Throughout the pandemic, new ideas, trends, and stars came to light. Significantly, the popularity of YouTuber Dream, a faceless content creator, and his invite-only Dream SMP, full of Minecraft YouTubers and Twitch streamers. 

Over the past year, Dream has become a major force in the Minecraft community. His YouTube channel grew from one million subscribers in early 2020 to more than 21 million now, and he regularly achieves 150 million views per month. He also won the 2020 Streamy Award for overall top gaming creator. 

SMP stands for “survival multiplayer,” a type of Minecraft server that puts the players against environmental threats, such as lava or fire, against mobs, such as zombies, skeletons, or creepers, among others, and even against themselves, in player against player combat. The game itself, Minecraft, spawns players into a world where they can craft, build, explore, destroy, and create infinitely. With tools and imagination, the sandbox game is a useful space to generate stories and content, and has been used on platforms like Twitch and YouTube since its launch. 

For the Dream SMP, the goal, like many SMP’s, is to survive. But for this server, each member makes up a complex storyline, full of betrayal, friendship, and magic. Most of the roleplay is scripted by the content creators themselves, but followed by improvisation in streams on both YouTube and Twitch. 

One of the Dream SMP’s major story events, the Disc Saga, set Dream against fellow server member TommyInnit, (5.2 Million followers on Twitch and 9.79 Million subscribers on YouTube), in a dramatic good-versus-evil battle, that cumulated months of roleplay throughout the SMP, and attracted more than 650k viewers in a finale Twitch stream, that featured the closing confrontation between the server members and Dream. 

The Dream SMP started out with only Dream and his two friends and fellow content creators, GeorgeNotFound and Sapnap, all three together known as the “Dream Team.” Soon after, as other content creators were invited, the server would grow to over 30 members, and start a timeline of intricate storylines and original characters along with just regular gameplay. 

With the many lockdowns people have experienced throughout the pandemic, the popularity of the server is no surprise. The Dream SMP has over 30 members, all who stream or upload their point of views on YouTube and Twitch, to which a viewer could pick any to watch from. Junior Shelby Rodriguez says she chooses to watch Twitch streamer and is a member of the channel MrBeast (61.6 Million subscribers), Karl Jacobs. 

“I started watching the Dream SMP because a crew member from one of my favorite YouTube channels, Karl Jacobs from MrBeast, joined and I’ve been a fan ever since,” Rodriguez said. 

Karl Jacobs joined the Dream SMP on August 26, 2020, when the server was in the L’Manburg Independence arc. He continued to play and add to the server, and he now has his own storyline, “Tales from the SMP, ” where his character goes through time and meets the characters both in the past and in the future. 

“I’ve been watching him for about eight months now and watching him grow a community and as a person has been quite an amazing experience,” Rodriguez said. 

Jacobs started streaming on Twitch under the username GamerBoyKarl in 2017. He gathered a small following in the beginning, but it wasn’t until 2020 that the streamer and YouTube personality started gaining popularity as he became a main member and collaborator with MrBeast. He also became popular for being a member of the Dream SMP. Jacobs went from 400k followers on Twitch in mid-October to over 1 million in just a few months, and now standing at 2.5 Million followers in May 2021. His first video he ever posted on his own channel, Karl, (1.98 Million subscribers), “I Hunted LazarBeam on Dream SMP!” reached 2.1 Million views. 

“Karl is one of the only streamers I watch because it’s hard to sit through certain streams, especially since I don’t have a particular interest in Minecraft,” Rodriguez said. “Karl is entertaining and keeps my focus.” 

Many fans of the Dream SMP and the content creators in it are familiar with Minecraft, and often play it themselves. On the other hand, there are plenty of fans that have never even touched the game, that still love to watch the streams and YouTube videos. This shows that to enjoy the Dream SMP and it’s content, knowledge about the game isn’t really needed. 

“I enjoy that with the SMP it gives smaller creators who have potential a chance to become what they dream of- which is being a content creator with tons of support,” Rodriguez said. “The SMP helps the members build a community, bring people together, and ultimately brings a source of comfort and love to the viewers.”

The Dream SMP is still growing and adding stories everyday, from streamer Quackity’s take on his character with his cinematic lore streams, to streamer RanbooLive’s regular everyday streams of collecting resources and talking to chat. So, from lore to regular gameplay, there is something for everyone on the Dream SMP.