Dream has changed the face of ‘Minecraft’ content with its SMP series

• The Dream SMP, a private server for Minecraft content creators, has exploded in popularity.
• Hundreds of thousands of fans watch videos about lore and characters from the server’s expanding universe.
• Fan-run social media accounts catalog the lore, allowing fans to follow the content.
• Visit the Insider home page for more stories.

Minecraft was launched over ten years ago and the video game is more popular than ever. With over 126 million players worldwide, the voxel-based survival game immerses adventurers in a world where they can craft, build, explore, destroy and create as they please. Aided by tools, blocks, and creativity, the simple sandbox world allows anyone on PC, console or smartphone to project their own feelings and creations directly into their virtual space.

“As long as you have the mind for it, you can really do anything,” YouTuber Purpled, 17, who has 700,000 subscribers, told Insider. “Because of Minecraft’s simplicity and how easy it is to build, you can create anything you want.”

In recent years, Microsoft’s Endless Game has become a tool for content creators to express themselves, which has led to high profile collaborations with some of YouTube’s biggest personalities. By creating their own private Minecraft servers, the creators were able to create ornate worlds and stories that they can explore in streams and videos, immersing fans in a cinematic-style universe.

Minecraft has a long history on YouTube

The versatility of “Minecraft” has made it an incredibly popular game for content creators and influencers. In 2012, a change in YouTube’s algorithm favoring watch time over video clicks led to a renaissance of “Let’s Players” who recorded themselves reacting and playing their favorite games. Minecraft was one of the most successful, spawning some of the biggest chains of the era like SkyDoesMinecraft (11.3 million subscribers) and Tobuscus (6.25 million subscribers).

While Minecraft’s popularity has remained fairly stable, the content on the title has declined a bit over the next decade, either due to content fatigue or newer titles like “Fortnite” in the limelight. 2020 brought the title back to the fore, with streamers and YouTubers capitalizing on the popularity of the title.

The biggest Minecraft star in recent years is Dream, an expert, faceless gamer with a neon green avatar with over 17 million YouTube subscribers. YouTube called him the second overall content creator of the year, and his streams consistently attract a quarter of a million people.

In May 2020, Dream decided to create a small private server for his friends to play. This SMP, or “multiplayer survival” server, started out with only a handful of guest content creators. Soon, the server will expand to over 30 members, generating millions of fan views telling every moment of the lore the creators ultimately created.

Audience for Twitch of Minecraft content has grown from 17 million hours viewed in January 2020 to 74 million in January 2021, according to data from analytics firm Rainmaker.gg provided by StreamElements.

How the Dream SMP went from a private server with friends to a cultural milestone

Purpled has been playing Minecraft for eight years and is a high ranking player in a multiplayer game mode called “Bed Wars”. He had started talking to Dream in the summer of 2019, when the two were both small mutual fans.

“When the SMP was just starting out, I just asked him if there was room because he said it was just for friends and if a friend wants to join they can,” Purpled said. “So I asked him, he said, ‘Sure. “He sent me the IP and I was in it.”

The server was originally just a place of creation and meeting, with no intention of creating an overall story or plot.

Fundy, a 21-year-old Dutch YouTuber with 2.7 million subscribers joined us when only a few other creators were active. “I had spoken to Dream several times, an unusual dream sent me a message of world survival that they had going on. It was very small at first,” Fundy said. “I thought it was like that. could be a fun little side-project that I could stream from time to time on Twitch, so I decided to join in. “

Fundy joined in his debut alongside Wilbur Soot, a 24-year-old YouTuber with 3.8 million subscribers. Soot, after attempting to create an “illegal potions store” on the server, decided to found a nation of non-American gamers called L’Manberg. Soot said he wrote a “treat” on how his country’s roster would go, creating an official canon for fans to follow.

“I was invited to the Dream SMP near its inception, but didn’t fully join it until I got the idea to build a country in Minecraft,” said Soot. “I’m writing a series of plot hooks and points that should be linked, but we improvise dialogue and comedy throughout to take us from point to point.”

These streams and pieces of content all had a canon that could be followed and consumed like a TV show. L’Manberg eventually launched a war against Dream for his independence, staging a rebellion chronicled in YouTube videos with millions of views.

These streams and videos aren’t just the vagaries of Minecraft trying to defeat the end-game dragon Ender – they’re from artists bringing a show their fans can’t miss. As the tradition developed, the rules necessary to maintain a sense of continuity and order developed. For example, each player only has three lives before being removed and deleted from the server.

“It went from being a casual survival game to a whole story filled with intrigue and twists,” Fundy said. “RPG at this point is a key feature of the Dream SMP, some parts are scripted, some parts are improvisation, and some parts are ‘non-canon’, where it is simply counted as a standard Minecraft server. “

Fan communities have risen up and made their voices heard

Over the next few months, the lore and the world would continue to grow, as would the fan base. Hundreds of thousands of viewers are said to tune in to these streams, trying to keep up with the tradition and the content. To help catalog the story, a fan network established itself as knowledge keepers, documenting every moment for those who must have missed a stream.

The “DREAMSMP UPDATES!” Twitter account has established itself as one of the most popular places to find all this content and knowledge on social media. As of December 2020, the account has grown to over 147,000 users with just a team of seven admins, ages 14-17, in different locations around the world, posting updates and feed notifications to fans. Minecraft is a game that appeals to all ages, but the audience for this content tends to be younger, with 41% of Twitch’s user base being between the ages of 16 and 24, according to GlobalWebIndex.

– DREAMSMP UPDATES! (@smpupdate) December 6, 2020

“You can tell they’re all friends and it’s a lot lighter in general and it shows” mod on “DREAMSMP UPDATES!” Enlightened Twitter account said on the Discord chat app. “When it’s not a tradition you actually see them have good chemistry and that really draws you in because it’s almost like being dragged into a group of friends.”

User SamHQ first started the fan account with a few friends from high school, but the group quickly grew after the account tweeted that it needed more fans from certain streamers to join. She is online and manages the account “24/7” but “it’s like answering an SMS”.

“When I started the account I knew a lot of people who couldn’t make up for it because of work or school,” SamHQ said. “So I got some friends together to help me out and now people are counting on us when someone is streaming or to catch up when they can’t watch.”

For fans running the Update Account, following the Dream SMP is no different than following the Marvel Cinematic Universe or a long-running TV show. The characters come and go, but the improvisation and role-playing remain.

“The Dream SMP did something really special – take an original idea, create new things that have never been seen in Minecraft, and incorporate them with humor and characters that you can easily relate to,” the NotAlex mod said.

While other SMP role-playing servers, like EarthSMP and SMPLive, have been created over the years, none have been as successful or popular as the Dream SMP.

Finding a fan base on the Dream SMP can lead to major growth.

For artists on the server, addressing fans and their responses comes with territory.

“Dream SMP viewers are very important to the Dream SMP, and being openly voicing their opinion about how a certain stream went only helps streamers improve,” Fundy said. “It’s basically an instant review of what was liked and what wasn’t.”

Like most big fandoms with a young audience, the fanfiction of these streamers has appeared online. Dozens of Dream’s fics and drawings exist online, some going a bit deep and featuring minor characters. Dream responded on Twitter to these “ships,” writing that they shouldn’t “ship creators who aren’t comfortable with this, especially not minors.”

—Dream (@dreamwastaken) January 22, 2021

Dream stans, or super fans, also tend to be very online talking about SMP. Twitter hashtags such as #dreamnotfound and #dreamfanart are consistently found on the trending page, confusing those who have no idea this world exists. The fiercest of stans sometimes cross the line between polite disagreement and outright harassment. This vocal minority sent death threats and waves of harassment to those who criticize or disagree with their favorite content creators.

The growth and future of these channels is largely due to the Dream SMP server.

The popularity of Dream SMP has helped the growth of content creators participating in it. Since joining the server, Purpled has gained three times the number of subscribers per month on YouTube and has been introduced to a whole new fan base. Her YouTube streams used to attract 3,000 viewers, but now her Twitch average is closer to 15,000 to 25,000 viewers.

“Some people see them as obsessive fans or stalkers, but they’re people who really like to talk about certain creators and really get involved in things,” Purpled said. “And that’s really cool because they care a lot more and connect more with the creator than with the content.”

These creators understand the power of the fan base and know they are coming for the content.

“I think the Dream SMP is popular because of the brilliant creators and the fun improv moments,” Soot said. “I think we’ll see a huge wave of role-playing-centric gaming communities emerge.”