Quinnamon provides a much-needed, nuanced framework for navigating the messy ethical boundaries of modern internet fandom. This analysis successfully balances the right to creative expression with the urgent need to respect the humanity of real-world subjects.
Install our extension to search inside any video instantly.
The Ethics of Real Person Fiction
Added:On October 13th, 2025, YouTubers Daniel Howell and Phil Lester, known together as Dan and Phil, would officially announce to the public that the two of them have been in a romantic relationship for the [music] past 16 years. To outside observers, this was a sweet revelation and nothing more. But to a specific group of internet users, this news dropping was the most fork found in kitchen information of all time. Throughout the 2010s, it was extremely popular and normal even to ship Dan and Phil and fantasize about their possible relationship, even when they presented publicly as just good friends. But the phenomenon of the subculture of fandom was not and never has been exclusive to Fan, that is the ship name of Dan and Phil. It isn't even exclusive to YouTubers and streamers.
The fictionalization and shipping of real people is in its broadest sense referred to as real person fiction or RPF for short. and it has [music] been a controversial subject in Phantom spaces for as long as Phantom spaces have been around. Dan and Phil's confirmation of their relationship has brought back many conversation pieces over the past year.
While many people took the announcement as an opportunity to look back fondly at their younger days, others decided to reinlist in the real person fiction [music] war and start doing what the internet does best, fight. Seeing as this argument will probably never die, and seeing as many people in my real personal life refer to me as the dream not found guy, I'd like to throw my hat into the ring and take a magical mystery tour through the world of RPF. Look at its history, where it stands today, where it undoubtedly crosses the line, and most importantly, beg the question of whether or not real person fiction is even ethical, and try to understand why exactly it appeals to so many people when it's so controversial. Has this ever happened to you?
No. Well, this exact situation happens to millions of tiny gymos every day. So [crying] sad, I know. But you can help.
Yes, you. You can purchase a tiny GMO of your own to nurture and care for and save [music] from those horrible, horrible monsters who cook these little guys every waking hour. Just go to makeshift.com [music] to purchase a GMO of your own and support the Save the Gummo initiative. Currently, you can pledge $2 in order to secure your fluffy plush-like GMO. And if we can get 200 [music] pledges, we can secure the GMO swarm and find them new homes. Once the Gummos have been fully secured, you will be able to purchase a GMO of your own in full. Once again, just go to makeshift.com [music] or click the link in the description to pledge $2 and secure a new home for the tiny Garmos today.
Real person fiction, like many forms of fiction, does not have a specific starting date pinpointed. [music] It has likely existed for as long as humans have been authors. Many would even consider the Bible to be an example of real person fanfiction. A lot of early examples of RPF are less actually what you'd expect RPF [music] to be and more so things that just count as real person fiction by technicality.
Satirical stories like Julius Excluded from Heaven are often cited as the earliest examples. RPF, more similar to the way we know it today, began popping up around the same time fandom did in general. Another work often accredited as being an example of early RPF was a story featured in 1968's Spocknalia, the first Star Trek Zen titled [music] Visit to a Weird Planet that features the show's creator Gene Rodenberry and explores the relation between actors and characters. When it comes to early fandom, Star Trek will always be found at the scene of the crime. The popularization of many bands and musicians was unsurprisingly another [music] turning point for RPF. Led Zeppelin, Metallica, and the Beatles were among the most popular examples.
And interestingly enough, fictional stand-ins were even created to replace members of Led Zeppelin to get away with shipping [music] them in a less controversial fashion. So, even in its earliest days, shipping real people has always been somewhat of a hot topic.
Music and RPF have always gone handinand, as when the 2000s came around, [music] many shifted their focus towards boy bands and pop stars. For fandom in general, the early 2000s completely changed [music] the game.
Fanfiction and fan work no longer had to be distributed exclusively through printing and trading. It could [music] be accessed from almost anywhere anytime if you just knew where to look. As I've already mentioned in videos before, there was never a better time to be a weirdo freak loser. And I say that as a weirdo freak loser myself. [music] Fandom was still finding its footing, though it began to obtain its most concrete sense of identity yet with the invention of two very important websites. [music] Tumblr in 2007, obviously, but more importantly, YouTube in 2005, 20 [music] years ago now. YouTube changed everything, not just for fandoms, [music] not just for the internet. It has changed the way people consume media. It has changed the way companies think and market, and most topically so, it has changed the way that audiences perceive the strangers on their screens.
YouTubers weren't like your average celebrities. [music] They felt more real, down to earth, like people you could actually be friends with. You didn't need to have diverse talents or conventional attractiveness to make a name for yourself. You just needed to connect with everyday people. And on a website where there seemed to be something for just about anyone, this wasn't a very hard thing to do. [music] Scream at the microphone, lip-sync with your friends, record yourself playing video games poorly, [music] you hardly had to try. And the best part, you could reach out at any moment [music] with just the click of a button.
and they at any moment could choose to respond. Enter parasocialism. OG YouTubers weren't just treated like untouchable celebrities. [music] They were companions that appeared far more real. People you could laugh with in real time that showed you the most relatable and intimate sides of themselves. And with fandom culture on the rise, the YouTube fandom industrial revolution rapidly began. I would probably consider the first [music] golden era of YouTuber fandoms to be most of the 2010s where we got the Smosh movie and saw not only the rise of traffic on the site but also creators specifically interacting closely with other creators. Aaron Hansen and Dan Eden and also John Trron but not so much of Game Grumps, Chris O'Neal and Co, PewDiePie and Cryotic, tragically so.
all of the Minecraft YouTubers, all of the let's players, and most iconically in terms of fandom, Markiplier and Jack SeptiCai and Dan and Phil. Though far from patient zero, Markiplier and Jack Septicai are often one of the first examples that come to mind when people think of YouTuber RPF other than Fan, and especially how shipping real people can affect real friendships. Their story is usually boiled down by onlookers to YouTuber best friends who [music] were torn apart by their own fandom shipping them and now hate each other because of it, which isn't really true. Mark Fishbach and Shawn Mclofflin are two of many YouTubers that found their footing in the golden age of the let's play community. It's undoubtedly entertaining to watch an amusing group of friends play difficult or engaging video games together. There's a reason why so many games nowadays attempt to replicate this magic. The children yearn for who's your daddy.
>> There's a dildo in here.
>> Oh, really? Is that something I can use to kill myself with? [laughter] >> Septiplier specifically came into existence and exploded in popularity for a multitude of reasons. Both Mark and Jack were and still are some of the more significantly emotional and intimate creators in the genre. Not straying away from showing more of their personal lives than their real feelings and emotions. They're passionate and enthusiastic about important causes and most importantly show a genuine appreciation for their communities.
Neither of them shied away from or judge their communities, even fully adopting, celebrating, and building on fan-made creations, as seen with evil alter ego characters Darkiplier and Antiseptic.
The two were also obviously on friendly terms and had a lot of in-person content to sift through simply because they often attended events together, as YouTubers in similar genres and communities tend to do. Though quite honestly, the most appealing factor of these two to shippers was likely just the simple fact that they were associated with bright colors and had an aestheticized appeal about them. They literally, as real people, just had good character design. Red and green hair, Mark being slightly more built and broad, and Jack being hardly twinkish in the slightest, but still enough for people to run with it. They were prime specimens to Yiifi, and they were Yiified. That is very often fandoms tend to have designated popular interpretations of the characters typically coined by designated popular artists or community members frequently referred to as BNFS or bigname fans, though the term has unfortunately dwindled in modern times. Bring that [ __ ] back. You're fandoming wrong. In Septiplier's case, a lot of their popularity likely comes from the fact that artist Cartoon Junkie was leading the shipping charge with their stylized interpretations of the two. Dubbed the queen of the fandom, the majority of popular Septiplier art you'd find on the internet was either created by or heavily inspired by the works from Cartoon Junkie. And in all honesty, this artist's behavior is a prime example of the unsavoriness that can materialize from actively fictionalizing real people. Despite what people usually think, Mark and Jack were not adamantly opposed to the concept of Septiplier.
What made them specifically uncomfortable was NSFW content being created of them and being shown to them in ways they literally could not escape, such as in person. When they had actively asked people to stop, it's no surprise that they did not. Cartoon Junkie or CJ is the most infamous [music] example of this, actively tagging creators in weird [ __ ] and acting like a child after being unfollowed by Markiplier because it is reasonable to not follow someone who draws and posts porn of you. Even before this, they were wildly disrespectful, infamously referring to Daniel Ky as selfish for ending his own life, preventing Mark from immediately sending out giveaway rewards. They were also surprisingly disrespectful towards queer people, despite their platform being largely built on art of gay men. While CJ was undoubtedly the face of Septiplier, best demonstrating both the most celebrated and most disrespectful aspects of the fandom, they were obviously not the only person to exhibit these behaviors. In general, the wishes of the creators were seldom respected.
When it came to Septiplier and when it comes to RPF in general, there are two types of shippers. Those who like the look and fictionalized idea of the pair, and those who genuinely believe that they either should be in a romantic relationship or are already in a hidden one. Unlike a lot of other wildly popular YouTuber ships, however, both Mark and Jack publicly had girlfriends.
And I'm sure you can understand how hardcore shippers took that. When Jack was dating and living with his girlfriend at the time, enough people were up in arms about it preventing Septiplier from happening to the point where he had to issue a statement onto his Tumblr. As for Signping Septiplier from being real, that's just completely and utterly ridiculous. Septiplier was never and never will be a real thing, the fact that I even have to make that clarification is beyond ridiculous, too.
Mark and I made it pretty obvious it was a joke or exaggeration from the get-go, and have said so again since. It's perfectly fine to ship Septiplier and post pics of Mark and I as Septiplier within reason of course no smut. In fact, I enjoy it because Mark and I are great friends. But to say my current existing girlfriend is stopping a madeup relationship from happening is both insulting and just flatout wrong. Again, don't feel you can't post any Septiplier stuff at all. That's not what I'm getting at. Just that some stuff is beyond the limits of what I think is cool. This statement again reinforces that Septiplier itself was not the issue. but rather it was the people who took things too far.
>> What do you think, Septier?
>> Kill me. Kill me.
>> All right, whatever you say, you little scamp. [laughter] >> Many people who saw their discomfort at the NSFW Creations took it as if to say that Septiplier was tearing them apart and ruining their friendship. However, in a 2017 Q&A, Jack also confirmed that despite the discomfort, the ship wasn't putting a strain on their actual friendship. So people shouldn't feel guilty for shipping it so long as they're still respecting boundaries.
Again in 2018, after a period of the two not collaborating, people began to wonder if they were even still friends anymore and if the divide was again caused by shippers. However, once more, Jack prefaced that Septiplier had nothing to do with anything and didn't hurt their relationship. Rather, some unrelated things were in motion and the two got back on track, even working together to start the clothing brand Cloak. [music] Later that same year in 2021, Jack would acknowledge Septiplier again, this time simply looking back at the ship, laughing, and acknowledging that YouTuber shipping didn't begin with the newer generation of creator fandoms.
[music] So, it seems things had a relatively happy ending for the pair.
Despite uncomfortable shipping situations, their relationship clearly remains intact, [music] and everyone's able to look back at those older times and laugh it all off. The tale of Septiplier will forever live on, and their friendship is what we thought until the divorce. In 2024, it was revealed that Jack SeptiCai actually hated Markiplier and the two were the worst of enemies and would never speak to each other ever again. There may not have been an official statement or anything even suggesting such harsh feelings, but trust me, the fans know.
All of the evidence is right there. If you look closely, you can see that Jack [music] Septic Eye has unfollowed Markiplier on Twitter and Instagram.
This can only mean that they despise each other. Ignore the fact that Mark still follows Jack. that is completely irrelevant. So yeah, in 2024, fans realized that Jack had unfollowed Mark along with some mutual friends they had and the Cloak brand. It seemed he had silently dropped from Cloak and unfollowed some people related to it in the process. While I do agree that unfollowing your friends isn't necessarily a common thing to do, I have seen a lot of my creator friends just casually unfollow each other for no real reason whatsoever. A lot of people began joking that this was the great Septto player divorce when the news first broke. But then people began to genuinely speculate about malice or a falling out behind the scenes, which in all honesty is no one's business but Mark and Jax. It's important to also note that Jack has stated before that while they were obviously friends, a lot of people on the internet always assumed them to be way closer than they actually were, and most of their meetings were primarily for the sake of events or content. It's completely reasonable for them to have just drifted apart in recent years, especially considering how busy the both of them have been with different projects [music] and companies. Jack is also known to take breaks from content or work to prioritize his mental health. And Mark has stated multiple times that he is often a difficult person to work and collaborate [music] with. While it is strange that Jack doesn't acknowledge very obvious glaring things like the fact that he was literally in Markiplier's theatrical movie release, there's no reason to believe that the two despise each other by any means.
Wade Barnes, a friend of Mark and Jax and one of the people that Jack unfollowed, has directly stated that he is still friends with Jack and states that he still sends us some of his new coffee and tea stuff. Us referring to multiple people. and he explains that the four of them, referring to him, Jack, Mark, and another friend, Bob, simply hadn't met up in a while. Wade also makes a point in this clip that it just simply isn't anyone else's business what's going on in their personal lives.
And if Jack did have a falling out with anyone, it clearly wasn't over anything damning or controversial enough to speak out about. I myself have plenty of friends I've met through YouTube that I've collaborated with that I've simply grown apart from. I don't necessarily think it means anything and I definitely don't think it means we're beefing. Jack and Mark don't hate each other. They weren't torn apart by their shippers or fandoms. They've simply evolved and changed over time as anyone else would.
At least Jack Septicai still follows Michael Kovac. The fandom for gaming creators in general was always fangirly at best and horrifically parasocial at worst. And that's something we'll see a lot more of looking back at the 2020s specifically. Unfortunately, the internet being exceptionally nosy with your personal lives and relationships is one of the many downsides to becoming a creator. And while Septto player stands as an iconic example of this, it [music] is far from the most disastrous. And it is exceptionally ironic that a ship between two creators who actually were in a hidden relationship was infinitely more catastrophic and damaging than Septiplier ever could have been. Picture this. You're at the MCR5 world tour. The 21 pilots are just finishing up their opening set. After the final song, two men walk on stage to make a special announcement. These men are Dan Howell and Phil Lester, and they announce to the whole world that they have been madly in love since the beginning of their careers. The crowd goes wild. The internet rejoices. Theorists who have analyzed their every move for the past few years are finally left to rest. War has ended. Gerard Weey and Frank Aierro gain the courage to reveal their secret relationship as well. You get home just in time to catch the new Steven Universe episode and update your Tumblr blog.
Life has never been better. Dan and Phil and the fandom, that's PH fandom, are immediately who come to my mind whenever people mention the concept of shipping two YouTubers together and the effects that it may have on their psyche. While more recent examples have overtaken them in infamy, Dan and Phil's story is possibly the most unique case of YouTuber RPF, as it shows that fandom's insistent shipping of real people can still negatively impact their lives, even if they are actually in a relationship. Dan and Phil have been creating together since 2009, their popularity exploding throughout the 2010s. They're highly regarded as some of the most iconic OG YouTubers, and much like others at the time, again, Dan and Phil were very intimate and vulnerable with their audiences. They showed off their lives, allowing the audience to feel a part of them. And with so much of their content revolving around their intertwined personal stories rather than them being countries away calling and playing video games, combined with them quickly moving in together, there's nothing unexpected about the fact that people swiftly began shipping. The pair fan was huge, and shippers certainly leaned more towards the conspiracist side of shipping rather than simply [music] doing it for fun.
People actively searched for evidence in a way that stopped being harmless fun and quickly became concerning and obsessive and even surprisingly tragic considering when all of the context is taken into account. Phil was Dan's first ever boyfriend and Dan was in his own words, >> "I was soly deep in the closet." What sound effect you going to put there? I did the um thing that when the shipping stopped being a fun affair and became an [music] insistent need to dig into their personal lives, their relationship actually was dampened. Dan felt violated by the internet's need to out them, especially considering that not only was he heavily closeted with his identity causing him intense pain in [music] the past, but also Phil was his safe space.
Their relationship was new, but it was personal and intimate [music] beyond just a romantic sense. And the constant digging from people online frightened them. The pair have stated that this should have been the happiest time of [music] their lives. They were achieving what people could only dream of, finding a flourishing creative career and being able to share it with their best friend.
But Fan and the idea that their relationship could be discovered [music] against their will loomed over them at all times, causing constant panic attacks and neverending anxieties.
[music] Infamously so, in 2011, a YouTube glitch occurred that randomly unprivated many private videos from creators. One of these videos was an extremely personal video created by Phil in 2010 for Dan as a Valentine's Day gift, expressing his love and appreciation for him. The video was up for about 3 hours before Phil noticed and removed it. And thankfully, the fandom wasn't too large and rabid enough yet for it to spread like wildfire. Phil messaged anyone who appeared to have seen it and asked them not to spread it as they claimed it was originally intended for an unused April Fool's Day prank. In 2012, however, the video would resurface, this time being seen and spread by a much larger audience despite clearly going against the duo's [music] wishes. And while many fans later became very respectful about the whole situation and actively discouraged people [music] from seeking out the video, others would directly refuse to take it down to Dan and Phil directly or even attempt to blackmail them using it.
The video's forbiddeness within the community made it feel all the more elusive, contributing massively to shipping speculation and growing [music] the fandom. While it was still relatively in its infancy, the situation was so stressful that it's described as almost being a breaking point for their relationship. Dan stated that it felt like an assault in his own words, saying that people took something from us, got it dirty, left it on the floor, and I was like, "This is soiled now." [music] Sometimes I felt like when I looked at Phil, I felt the gaze of these people in my head, and that is poisonous. It's borderline tragic the effect that the intense and [music] disrespectful shippers had on their very real and personal relationship. Keep in mind that they wouldn't officially come out until 2019. And even after constantly describing themselves as soulmates or [music] life partners or best friends, they never explicitly revealed the romantic nature of their relationship until 2025. And I can completely understand why it took so long.
Following the 2012 incident, [music] every single move Dan and Phil made was documented and archived by Fannies.
[music] Any old tweet, post, statement, video, whatever, was obsessively kept safe. And while many fans were simply respectfully archiving content, the genuine stalking and harassment that resulted from some fans led even the fandom themselves to refer to this time as the Dark Ages. Not just because of the unsavory nature of these fans, but also as Dan and Phil directly pushed back against the shipping the most.
During this time, they were in an incredibly difficult and isolating position. If they chose to acknowledge the way the shipping was affecting them, they risked causing more suspicion and drawing more attention to themselves.
But later down the line, when they became more relaxed with shippers, they were accused of queer baiting and trying to appeal to shippers to obtain money. A criticism that was primarily thrown their way after the announcement of their book and accompanying tour. It was so difficult for them to exist as people. Often they were boiled down to these saturated fictionalized variants of themselves. Phil was infantilized, innocent and pure. The annoyingly happy foil to Dan who was depressing and brooding. But caricatures aside, it was also hard for them to feel as if they belonged in the creator space. It held them back professionally. It was hard to attend things like creator events or interviews because at a certain point, the only things people cared to ask them about were in relation to their sexuality or personal relationship with each other. It was hard to get close to people because they didn't want to lie about themselves. They've had to turn down interesting opportunities like TV appearances because they were just too afraid. They weren't allowed to be a real couple. In 16 years of dating, they had never gone on a date or had a romantic meal because there was always a constant fear of not just being outed, but being genuinely stalked, of having their lives pried into inescapably. It was the internet's most dedicated game of gay or European and seemed as if some people would stop at nothing until they got concrete [music] explicit confirmation that something more was going on. When the announcement finally came at last, it was definitely far after the worst of the storm had hit. A wise decision considering most of the toxic waste had been expelled for a while. The fandom not being as huge as it was in the 2010s didn't mean this announcement went unnoticed. As I mentioned at the start of the video, the news was huge and it reopened a lot of discussions, especially with Dan and Phil revealing just how harmful the negative impact of everything was. But more importantly, it was also widely celebrated. Even people who only knew vaguely of Dan and Phil knew just how big of a deal this was. After the past few years saw the revival of fandoms like MCR or Gravity Falls, the announcement acted as the dance party ending at the end of the Tumblr movie.
People looked back at the lives they once lived at the peak of fans relevance. looked at the lives they themselves lived now and realized that after over a decade and a half, it was truly the end of an era. An end of an era for the fandom, but more especially the end of an era for Dan and Phil and the beginning of something new. I cannot imagine how nerve-wracking yet relieving it must have felt for the two to finally put everything into perspective. It's not easy to admit these [music] things to millions of people, and I'm glad that the two have been able to move on from the horrible treatment they've received in the past. People have been unanimously respectful and supportive, and I only wish the best for the pair.
Don't get me wrong, however, despite everything I've detailed, no story is ever completely black and white, and the fandom was not this evil, misbehaved war zone 24/7. Sure, there were plenty of uncomfortable moments and situations, such as the infamously gross hamster or hatfick, but everyone, Dan and Phil included, mostly just bonded over the absurdity of things like it. Still horrible that they had to read it, though. But I think every fandom at this time had its own obligatory shock value fanfiction that spread like wildfire.
That could never happen nowadays because there's so many fakes like this now. The shock value is completely lost through the mass desensitization of the internet. Dan and Phil have always held a lot of love and support for their community. That's something they explicitly reaffirmed after confirming their relationship. They actively engage with their community and hold a lot of support for fan- created works. And the fan phenomenon was a lot more than just the parasocialism and obsession that dampened the relationship of two very [music] real people. Sure, the negatives can seem to outweigh the positives in a lot of situations, but like any community, it was not defined explicitly by the negatives. Dan and Phil will forever remain one of the most interesting cases of real person shipping. And although it's upset that they had to go through so much of what they did in the first place, hopefully their experiences will encourage internet users to not repeat their mistakes [music] and dig so obsessively into a real relationship. Though, I understand that may be asking too much these days. Despite the stalking and the occasional codependency and their lengthy hiatus, Dan and Phil have survived and thrived through it all. And I know that they will continue to be the queer role models that they could have only hoped for growing up themselves.
Hey, remember when Dan and Phil dressed up as Mike Wheeler and Will Buyers?
Though real person shipping has obviously been the most popularized version of RPF in recent decades, the general fictionalization of groups of real people, mostly resulting from the ever thriving contribution to parasocialism, was also incredibly popular through the 2010s golden age and still is today. What's especially interesting, however, is that often the internet will latch on to exaggerated or fictionalized versions of real people or historical figures, even if they would have no interest in these people if it weren't for fictional interpretations of them. And while this is something we'll see a lot more of later on in the timeline as a result of role playinging, it was at its strangest throughout the Golden Age. People didn't really necessarily care to ship Eduardo Saver and Mark Zuckerberg as real people. But seeing them played by Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield in a fictionalization of their own lives in The Social Network made them latch on to these exaggerated and different variations of real people. Mark Zuckerberg is terrifying, but Jesse Eisenberg is well, slightly less terrifying. Sorry, don't put that in. So often things like biopics or fictionalized memoirs will garner fan bases due to the way they implement elements of fictional storytelling into real stories, and it becomes easy to see the fictional versions of real people as separate. though it becomes undoubtedly amusing to see adoration and phandomization of extremely unexpected people such as American historical figures. And if you know anything about the climate of the mid to late 2010s, I think you know exactly what I'm about to segue into. In 2015, Lyn Manuel Miranda, who stands as both a blessing and a scourge on our beautiful [music] planet Earth, unleashed one of the most iconic modern musicals into the world. That musical, of course, being Hamilton.
Hamilton is obviously a musical surrounding Alexander Hamilton, an American founding father, and the people and events that were important to his life and story. It follows his story from his arrival in New York to the end of his life. The community for Hamilton primarily began forming in 2016. And if for some reason you're from a completely different world than I am, you may be completely unfamiliar with what Hamilton is and why exactly it appealed so much to people on Tumblr. What set Hamilton apart from other works of fictionalized history was the fact that the vast majority of the cast were people of color. Real life pasty white people like Aaron Burr or Thomas Jefferson were portrayed by Leslie Odum Jr. and Devid Diggs respectively and these portrayals became their own characters that people latched on to. It was treated almost as if Hamilton was a reboot of an older show. Real people were treated like they were just older versions of these newer characters, and their real life traits were used to influence head cannons of the modern reboot versions of them. The musical's unique approach to diversely reclaiming history was not exclusive to its casting. However, unlike most influential musicals, Hamilton's soundtrack strays from the typical orchestral music or tap dance numbers you'd expect. Instead, primarily taking inspiration from hip-hop, rap, and R&B.
Tumblr is infamously progressive, sometimes to a fault. So once the musical crowd caught wind of the hip hop Latin created rap musical where the breakout ripe for gay shipping male-dominated cast consisted almost entirely of people of color that reclaimed American history and made fun of the British. They fell in love and I did too. Hamilton was not my introduction to musicals, but it was my introduction to musical fandoms. Now, the thing that makes musical fandom so interesting is that musicals are not often easily accessible. And when Hamilton was first exploding in popularity, it hadn't yet left New York, meaning you could only watch it legally, at least if you bought a ticket and saw it in the area. Slime tutorials and bootlegs, terms used to describe the musical equivalent of Cam Reps, were the only ways to access the show, though they were dubious in quality. Because of this, the most convenient way to experience a visual representation of Hamilton, was to turn to the artistic innovators of the fandom, who were creating animatics for almost every song in the show, which are, if you don't know, very, very, very rough animations.
It's primarily because of these that the fandom would find itself in infamy.
Popular artists like Sizen or especially Galactabun had these overly serious or cutesy art styles that encouraged more artistic creativity. And while every fandom at the time had Tumblr art style and small gay bean boy works being created, it objectively caught people very offguard to see this being done to real dead political figures. While other people's small beans were Paradot or Frisk Undertale, the Hamilton fandoms were George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or Mares de Lafayette whose full name I somehow never knew is that [ __ ] long. Jesus Christ, we're all French people named [ __ ] like this.
political and historical RPF was not introduced through Hamilton by any means, but it had never been so widespread and typically never involved race swapping US presidents and rap battles. While the fandom knew they were primarily enjoying specific separate interpretations of real people, when an outsider comes across gay ship art of founding fathers and historical figures met with thousands of reblogs squealing about how accurately their art style portrayed their cinnamon rolls, what the hell are they supposed to think other than, "Okay, this is a little bit hilarious." The Hamilton fandom had its fair share of controversies as any Tumblr fandom did at the time, such as my personal favorite story in which out of revenge for getting hate for their cannibal mermaid lid manual Miranda fanfiction, a Tumblr user added another popular Hamilton account who was pretending to be two separate people who were married, living in India, and both HIV positive in order to not only get away with writing Hamilton AIDS fanfiction without judgment, but also to attempt to scam their followers out of money to assist with their non-existent medical issues. So, you know, typical [ __ ] Tuesday for Tumblr at the time, but absolutely nothing that resulted from this fandom could ever dream of reaching the level of infamy that the most iconic piece of Hamilton fan art ever created would achieve. Thomas Jefferson Miku binder. This image perfectly represents everything that made the nature of this fandom so confusing to onlookers. Former President Thomas Jefferson stylishly dressed in a Hatsune Miku chest binder and a shirt stating, "I met God, she's black." It is one of the most beautiful relics of human existence ever created. majoring in art education. He's trans and bisexual. A furry who's taking Japanese, dated Angelica Skyler before his transition, a lover of anime. John Lawrence is former drug dealer, a former cocaine addict, someone who pretends to like jazz and classical, but is really K-pop and J-pop trash and always beats Alexander at Pokémon, just like the real Thomas Jefferson. This image is actually a character reference sheet for a Hamilton alternate universe ask blog taking place in modern day in which the characters are college students. Thomas Jefferson is obviously the most iconic of these character sheets, but we mustn't allow the others to become lost to time. They are equally as amazing in their own rights and deserve recognition. John Lawren, the music theory major, is a gay panromantic single stoner father with ADHD and anxiety. One of the few people to know Alexander Hamilton's dead name, and a founder of an ac cappella group with Alexander Hercules Lafayette. Philip Hamilton is a gender fluid bisexual Starbucks barista who is also a closeted furry who goes by Philly cheese, buys binders for needy trans youth, and runs the drama club. And of course, the star of the show, Alexander Hamilton, is a gender fluid bisexual overworked law major who works at Barnes & Noble, is a competitive Smash player with a mysterious dead name who is legally blind and loves science.
Okay, definitely don't put that in.
There is a surprising amount of flaw regarding the person who ran this AU ask blog. They did get a lot of hate from people unfamiliar with Hamilton and its fandom for portraying real people in this way, but they also got hate for [ __ ] like gay eraser for making John Lawren, who is historically depicted as gay, panromantic. The artist would later go on to speak in support of the police during the Black Lives Matter protests, which personally I don't think drug dealer Thomas Jefferson would stand for considering, as previously stated, he met God and she was black. The artist making an idiotic statement opened the floodgates for people to make fun of and parody their old art, leading to the existence of probably thousands of redraws of Thomas Jefferson Miku Binder that continue to be made to this day.
Just remember to tell a friend if they didn't already know that much like the subjuke Heyman image, Thomas Jefferson Miku Binder was originally conceived on September 11th. This infamous artist and their works led a lot of people to question the ethics and distinction between Hamilton and the real life people it's inspired by. Fandoms, similar to Hamilton, are very interesting in terms of questioning RPF related ethical issues. These characters are representative of real people, yes, but fandoms see them as entirely different. The people they're based on as well, have been dead for a very long time, and it's not like Alexander Hamilton is going to issue a statement on his Twitter about how he's married and it makes him uncomfortable seeing fan art of him kissing Aaron Burr because he infamously cheated on his wife and wouldn't care. These people are never going to get uncomfortable with or face harassment due to their fandom.
However, due to the time period of which these people were alive and the fact that they're influential and important historical figures, many of the real people that fans portrayed in Flower Crowns or Miku Binders owned slaves or mistreated women or did all the things that powerful white men did at the time and still kind of continued to do. And when the musical has lines about feminism and abolishing slavery, both the show itself and its fans appear questionable, to say the least. While most of the more amusing portrayals of the characters were the internet's doing, you also have to take into account that the musical itself is to blame for creating these interpretations and conveniently leaving out details like how multiple characters that play prominent roles own slaved in real life.
I met God and she's black and also I owned over 600 slaves and married my cousin. In the fandom's defense, many members of it were absurdly young, like to the point where this often historically inaccurate show was likely their introduction to the details of this era in American history. One of the artists I mentioned earlier, Galactabun, was around 13 or so when they blew up, if my memory serves correct, which is terrifying, by the way. I send my best regards their way in modern times. Many fans also took the representation and positive themes from the show and community and attempted to reclaim and recontextualize the problematic elements of the time period. In all honesty, I really don't think that the Hamilton fandom is inherently and fundamentally problematic the same way real person fiction isn't inherently and fundamentally problematic. people be saying things so definitively like, man, [clears throat] I think it depends. Many fans of the musical acknowledge and condemn elements of The Real People. And as I've continuously and annoyingly mentioned, the majority of them are not fans of The Real People. They are fans of the musical and the characters from the musical specifically. I can totally understand the distinction from fans between this and this. This is a character. This is a real slave owner.
And this is a musical, not a historically accurate textbook. And unfortunately, it is a [ __ ] banger of a musical, if I do say so myself. I'm sorry. I have to be honest. There's a reason Lin Manuel Miranda sinks his claws into 80% of musicals created in modern day. Those big companies need some ethnic flare, and they don't know anyone else who can provide it. I am interested to hear your guys' thoughts, however, on whether or not a distinction is possible between Hamilton the musical and The Real People, as I think there are a lot of nuanced takes on topics like this. It truly is an interesting dilemma. Another trait of the Hamilton fandom, as evidenced by the cannibalistic mermaid Lin Manuel Miranda fix, was a passionate support for the actual actors portraying the characters as well, to the point where anyone who was unfamiliar with how musical casting worked genuinely got up in arms when the actors slowly began getting replaced, you know, as they always do with musicals. And while the Hamilton fandom wasn't specifically known for their fandomization of the cast, it's a good thing to bring up when transitioning to talking about another very popular form of real person fiction, perhaps even the most popular with average communities, actor RPF. Fandoms adoring the creators and actors of their favorite characters alongside the characters themselves is guaranteed to occur with just about anything. And often separate fandoms will sprout that are entirely dedicated to an actor specifically. I for one am very deep into the Jeremy Rener fandom and have been very depressed lately due to the lack of spaces available online for me to talk about Jeremy Rener. Then there is of course shipping that occurs between actors. Typically this is an extension of shipping something fictional so intensely that your love for that ship then extends to these people who portray them. It's thrilling to imagine that the chemistry between your favorite ship is so powerful that the actors weren't even acting and ended up forging a real romantic bond. It's not like these ships are based on nothing at all if the actors had to share an abundance of physically intimate scenes. And actors getting into relationships after the characters do isn't unheard of in the slightest. The interesting thing about Actor RPF, however, and the main reason I briefly bring it up, is that it's mostly the origin of shipping real people, just not necessarily in the same way we typically see it being done nowadays. Tabloids, magazines, and journalists often debated the validity of certain actor and celebrity pairings, often just making [ __ ] up to sell these fictional romance stories and gossip. But it speaks on how mainstream shipping real people is. When we think of the practice being done, we often immediately think of things like Minecraft YouTubers or fan. But we don't consider that the average person who probably doesn't even know what RPF is, is likely more invested in the love lives of people like Taylor Swift or Jenna Ortega or Jeremy Rener than they should be. With the acting industry especially and other areas on the internet that I'll talk about in a moment, something that has always been an issue is how child actors are treated. There are countless examples of mistreatment when it comes to younger talent in the industry. And while this mistreatment thankfully isn't as severe as it once was, it obviously still exists in some capacity. However, a whole new and possibly even more damaging in some cases issue had arrived with the massive popularization of the internet. People, no matter how old they are, will build communities to obsess over any actor, including actors who are children. I think an example of this that immediately comes to mind for me is the cast of Stranger Things and It. When two so retro mysterious horror medias with predominantly child casts get so popular at the same time, no one was surprised to see them both grow large and often conjoined fan bases. Both it and Stranger Things very clearly try to hone in a feeling of childhood innocence and nostalgia. and as such both placed an emphasis on the real relationships and bonds that the young actors developed behind the scenes. Because of this, a large fan base surrounding these actors specifically developed. Most of the people actively obsessing and thirsting over these people were extremely young themselves, often younger than the actors themselves, but obviously the actions normalized the behavior and led to a lot of grown adults doing the same as well. While everyone got it pretty bad, the common thread between both of these properties was Finn Wolfhard, and he unfortunately was treated [ __ ] horribly by the internet. The levels at which this real teenager was being sexualized were disgusting and unacceptable, especially when a lot of people doing it were not children. There's an infamous screenshot of musician Gracie Abrams saying this. I I know she was like 17 or something at the time, but like, okay, show of hands.
Anyone watching this who has ever been or is 17, did you ever say things like this about about 13year-olds?
>> I mean, you look like you would.
>> Finn's Stranger Things character, Mike, was also shipped heavily with two of his co-stars characters, so obviously Finn was shipped with the actors a lot as well. Shipping that started when he was as young as like 13 and got pretty heated even back then, which is weird.
My condolences to Finn though. If I was shipped with both Noah Schnapp and Millie Bobby Bon Joy, whatever the [ __ ] I would expect monetary moral compensation from the Duffer [ __ ] Bruffer Dred Brothers [ __ ] Duffy Digital Circus Papo. Obviously, this guy isn't the only example of this occurring. But due to the year-long brain rot that I can't [ __ ] escape, no matter how hard I try, he was the first to come to mind. I have an extra ticket for Finn Wolffire's like tour, by the way, if anyone wants to come. You got you have to come with me and my friend Jake though if that's cool if if Jake comes too. But he's a nice guy.
You'll like him. Most mainstream actor and celebrity fans, however, don't necessarily engage in more typically fandom activities, as in writing fanfiction or shipping them with people.
Typically, they just collect photos of them and tweet about them constantly. Or if they're lucky, they might even have an entire app dedicated to collecting photos and talking about their favorite celebrity. But only the biggest celebrities get apps. They're the only ones deserving of it. Jeremy Rener, you are the only person deserving of anything really. And I'm sorry that the rest of us have dared to step foot in the same world as you. We're unworthy, ungrateful. But you, you are a merciful man, a god. You grant us your attention.
You even let us give you stars on the app when we are far from deserving.
Thank you, Jeremy Rener. Your kindness to us lesser beings will not go unpaid.
Regardless of this form of fandom surrounding real people is obviously the most popular in modern day when you take the chronically online out of the equation. But personally what comes to my internet broad brain when I think of RPF in recent times is the rise of K-pop stands, VTubers, and more suitably to me specifically Minecraft YouTubers.
Starting with K-pop and VTuber communities, as I have less to say there due to the fact that I was never in any of these fandoms myself, though I do still enjoy the K-pop genre and have what you may consider a bias.
These idols and the way that their fans interact with them are all very rooted in their country's cultures. Both of these industries are more structured and have a lot of issues with both their management and communities. and the K-pop community specifically was probably one of the most hated at the time that I actively used Twitter the most, circa 2020. Both of these communities had a pretty large boom in 2020 for obvious reasons. While K-pop had already been globalized for a bit at that point, the fan base grew immensely amidst the pandemic. Around that time was also when many English-speaking talent agencies began developing for VTubers, also because of the pandemic.
And if you don't know what that means, just know that it means VTubers started becoming a global thing rather than just being popular in Japan. As any idol would, these types of idols rely on their fan bases to keep themselves and their careers thriving. So, an abundance of photo cards, merch, concerts, and monetary opportunities are no surprise.
Where issues obviously arise is when certain groups of people get way too obsessed and invested in these idols and then make it everyone else's problem.
When I was on Twitter, K-pop stands were practically seen as public enemy number one. Obviously, a lot of them were normal and respectful and well adjusted, but the people who really took their love for their idols seriously would get genuinely nefarious about it. Many K-pop fans took to sending graphic violent images to people or hiding them in their fan cams or edits. And while a lot of people doing this were just trying to give fans a bad look and weren't actually K-pop enjoyers, I did encounter some genuine K-pop stands who really did just send gore to anyone who disagreed with them. K-pop idols tend to utilize social media and digital platforms a lot more than other kinds of celebrities do, which is likely why these types of communities form around them easier.
There is a lot of overlap between K-pop and VTubers because of this too, as they both have a heavy reliance on the concept of the digital world, VTubers more so. So, that's obviously where a lot of the parasocialism stems from.
Again, these communities aren't something I'm largely familiar with, and I more so just wanted to mention them because they're very popular examples of people obsessively becoming fans of real people in modern day. I've tried to understand VTuber culture specifically so many times, and it's just something I inherently am confused by and can't see myself enjoying, but I think for the most part, it's cool, and there are some designs I've seen that I really like.
It's worth mentioning with VTubers that while yes, they are idols, more often than not, the avatars are separate from the streamer behind the camera.
Essentially, the VTuber itself is more so a character. This is both a blessing and a curse for weirdos on the internet.
On one hand, you can argue, "No, I'm not a parasocial obsessive freak donating embarrassing amounts of subs. I just love my dubiously fictional Oshi." But on the other hand, why does your dubiously fictional Oshi look and sound 12 years old? Why is their age listed as ambiguous? I'm purposefully not showing any specific YouTubers here because I don't want to accidentally comment on anyone I'm not informed about because again, I am very much an outsider. My favorite VTuber is Shroomi Aada. Though I wish these industries and communities weren't often as harmful and predatory as they are, especially towards women, I think there are objective positives that come with celebrating different cultures. And I hope that anyone who has ever suffered because of these industries or obsessive fans can find the peace and love that they so rightfully deserve. But I am not equipped to go into detail about the problems with idol industry practices.
And if you're interested in learning about that, I suggest you do your own research because I have both the memory and intelligence of a goldfish. So it seems that a lot of the communities surrounding real people that most consider the most toxic and cringe in modern day are the ones that are directly fueled by the people who are being idolized. And while it's not something I can necessarily blame those people for, it's often easy money. There are infamously so many examples of creators recklessly encouraging parasol relationships, either on purpose or just through sheer stupidity and then getting [ __ ] over for it. And this is especially 10 times worse for both the creators themselves and the reputation of the fan base when most of the community is made up of younger people.
Now, pop quiz. What's something that both children and grown men have most in common with each other? That's right, they love Minecraft. Minecraft YouTubers have existed well since Minecraft and are typically characterized by their strong bonds and collaborations with other Minecraft creators. Many people have fond memories of specific groups of Minecraft YouTubers. And once again, as a consequence of the pandemic, Minecraft content saw a huge resurgence analytically around 2019 and 2020.
Whether it was pre-established creators returning to the game or new players in the field rising to fame, Minecraft was the chosen form of entertainment for a lot of people while they were cooped up at home. I remember in 2019, my friend first told me about a few new Minecraft YouTubers that had caught her attention.
She didn't seem the type to watch content like that, so I was particularly interested in what made these creators specifically so captivating compared to the dozens of other YouTubers making similar content at the time. I watched some videos from an at the time smaller creator known as Dream, who was absolutely blowing up. They were fun, sure, but nothing to write home about.
Nothing that I thought could be capable of creating a storm the likes of which I had never seen before. A storm bigger than Septiplier, rivaling fan, bringing new definition to the word queerbait, and a storm that most importantly somehow managed to help me define my own content and make the video you're watching right now even possible. This is the part of the video where you can stop hoping that I'm not going to talk about Dream Not Found because I'm going to talk about Dream Not Found. If for some reason you don't already know, I have made an extensive video going over Dream Not Found's timeline, [music] the fan works related to them, and why this phenomenon occurred. So, if you like what you see here and are desperate for more w Minecraft YouTuber Goon [music] content, you can go check that out. Even though that the video is kind of a mess, I think it's still a fun watch. Even though Jazzington's voice just starts [ __ ] playing randomly because there was an editing error. [ __ ] ignore that. Ignore Ignore it. Dream and George Not Found essentially rose to the title of modernday Dan and Phil. just without the actual hidden secret relationship part that we know of. The crazy YouTuber shippers had found their [music] new play things. These two Minecraft YouTubers exploded in popularity out of seemingly nowhere. And while they both had a lot of mutual friends, their friendship was very clearly special and [music] strong. As friends do, they had a tendency to jokingly and publicly flirt with each other. And when you combine a bunch of gay teenagers with crippling loneliness amongst a global pandemic and two creators who frequently show affection to both their audiences and each other, what comes [music] out is one of the most hilarious and mocked communities of all time. Whose ship probably the most hilarious and mocked ship of all time? Not counting like [ __ ] Baku Deku. I don't know. What do you guys think is like the most funny ship ever? It's got to be Baku Deku, right? That was that's the one with all the memes. Dream and George's fans were already insane and drawing a lot of porn of them and writing a lot of porn of them and showing them a lot of porn of them. But what really solidified this modern age of MCYT, that means Minecraft YouTuber by by the way, fans and their infamous reputation was the creation of the Dream SMP, which I also have a video about. And and it's it's very long, but if you have the time, I'd also recommend watching that one if you're interested.
To this day, it's probably the biggest project I have ever worked on in terms of YouTube video essay slop. And it's also like the best response I've ever gotten on a video. Not in terms of like the kindest response, but like, okay, I remember vividly someone on Tumblr was like, "Wow, another sishat white man making a video on the Dream SMP." And I know they very clearly didn't even like click on the video, but the only thing I could think of when I saw that was like, "Oh my god, they think I'm sis and hat and white." and I wrote on that high for like a whole year. So, whoever that was, if you're watching this, thank you. The Dream SMP was a huge Minecraft server with a lot of different popular streamers and creators as its members.
It started off as just a regular survival server for people to [ __ ] around on, but would eventually infamously be turned into a massive intricate roleplay series originally written by Wilbur Sut, inspired by the Hamilton musical, consumed through a bazillion different streamers' points of views that lasted literal years and became genuinely inescapable. This server is not the only example of role-play Minecraft SMPPS. There are plenty of other servers and serieses like it that have garnered similar, just not as crazy fandoms, such as Hermitcraft or the the other ones, though fortunately none of them were ever as infamous as the Dream SMP. This server launched careers for multiple young creators and ruined careers for multiple others. Like that one guy who was named [ __ ] Demetrius who was only on the server for one day before it was discovered that he groomed over 40 people. 40 4 zero. I will never stop [ __ ] talking about this. Th This is absurd. How do you even manage that?
What What happens to a person to motivate them to groom over 40 people and also be named Demetrius? But what's especially interesting about this server in terms of real person fiction practices is that eventually whenever anyone would stream on the SMP, they were playing characters. Characters that had the same names and voices and were obviously based on the people portraying them, but still characters. It's a little similar to Hamilton in the sense that the Dream SMP characters are supposed to be separate from the actual creators. So, a lot of the shipping that people parttook in was actually of different Dream SMP characters rather than [music] the streamers themselves.
The difference between the Dream SMP and Hamilton, however, is one, all of the people involved with the SMP were very much still alive and very much still active on social media. Two, you weren't actively monetarily supporting a bunch of dead slave owners when you stream the Hamilton soundtrack, but you do actively monetarily support pedophiles when you watch their videos and donate to their streams. And three, nine times out of 10 when someone shipped the fictional Dream SMP characters, they also shipped the real people as well. One of the most popular quote unquote characters was without a doubt Tommy in it, whose online career was kickstarted massively by the Dream SMP. The character that he played, C Tommy, because C exclamation point is how you differentiate the characters from the real people, was very important to the story's lore and was heavily primarily associated with the most angsty storylines of the server. This kid's brother figure killed himself. His best friend betrayed him and exiled him from the nation they helped fight for together. Dream's character [ __ ] abused him for like the entirety of the server's lifespan.
This character was a victim and he was also incredibly young in real life.
Tommy blew up when he was 16 years old, which would be hard enough for anyone.
But combined with the already terrible community surrounding Minecraft YouTubers, the fact that Tommy's character was primarily a traumatized victim, and all of Tommy's friends were adult men with inconsistent results when being around children, Tommy in it became the new Finn Wolfhard. But so, so much worse. He faced everything from shipping to shipping with his adult friends to sexualization to harassment to doxing to stalking to head cannoning or truththing. This real person is a transgender lesbian and the fans had to help her realize she's trans because she doesn't even know it yet. All starting when he was just 16 years old. And those are just the things people did out of quote unquote support. His haters went even further, putting him and his family at constant [music] danger, ridding this child of his ability to comfortably sleep at night out of such intense fear of people he never even knew. And while Tommy is the most popular and extreme example of this behavior, practically every single member of the Dream SMP, regardless of age or popularity or if they had ever done anything wrong, faced some level of the same treatment. There was no way to stop it. If people spoke out about how shipping or NSFW made them uncomfortable, it would only draw more attention to the fact that it was happening, and it would get worse. If creators ignored the fact that it was happening in the first place, people would shove it in the creators faces, and it would get worse. The Minecraft YouTuber fandom infamously had an entire community dedicated to creating and sharing ship or sexual content of the underage creators. It was originally created mainly because people who were around the same age as the teenage streamers they watched were crushing on them and really wanted to publicize their thoughts. But to literally no one's surprise, it took no time at all for the community to entirely surround taboo sexual themes and creations of real children, many of which were being made by adults. And in the majority of cases, they weren't even trying to hide it behind the [music] excuse of it just being the characters. They were really depicting terrible things of real [ __ ] children. They were deep faking real creators. They were using the community as a way to groom other members of it. This community and communities like it are the culmination of all of RPF at its absolute worst.
Even if you were to argue the case of fiction being separate from and not impacting reality, that argument isn't applicable to communities that do this with real people. That argument isn't applicable to adults who are attracted to real living children. Adults that aren't just drawing cutesy fan art.
They're adults who post real photos of these children and say disgusting [ __ ] things in reference to them. And I'm not going to go out of my way to find or show examples of specific posts because obviously. But as someone who was a pretty big Dream SMP fan at its peak, it was genuinely difficult to not come across this stuff. [music] Despite most people being severely uncomfortable with it, the Minecraft YouTuber community also proposed another fatal flaw with real person fiction. You never truly know who you're supporting and fictionalizing. Dream and George infamously played into the shipping aspect of their relationship after they realized how popular it was becoming.
And because of this, they added fuel to a flame that played an enormous part in popularizing their content. The first time I ever heard about their channels, it was because my friend was specifically telling me that they shipped them. They used shipping culture to their advantage, played into the parasocialism of their fans, and probably made hundreds of thousands of dollars entirely through fans who liked them mostly because of Dream Not Found.
If you donate to them about Dream Not Found, maybe they'll talk about it. Buy enough Pride merch, maybe they'll come out as gay. These men squeezed so much money out of these suckers that by the time people found out that they weren't actually the perfect unproatic, wholesome gay beans they thought they were, the damage had already been done.
They had already been platformed and they knew that a lot of their fans would still support them no matter what. Real people aren't fictional characters. You don't know every aspect of their lives and personalities. They can be terrible people. They can hurt real people. And sometimes by fictionalizing and infantilizing their behaviors and by feeding into and encouraging the art of parasocialism, fans can contribute to pushing these false public ideologies that lead vulnerable people to these creators in the first place. But the Dream SMP and Minecraft YouTuber fandom does also prove it is possible to engage in real person fiction respectfully. In any fandom, a lot of people are insane and are going to push things too far, but the opposite is true as well. In any fandom, there are positive forces to be found. There are inspiring community members and groups of people who respect creators boundaries and uplift them in their communities in an appropriate manner. Some creators don't mind or are even endeared by their shippers, and others are really, really [ __ ] uncomfortable with it. It's important to maintain a balance. The fictional aspects of Dream SMP storytelling allowed for people to engage with their favorite creators in a fictionalized way by still respecting the creators' wishes and even having fun creating these stories and head cannons with them.
Again, I was really into this community in its prime. It's the reason that I made that really [ __ ] long video on it in the first place. I have a lot of attachment to this community, and I think there were a lot of positive people in it, and a lot of good conversations were being had about how to respectfully engage with creators. It wasn't all terrible. It's just hard to remember the good stuff when the bad stuff was really, really bad and also sometimes really, really funny. I also believe that this entire massive community did show a lot of people the harm that can come from encouraging parasocialism and fictionalizing real people. There are more conversations being had about the harmful parts of content creator communities now because of how disrespectful kids were during this particular era. And a lot of the people who were associated with the Dream SMP and didn't go on to become predators are holding up pretty well, living their own lives, doing the things that they want to do. So, in terms of Minecraft YouTubers, the fictionalization and adoration of them is kind of all over the place morally.
In some cases, it's okay and everyone can have fun and engage in a positive community while also being able to engage in the more cringe fail fanfiction aspects of fandom. And in other cases, you get some of the worst and most borderline criminal fan bases ever conceived. But what if I told you that there was an entire fandom surrounding fictionalizing real people that genuinely could not be rationalized in any capacity? a community that solely worships and cutesifies people that are somehow a million times worse than problematic Minecraft YouTubers. I don't necessarily want to talk about it, but I also kind of do, so I'm going to.
Anyways, we need to talk about the true crime community. I'm going to give a massive fat disclaimer here. First of all, huge trigger warning for gun violence. Please skip this section if you're at all sensitive to topics related to violence. And also, please do not go out of your way to harass anyone who associates with this community. It helps absolutely no one. And even if you're trying to do it out of some kind of moral high ground, it only does more harm than good. So, please don't be stupid. Don't be cruel. I also want to preface that the vast majority of people in this community are young and troubled. While it obviously doesn't apply to everyone, these types of communities are known to draw in suffering younger people and push harmful ideologies onto them. I know that what I'm going to talk about is very uncomfortable and most people could never possibly conceive why anyone would do the things the members of this community do. But please understand that there are a lot of reasons why someone else's psychological profile may be exponentially different than yours or anyone else you've ever known. Human psychology is extremely diverse and complicated and it's not the job of strangers on the internet to bully damaged children out of their harmful behavior. And if you're watching this video and are a part of this community yourself, please know that while I disagree with this community and do believe that it actively causes harm, I don't wish any malice towards you. I'm talking about this because I grew up in a lot of similar communities that attempted to convince me to believe in and agree with terrible things. And I want to raise awareness on behalf of anyone who has ever been in a similar situation as me. Okay. Okay. The true crime community, despite what its name might have you think, is not a community for people who simply enjoy true crime.
So, don't worry. I see you true crime girlies clutching your crystal necklaces. You're not the problem here.
No, the true crime community, sometimes referred to as the true cringe community, is specifically a group of people who idolize and fictionalize real life criminals. Anything from people who attempt murders to people who follow through on murders to pedopiles and assaulters to, most infamously and popularly so, mass shooters. If you've never heard of something like this, one, how? And two, you're probably really [ __ ] confused why anyone would idolize some of the most deplorable human beings ever conceived. Well, I mean, there are a few reasons why this happens. The main reason that isn't really rooted in psychological reasons too much is that edgy kids are just larers. And this is something that the community talks about a lot. I'm not using the term larer because it's the new popular Tik Tok lingo. I'm using it because that's literally what they call themselves. It's this weird pseudo self-aware mentality where these kids are literally role- playinging being incelss and enjoy bullying themselves over it. There are definitely a lot of cases of people pushing themselves into behavior that they think is the most edgy problematic things that they could be doing. But again, in a lot of cases, this happens because of some kind of psychological reason. The spread of misanthropic ideology leads to a lot of people who have been hurt by the worst of humanity in various ways to contribute to this spread of nihilistic violent extremism, sometimes without even realizing it. If you aestheticize or glorify anything enough, you could successfully create an army of children who don't know what they're preaching, but choose to continue anyways because it's just too much fun to edit catters onto Adam Lanza. Unfiltered fascinations with mass shooters, specifically relating to Colbine, aren't exclusive to or new to fandom. It's undoubtedly a fact that Colbine had a huge impact on pop culture and self-proclaimed Colbiners have existed for practically as long as the internet has with the true crime community sometimes abbreviated to TCC essentially being an evolutionary product of them. Many people who had an interest in TCC and have such severed ties with this line of thinking have explained that part of the allure came from a reflection of their own spiraling mental states. Most TCC members actually don't romanticize the more politically motivated attacks, but instead latch on to, again, killers who promote a sense of nihilism and attempt to portray themselves as misunderstood.
Younger, struggling people who claim to hate the world and everyone in it can relate to these attackers who have often struggled themselves and take their rage against the world out on others. Another reasons why things like this happen so often outside of just larer phantom spaces is often due to hybrristoilia.
Hopefully, I'm pronouncing that right. a term that refers to an attraction to criminals, often notorious serial killers. We see things like this happen a lot whenever a conventionally attractive person commits a crime. And it's primarily a type of power fantasy mixed with an oh, I could fix them mentality that I don't have the proper credentials to go into detail about.
I'll come back when I drop out of psychology. But the true crime communities on places like Tik Tok or Tumblr or Twitter differentiate from just white women who have crushes on Jeffrey Dmer because they specifically play into the more internet culture aspects of idolization. Actively wooifying these unforgivable people, cosplaying asis them, writing fanfictions, making too many goddamn edits to that [ __ ] Sonic song, and otherwise participating in normal fandom practices that you'd see in any other spaces on the internet. What makes this specifically the most dangerous and extreme example of RPF is that it's an objectively harmful community no matter how you look at it. TCC members know this. They acknowledge it and they don't attempt to defend it. This community actively pres upon young people influences their political ideology and breeds apathy towards life. And the fandom unsurprisingly has an alarming amount of actual murders, attacks, and shooting plots tied directly to it.
People are dying. Young children are fighting for the chances of being the next beloved mass shooter. 13-year-olds are hoarding guns. And the worst part is that it works every single time.
Plotting or carrying out a murder will make you beloved by these people, and there's nothing the average person can do to stop it because harassing these kids only pushes them further into this behavior. Encouraging them only pushes them further. Raising awareness makes things worse. Ignoring it makes things worse. But no, of course, the real worst fandoms are problematic Israeli medias like the Amazing Digital Circus. We have to take down Gameverse before someone gets hurt. Following the spread of mass gun violence, of course, the media was impacted heavily, and a lot of fictionalized stories were created in response to school shootings specifically. And despite the intentions of these films seeming quite apparent, obviously, people who romanticize the real people they're based on clung on to them and fandomized them as well. The most popular examples of this would be 2002's Zero Day and 2003's Elephant. I like these movies, and I even like a lot of the fan- created work surrounding them, even if many of them are admittedly absurdly ludicrous. But these movies are interesting because the true crime community members love to act as if you're no better than them for enjoying films as if the only way you can like these movies is to romanticize the actions of the characters and support said actions in real life. But it's an interesting discussion piece considering it's very obvious who these fictional characters are meant to represent. And sometimes the line between fiction and reality can be extremely thin. A lot of very popular horror stories are inspired by real life murders, sure, but there's a noticeable veil of ambiguity and fiction that separates the fictional stories from reality greatly. In a case like with Cal and Andre of Zero Day, you know exactly who they're supposed to represent and you know that this story is very real.
So again, we see a situation of fictional characters who are very clearly based on real people and it sparks this huge dilemma about whether or not you can phandomize the fictional people if they're clearly representative of real terrible people. I'm not going to tell you how to feel about this dilemma in particular because it varies drastically from something like Hamilton. But hey, props to you if you correctly clocked Cal andre in the thumbnail because I didn't want to put real murderers in there. Obviously, in terms of real person fiction, though, the true crime community obviously represents the absolute [music] deaths of the genre. And you'd find it quite difficult to find someone who ships Minecraft YouTubers agreeing with these ideologies. But it goes to show that the entirety of the RPF community [music] is extremely diverse and it's a difficult thing to speak on as a whole because there are so many specifics [music] and varying situations that make the topic difficult to fully support or demonize. Again, I think it depends, man. But all my life, I've also looked at RPF from [music] a complete outside perspective. Whenever anyone presented 13-year-old me with a, "Well, how would you like it if people shipped you with your friends?" I could easily shrug it off because I didn't think I'd ever have to deal with such an occurrence. But as a creator now, I have a lot more insider information than I did 5 or 10 years ago. While I'm very grateful that I haven't sprouted a fandom, and in all honesty, I try to show [music] as little of my actual personality as possible to prevent it from happening. Yeah, sorry.
I'm nothing like the way I present myself on my channel in private. I'm actually a [ __ ] loser, and most of you would hate me. Some of my close friends do have these passionate young artist populated [music] fandoms that fictionalize them almost as much as 13-year-old me fictionalized Dream and George. And while these friends don't make a big deal out of it, I can always tell when there's an underlying feeling of dread. Because how the hell are you supposed to respond to something like that? How do you respond to people sending you porn of yourself? People have been weird about me since I was 16 years old. I'm grateful enough to have the mindset of just not really giving a [ __ ] [music] and ignoring it, but I'm mad that it's so normalized to do that now. to sexualize real children and face no repercussions for it. And on one hand, as a creator, I would find it kind of weird if people shipped me and my friends. But on the other hand, in this day and age in which you can easily profit off of flirting with your buddies, it's hard to say that I wouldn't take hundreds and thousands of dollars in exchange for people fangirling every time I hung out with a specific friend of mine. So then, as we reach our conclusion, what's the definitive answer? Is real person fiction acceptable? Or should we deem it the next problematic, unforgivable group of people to put in our DNI as if it would prevent them from liking our tweets? Well, the answer is actually exceptionally lame, as they usually are with these kinds of things. I'm going to tap the sign again. I think it depends.
I don't think RPF is an inherently irredeemable practice. I understand what about it be so alluring to people because I was pretty into it when I was younger, too. After growing out of it, I'm not sure it's something I could ever find myself getting back into. But I know a lot of creators are able to utilize fandom to create a safe space for a community to have fun. But while it isn't inherently evil, you cannot become [music] ignorant to its risks.
There are lines that shouldn't be crossed. There are things that should never be done. And thankfully, most people in RPF spaces aren't as disrespectful and disgusting as people make them out to be. But you have to be exceptionally careful when supporting real people to such an extent. Not just out of respect for them, but for yourself as well. Don't tattoo future pedophiles all over yourself. You don't know these creators. As somebody who does know a lot of creators, a lot of us are actually huge [ __ ] pricks. Myself included. Yeah, I suck. Fan art and fan works of real people can be amazing [music] and inspiring ways for creators to interact with their communities. And in many cases, it can have mostly positive impacts. So many aspiring creators blow up just because of these fandoms and their artworks. I found a lot of new creators just through seeing fan art on Tik Tok and wondering, "Huh, wonder what anime that guy's from." only to find out they're actually some [music] kid who role plays on Minecraft.
Real person fiction, as controversial as it may be, isn't going away anytime soon. There's no amount of preacher [music] against it that's going to stop kids from being kids. And a lot of very popular characters are based on or inspired by real people. Those characters shouldn't be explicitly barred off from van content. You'd be surprised how many characters are just unspoken self-inserts. I'm absolutely a broken record at this point, but I want this video to primarily serve as a fun exploration of what I consider to be personal high and lows of real person fandom and end off with the sentiment that if you're in a fandom for real people, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Just don't be an [ __ ] and don't be weird. Those are very simple rules to follow. If a creator expresses boundaries, just listen or don't and keep drawing fetish art of me. My friends find it [ __ ] hilarious, so who am I to complain?
>> [music] [music] >> Pickle.
I'm pickle Rick. [music] >> [music] >> I dedicate this video to my friend Scott, who is the only person who would talk to me about Fan after they hard launched because all of my friends aren't losers, unfortunately. So, hi Scott. Everyone say hi to Scott and uh leave a comment about Mick Lennin for him. I love Mick Lennon. I actually that I kind of get that one because they were kind of I don't know. They were doing some suspicious stuff, dude.
[music] [music] >> [music] >> I I was called a [ __ ] it for [ __ ] shipping Dan and Phil together before they announced they were official.
They're [ __ ] gay now. Who the [ __ ] cares?
Related Videos
0:33
Philosophy
Open Tab is a new interview series hosted by Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie
Hypeflicksss
1K views•2026-05-21
27:53
Philosophy
Street Epistemology: Maritza (1) | Student Demands the Truth (Valuation)
magnabosco210
124K views•2019-06-27
1:18
Philosophy
Nel Noddings | Feminist philosophy and education | Whiteboard Video
studioninety9110
3K views•2019-10-13
18:20
Philosophy
LEGAL METHOD CLASS: Law, Order, Justice & Freedom | Understanding the Concept of Law in Society
LAW-MADE-SIMPLE.c
371 views•2025-11-22
1:26:44
Philosophy
Does evolution DEBUNK morality?
MajestyofReason
7K views•2025-03-06
47:07
Philosophy
How the Gospels Pass the Historical Test | Tim and Lydia McGrew
TheAaronRennShow
713 views•2025-12-02
1:03:26
Philosophy
Pluriversal Design SIG Book Club 13: bell hooks' Theory as Liberatory Practice
pluriversaldesignsig2851
777 views•2022-05-24
1:37:10
Philosophy
NICK LAND MEETS THEORY UNDERGROUND (w/ Michael Downs and David McKerracher)
PhilosophyPortal
9K views•2023-10-23
Trending
13:38
Law
WOW! Judge TURNS THE TABLES on Trump in His OWN $10B LAWSUIT!!!
MeidasTouch
197K views•2026-07-23
13:25
Business
Playstation NO DISC/NO BUY Fight Is Over...
DavidJaffeGames
4K views•2026-07-23
22:40
Business
Steam and Xbox Just Dropped The Hammer On PlayStation
OhNoItsAlexx
9K views•2026-07-23
16:52
Anthropology
Americans Confused in Australia for 17 Minutes Straight
IWrocker
17K views•2026-07-23