founder and central figure of eponymous Minecraft server Dream SMP, he gathered a group of fellow gamers and brought them together for collaborative adventures that inspired a massive fanbase and helped Minecraft maintain its foothold as a top game on both YouTube and Twitch.

Dream was also known for something else: his reluctance to reveal his face. He was arguably the biggest “faceless” content creator to date–but broke that in October 2022, when he unmasked for the first time. A few months later, after shutting down Dream SMP due to dwindling interest from both viewers and participating content creators, he walked back the face reveal, saying he “regretted the attention and hate” that had come from it.

Since then, he’s been pretty quiet, only emerging here and there for the occasional YouTube upload and beef with former friend/SMP member Tommyinnit.

Until now.

Earlier this month, he tweeted he was working on a “rebrand” of his image to start a “new chapter” of his career as a content creator. And this week, in a 38-minute YouTube livestream called “Dream 2.0,” he unveiled exactly what that rebrand is.

He’s becoming a VTuber.

In old-school Apple announcement style, he criticized his longtime mascot, The Blob, for being “not expressive,” “not versatile,” and having “zero depth.”

“It doesn’t move,” he added. “It’s just…a Blob.”

The idea? Make The Blob into a fully rigged VTuber model that moves when Dream moves and talks when Dream talks.

“There are some key components I thought we could add to address the problems: motion, the Dream brand, and 3D,” Dream said. “So what did we come up with? It’s Dream 2.0, we added height, width, and depth. You can actually see the side profile. So now… I’m a VTuber.”

Compared to the uber-detailed avatars of VTubers with top agencies like Hololive and VShojo, Dream’s model is basic, but it does have smooth, accurate animation, and marks a new era for him–an era that puts him among the ranks of creators who are also known for not revealing their faces. In VTubing, it’s culturally unacceptable for fans to ask creators to reveal their IRL visages. Maintaining the illusion where their models are their true digital representations is a key aspect for VTubers, and fans are keen to help keep that aspect intact.

Perhaps by committing to VTubing, Dream is hoping to stave off any future demands that he re-reveal his IRL face.

He’s also joining one of the fastest-growing categories in digital content creation. YouTube just released a new Culture & Trends report showing that that in 2020, more than half of people said they weren’t even willing to consider watching VTubers. Fast-forward to 2024, where 57% of 14 to 44-year-olds said they’d watched content from a VTuber in the last 12 months. Big change!

Dream capped off his VTuber reveal with a reduxed look for all his social channels, and said he plans to stream and upload more often. inb4 he joins the next big VTuber boy band?