During elementary and middle school most people, myself included, went through an intense obsession with Minecraft – a sandbox video game created by Mojang. However, that phase is often grown out of by high school. Through this popularity, Minecraft Youtubers emerged. During this time between 2015-2017, the most popular of these YouTubers were Aphmau, Sky Does Minecraft, stampylonghead, DanTDM, and PopularMMOs.

After a few years of what I would like to call an “off period,” while other things trended on the video site, the popularity of Minecraft returned in 2020 with new faces on the gaming scene, most using the live streaming platform Twitch to stream their playthroughs of the game. Newcomers, Dreamwastaken, Tommyinnit, Tubbo, Wilbur Soot and Technoblade, all play on a Minecraft Survival Multiplayer server called the “Dream SMP” where all of them roleplay as characters that, despite going by their real names, are completely separate from themselves. In this series on the server, a group of scriptwriters compile their ideas for the storyline and share the finished product with their fellow SMP members so that everyone knows what should happen lore-wise, even if they go slightly off-script. I personally joined the fandom when Wilbur started a heavily Hamilton-inspired plot on the server with Tommy and Tubbo. After that “season” ended, they started a new story arc on the server with Tommy, Tubbo, and Dream at the center of it all, which just ended recently.

Some people may see “Dream Stans” and call them “cringey” or just make fun of them in general, but I think that they should just let people enjoy what they want. Especially if people that enjoy the streaming may be neurodivergent and hyper-fixated on the topic, unable to talk about anything else, in which case you should politely ask to change the subject, or just let them rant. People have found comfort in these content creators because they also deal with mental disorders, like Dream who has ADHD, Tubbo who has dyslexia, Tommy, who has low blood pressure and GeorgeNotFound, who is colorblind. All of these creators are completely transparent about their disorders, of course, maintaining a certain degree of privacy alongside it.

One member of this group, Wilbur, has also preached that “teenage girls can’t enjoy something without being mocked, and that’s (really) bad and sexist to me.” This has led me to realize while watching these current content creators and reflecting on the ones I watched in the past, that the current wave of content creators have grown up watching their predecessors as well. This experience has led to creators setting boundaries with their fans and even leading Wilbur, once again, to give some sound advice of “I am just a character on a screen, it’s okay to think about and talk about what I do on streams and about what I post on social media, but when I am not posting don’t worry about what I’m doing. Like that Twitter account that was tracking my Spotify activity? That’s really creepy, don’t do that.” Then on a recent stream, Tommy said on a recent “chill” stream that “stress can motivate you to get things done,” and that “the reason a lot of people get anxious is because something is out of their control, so to fix it I figure out what’s out of my control and attack it head on.”

With all of that in mind, I would like to say that while this interest may seem “cringey” to some, it’s something that brings a lot of people amazing amounts of comfort, especially in times like this when the outside world can be a bit much for everyone, so please take time to learn more before bashing it.