Why Dream's face reveal ruined his brand

If you’re not familiar with the Youtuber and Twitch streamer Dream:

• Known for exciting Minecraft streams (best selling video game all-time)

• 43.2 million combined subscribers. 3.44 billion combined views

• Remained faceless with the signature smiley face as his brand image

What kept him relevant

Dream being faceless kept up the speculation on what he looks like.

Because of this, other content creators would make videos with Dream in the title and thumbnail speculating what he looked like.

All of them racking up millions of views and driving an insane amount of traffic back to his main channel to see “who he really was.”

Now all of that fantasy is gone

The mask was the brand

There’s something about the simple, unique, and memorable about Dream’s signature smiley face.

It was a representation of something bigger than the creator. Anyone can put the mask on and feel like they were him.

And that’s why anything he released that was related to the mask connected with his fans.

Dream released a song called ‘Mask’. 33 million views.

Almost all of his merch has the smiley face.

That was his distinctive branding. But now with his face reveal, it loses its significance.

Now when you think of Dream, you don’t think of the smiley face. You think about the actual person, who is an everyday normal person.

What was his motive for the face reveal?

Since the start of his career, Dream’s content has been all about Minecraft. And in his face reveal post, he mentioned about wanting to make more real life content with his friends.

He has made videos with other youtubers that he now lives with, and was also very briefly featured in Mr. Beast’s “I Survived 50 Hours In Antarctica.”

But his appearances may not have executed well enough on camera.

Because he doesn’t have the experience of being an “on-camera personality,” which is a skill in itself. He just hasn’t had or needed the practice to get better at it until now.

In Anthony Padilla’s “I spent a day with DREAM” video interview, Dream admits that his channel blew up mainly because of his content ideas and minecraft skills, rather than his personality.

Two very different qualities in a content creator.

It’s easier to attack a person than a brand

Before people would only attack him for his Minecraft play.

But now people can attack him for his looks, personality, social status, social tendencies, and whatever else trolls on the internet choose.

The internet now has all access into his personal life.