Dream (YouTuber)

2014–2019: Early beginnings and Minecraft Dream created his YouTube channel on February 8, 2014, under the username DreamTraps and started to upload content regularly in July 2019. The oldest accessible video on Dream's account involves him playing Minecraft deliberately poorly in order to "trigger" viewers. In July 2019, Dream figured out the seed of a Minecraft world YouTuber PewDiePie was playing on by using reverse engineering techniques that Dream learned from online forums. In December 2020, in place of their annual YouTube Rewind series, YouTube released a list of their top-trending videos and creators. On the U.S. list, YouTube ranked Dream's "Minecraft Speedrunner VS 3 Hunters GRAND FINALE" video as the number seven "Top Trending Video", and ranked Dream as the number two "Top Creator" and number one "Breakout Creator". A livestream by Dream on YouTube in November 2020 with about 700,000 peak viewers was the 6th highest viewed gaming stream of all time as of January 2021. A December 2020 Polygon article stated that "2020 has been a tremendous year for Dream", describing him as "YouTube's biggest gaming channel of the moment." Dream also had a friendly rivalry with fellow Minecraft YouTuber Technoblade before his death, as they each had a contested recognition for the title of "best Minecraft player." 2019–present: Minecraft Manhunt, Dream SMP and collaborations Dream's most popular YouTube series is "Minecraft Manhunt", a format where one player — usually Dream — attempts to complete a speedrun of Minecraft, while another player or team of players (the "hunters") attempts to kill the runner or thwart their progress. The first video in the series, titled "Beating Minecraft But My Friend Tries to Stop Me", was published on December 26, 2019. Further videos were published in the following years, featuring incrementally greater numbers of hunters. The final episode of the series was published on February 26, 2022. Many of the Minecraft Manhunt videos received tens of millions of views, with one of them ranking sixth in YouTube's Top Trending Videos of 2020. As of April 2025, the most-viewed in Dream's Minecraft Manhunt series has 135 million views. Nicolas Perez from Paste described Minecraft Manhunt as "an experience that leaves me slack-jawed every time", stating that the format of Minecraft Manhunt "seems to guarantee the hunters come out on top. But more often than not, Dream pulls just enough aces out of his sleeve to narrowly beat the hunters, and eventually the game." In April 2020, shortly after the release of Minecraft snapshot 20w17a, Dream and GeorgeNotFound created the Dream SMP, a private Survival Multiplayer (SMP) Minecraft server. Over time, other prominent Minecraft content creators outside of the "Dream Team" were invited to the server, including TommyInnit, Technoblade, and Wilbur Soot. Throughout 2020, Dream was a prominent participant in MC Championship, a monthly Minecraft competition organized by Noxcrew. He won both the 8th and 11th MC Championships. In September 2020, during the 10th MC Championship, he played for charity and raised around $3,400. The primary attraction for fans of The Dream SMP, according to their feedback, is the roleplay aspect. Major events are loosely scripted in advance, while most other elements consist of improvisation, performed live on YouTube and Twitch. Cecilia D'Anastasio of Wired described the Dream SMP as a form of live theatre and as a "Machiavellian political drama." On April 26, 2021, as a collaboration with Dream, fellow YouTuber MrBeast's fast-food restaurant chain MrBeast Burger released the Dream Burger as a limited-time addition to its menu. On November 4, 2025, Dream released a video on his main channel in which he revealed that a break to his scaphoid bone that he had sustained six months earlier while helping fellow YouTuber Sapnap train for an upcoming boxing match was struggling to heal and that it might affect his ability to upload his usual skill-intensive Minecraft challenge videos in the future. Dream still remained in a cast at the time of upload and he had undergone surgery and a bone graft to try and help heal his scaphoid. Dream also revealed that his recent uploads were videos he had pre-recorded before his surgery and that during filming them, his injury had already begun to affect his gaming ability. ==Music career==

On February 4, 2021, Dream released his first song, entitled "Roadtrip", in collaboration with PmBata, which garnered over 25 million views on YouTube. On May 20, 2021, Dream released his second song, entitled "Mask", which garnered over 24.7 million views on YouTube. An animated music video for "Mask" was released in June of the same year, though it was later deleted. The song and accompanying music video faced criticism for the content of the lyrics and animation, including a negative portrayal of prescription drugs. He depicted his own negative experience taking prescribed ADHD pills, referring to them in the work as "normal pills". Dream's fourth song, titled "Until I End Up Dead", was released through Mercury and Republic Records on June 23, 2023, after he had signed to Republic Records in December 2022. It was his first song to be released through a major label. On July 26, 2023, Dream announced that his debut EP To Whoever Wants to Hear would be released on September 1, 2023, and would have seven tracks. The second single from that EP, "Everest" with Yung Gravy, was released on July 28, 2023, followed by its music video on August 9, 2023. A music video for "Kind of Love", the second track on To Whoever Wants to Hear, was released on August 31, 2023, the day before the EP's release. The EP debuted at number 173 on the Billboard 200 chart. ==Public image and controversies==

Dream's personality on YouTube has been described as "polarizing". A 2020 SurveyMonkey poll revealed that, of respondents who were familiar with Dream, 59.7% held a favorable view of him, while 22.1% expressed an unfavorable view. Dream and other members of the Dream SMP gave rise to a popular fandom. On January 1, 2021, Dream was doxxed. On June 30, 2021, Dream announced that he had donated US$140,000 (US$90,000 from fan contributions and US$50,000 from the Dream Team) to The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth charity. In response to fellow YouTuber Technoblade's cancer diagnosis, Dream donated US$21,409 to cancer research in late August 2021. Dream has since participated in many other cancer charity initiatives, organized with Technoblade's father, known online as Mr. Technodad. During his career, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) contacted him about a "threat made against his life". He is the subject of Heat Waves, a fan fiction imagining a romantic relationship between him and GeorgeNotFound. Speedrun cheating scandal In early October 2020, Dream livestreamed himself speedrunning Minecraft, and submitted one of his times to speedrun.com. He was awarded with 5th place at the time in the "1.16+ random seed glitchless" category. Accusations of Dream cheating in these speedruns first arose on October 16, when another Minecraft speedrunner, in now-deleted Twitter posts, reported seeing higher drop rates for key items in one of the speedrunning attempts that Dream submitted. In response, Dream called the investigation clickbait and claimed that it was flawed enough that some members of speedrun.coms moderation team threatened to quit over it. Speedrun.com moderator Geosquare denied the accusation, saying: "All moderators voted unanimously in our decision and no one is threatening to leave in protest", and "From everything we know[,] that [claim] is unsubstantiated or complete hyperbole." Dot Esports said that the report did not exonerate him, and "at most" it suggested it was not impossible that he was lucky. The moderation team stood by their ruling and issued a rebuttal to Dream's report. In a Twitter post, Dream indicated that he would accept their decision without admitting fault. After becoming aware of the addition, he deleted his video response to the speedrun.com moderators. Dream explained that he did not mention his discovery of the addition publicly back then because he "felt like the community had been through enough drama and that it was pointless." He also "didn't want to be the center of controversy for the hundredth time" and that he figured "it would be a story I would tell in a few years when no one really cared." In a 2021 interview with YouTuber Anthony Padilla, Dream said that he regretted his initial reaction to the cheating scandal, saying that "I handled the situation horribly. When it originally came out, my response was, You guys are idiots, blah blah blah." When asked by Padilla how he thought he should have handled the scandal, Dream said that "I should have shut off all my devices for a couple days and been like, OK, let me not react with emotion." ==Personal life==

Dream's real-life identity and many aspects of his personal life are not public. named Clay, was born on August 12, 1999, and, as of 2022, resides in Orlando, Florida, with fellow internet personalities GeorgeNotFound and Sapnap. Dream has spoken publicly about his diagnosis with ADHD. His anonymous avatar was inspired by a picture his former girlfriend posted on Discord. On September 19, 2022, Dream stated that the next YouTube video he would upload would be him revealing his face to the public for the first time. He revealed his face in said YouTube video, titled ''hi, I'm Dream., thirteen days later, on October 2, 2022. Dream decided to do a face reveal because he wanted to meet up with friends, explore making new types of content, and do more work outside of his home. He also said that he would post "more IRL content" but does not "plan on adding a face cam" to his Minecraft'' videos. Due to backlash, Dream deleted the face reveal video in June 2023. At some point, however, Dream made his face reveal public on his YouTube channel again. According to Time magazine, "Dream's anonymity has been one of the most alluring aspects of his persona online and that intrigue, paired with his vibrant personality, have helped him build a loyal following across social media platforms." In a 2021 interview with YouTuber Anthony Padilla, Dream explained that although he never intended to remain anonymous, this aspect of his identity had become too important to his online persona for him to abandon at that time. ==Discography==

Extended plays Singles Music videos ==Awards and nominations==