Anonymous Gaming YouTuber Dream Made Waves When He Revealed His Face. Here’s Why He’s Putting the Mask Back On

Dream, a formerly anonymous Minecraft YouTuber who rose to fame behind the protection of a round, white, smiley-face mask, revealed his face back in October 2022 in a video that received over one million views within an hour of posting. But now, less than a year after that video, he’s decided to don the mask once again due to the hateful comments he’s gotten about his appearance. The YouTuber, whose real name is Clay and who has over 31 million subscribers, made the announcement on Friday, uploading a video titled “bye, from Dream.” In the description, he wrote that he “regretted the attention and hate” he received, so he’s going to be “slowly deleting all pictures of [himself]” on his own social media accounts and is “going back to just being a gamer in a mask.” He’s already deleted his original face reveal video, which had accumulated over 60 million views.

The decision comes as a shock to his fans, who were excited about seeing his face in various settings, including a collaboration video with MrBeast (which he said he’d be deleting) and his upcoming appearance at VidCon later this month. But it’s perhaps unsurprising given the prolonged negative response, which has not relented in the months following the YouTuber’s major moment.

The 23-year-old creator has been making videos for nearly a decade and hit his stride with the Minecraft Dream SMP (“survival multi-player”) server he created with his friend and fellow YouTuber GeorgeNotFound. Anonymous YouTubers like Dream and the mega-popular Corpse Husband have rabid followings of young, loyal fans. In June 2021, Dream told Anthony Padilla, a YouTuber who interviews content creators, that he started wearing the mask because of how quickly he became popular, and it became an important part of his persona that he felt he couldn’t abandon. He decided to forgo the mask because he was planning to meet up with GeorgeNotFound, who moved to Florida in 2022, in person for the first time. The pair made a video of that meeting.

When Dream revealed his face in 2022, Twitter was set ablaze with negative comments about his appearance. The term “He’s Ugly” and #PutTheMaskBackOn started trending on the platform shortly after he uploaded the video. Many of Dream’s fans and supporters came to his defense, attempting to fend off the bullies.

In the new video, George and Minecraft YouTuber Nick (SapNap) jokingly encourage Dream to put the mask back on because they say his views have decreased (he went from getting tens of millions of views to averaging around five million) and he’s “fallen off.” Dream says that he opposes the idea of putting the mask back on because people have already seen his face, and his friends tell him to delete anything with his face in it (which social media users recognize won’t do much because his face has been shared widely across the internet). Dream has the ability to delete his own videos, but given that YouTube creators make money off their videos, getting his friends to take down any of their videos that feature him doesn’t seem as likely.

Dream goes on to tell his friends that he needs a new mask because he can’t see out of his own well, so he enlists the help of a mask company that is said to have created the masks for Batman, Black Panther, and Daft Punk. He shows the process of getting the mask created and ends the video by going to McDonald’s in the mask. Addressing those who don’t think Dream is serious about the mask, he adds text to the end of the video that says, “I will also be wearing my mask everywhere from now on. Yes, even in public. Yes. I’m seriously putting the mask back on.” Dream was also photographed at the NBA Finals game this weekend in the mask with George by his side.

The reaction on Twitter to Dream’s most recent announcement was similar to that of his face reveal; a large portion of the tweets are mean-spirited about his decision to put the mask back on.

His fans seem to be disappointed that they won’t get a chance to take a photo with him when he speaks on a panel at VidCon later this month, but some are holding out hope that he’ll remove the mask during the panel. It’s yet to be seen how re-concealing his visage will affect his fans’ enthusiasm for his content.