Fan·dom /ˈfandəm/ Noun:

the fans of a particular person, team, fictional series, etc. regarded collectively as a community or subculture

Fandoms are by far one of the most common aspects of pop-culture. It only makes sense- as humans we crave to be around people who have the same ideals as ourselves. If you were to look at your friends, for example, you would see that you two would have some of the same ideals, and likely would also enjoy certain aspects of the same fandom. But the thing is, everyone eventually leaves a fandom. They move on to others, and continue to grow into better interests. However, what would happen if those fandoms you enjoyed in the past turned out to be toxic? If it happened to still be going strong, despite being forgotten by just about everyone? In this article series we will be exploring such fandoms. For this week’s topic, we will be discussing the “Dream SMP” fandom; a fandom laced with extreme toxicity, racism, fetisization of minors, and so much more to determine: ‘Is this Fandom Okay?’

The start of the server

The Dream SMP is a private Minecraft-based multiplayer server that hosts popular Youtubers, such as Dream, Badboyhalo, Skeppy, Karl Jacobs, Tubbo, Tommyinnit, and more (as of now there are about thirty people on there). The server itself has acquired a cult following beginning in the Spring of 2020, mainly due to the popular streamers and the extreme amount of lore surrounding the SMP (for a brief history of the server, go here.). Of course, when you have an extreme cult following, there’s bound to be horrible things that go on within that fandom. So, let’s get into some of the worst aspects of that fandom.

What does the Dox say?

A small percentage of the Dream SMP fandom has been obsessed with doxxing the content creators for various reasons, whether that be due to something “controversial” the creator had once said (as seen here), their political views ( just search up the term “Jshlatt Canceled” for this), or even just because of a strange obsession with their favorite youtuber. This has caused an influx of threats and doxxings to occur within the fandom itself. For example, the content creator Dream was subject to these doxxings by some people within the fandom. This trend of doxxing is  mainly aimed at content creators such as Nicholas Cantu, Tommyinnit, Quackity, Dream, Technoblade, Karl Jacobs, and so many more though other fans are also sometimes targeted. Most of these stated issues seem to occur mainly on Twitter, which is widely regarded as becoming one of the worst social media sites on the internet, akin to the infamous 4Chan, in some regards, which seems to put an unfortunate, ironic twist on the direction the fandom had taken.

Finding racism

Now onto another issue; the racism involved in the fandom. This is a normal aspect of any fandom, as racial identity plays a huge role in any aspect of culture. However, small parts of the fandom (mainly on Twitter and Tumblr) have been trying to cancel members of the DSMP for alleged bouts of racism. One of the members, a Mexican streamer named Quackity, had been accused of culturally appropriating Mexicans, because of his Spanish-only livestreams. This is completely uncalled for, as the streamer is Mexican, and speaking Spanish is not cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation is the “inappropriate adoption of culture, practices, ideas, etc. of one peoples”, which does not include speaking the Spanish language. The same small part of the fandom has also tried to get the streamer Ph1LzA canceled on the basis of his Minecraft skin. The skin itself is based upon the anime character Kisuke Urahara, the supporting protagonist of Bleach. However, this particular group of DSMP fans have accused Ph1LzA of culturally appropriating Japanese culture as his skin is based on a Japanese anime character. Yet again, not only is it completely asinine to try and cancel someone over a character based skin, but this group of fans had taken the entirety of Japanese culture and whittled it down to claim that its only important cultural aspect is anime. 

Shipping

And perhaps the most important issue of the fandom: the shipping. Of course, if you look at any fandom you would see that this is a common issue- however, this becomes a major issue when people start to ship real people, more specifically, minors. It’s been a long standing debate among the fandom if they should be shipping the people involved in the DSMP; as some of the content creators (mainly Dream and GeorgeNotFound) have stated that they were okay with being shipped. However, a vast majority of such creators have admitted that they were uncomfortable with being shipped as real people, along with the lewd “fanart” featuring them.

Three creators in particular, Tommyinnit, Tubbo and Ranboo are shipped the most in the fandom- but this triumvirate are all minors. Now, some of the “artists” creating the minor’s “ship art” realize that this is a crime to sexualize and make “smut” of the trio, and all come under strict fire from the fandom itself and others. This is disgusting behavior for obvious reasons, and should not be tolerated at all.

The Positives

However, despite all the issues listed above, that’s not to say that the fandom is all bad. Most of the fandom is focussed on appropriate art, fanfics, or even just enjoying their content creators, without getting involved in any drama. The DSMP fandom even managed to push animator SAD-ist into the limelight with their animatics, along with the writer blujamas for their fanfic “Passerine”. The issues listed above with the fandom are often caused by small groups of people, who unfortunately managed to gain traction across the internet.

So… is this fandom okay?

Although the fandom suffers from extreme toxicity, racism, and fetisization of literal minors by a limited faction of members, there is a chance that it can be better. And many fans involved are striving to be better. Like stated before, many of the people participating in the vulgar behaviors plaguing the fandom are small groups of toxic individuals who happened to become the main focus points of the internet. Unfortunately, this fandom is considered generally toxic, but it’s safe enough to be explored and iot can be concluded that this fandom is… okay-ish.

All images belong to their respective owners

Image Links:

Dream SMP Characters: https://www.google.com/url?q=https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/LetsPlay/DreamSMP&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1646702137451350&usg=AOvVaw2voT9Eh-kS0dwugVlP7-bC 

Dream Doxxed: https://www.ginx.tv/en/minecraft/did-dream-catfish-his-fans-with-a-face-reveal 

Ph1lza and Kisuke side-by-side comparison: https://real-truth.tumblr.com/post/652821404423716864/philza-i-am-not-a-urahara-kisuke-kinnie-also?is_related_post=1

All content creators or sources are linked in article