6 | Culturesque

Gaming

A seemingly dead fandom rising back to prominence in the gaming community.

Minecraft, one of the most predominant games of the decade, needs no introduction. It has made itself known to the public in 2009 and despite its ups and downs, has made its way into the limelight and basked in it for about five years. An enormous boost in popularity for the game was most certainly the community surrounding it on YouTube, the second most frequently used website in the entire world. Online creators who played Minecraft in the 2010s quickly gained popularity and became rising stars. Despite the fandom’s many substantial issues, the game up until its ostensibly inevitable fade out, remained at the top of sales charts even surpassing 25 million sales in December 2016.

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DanTDM skin

PrestonPlayz skin

LD Shadowlady skin

PewDiePie skin

The MCYT or MineCraft YouTube fandom slowly started trickling back into the public eye around 2018. Audiences and content creators alike begun returning to the medium for some much needed nostalgia, often times gaining millions of views, as was the case for popular youtuber PewDiePie. His rebound to Minecraft in 2019 assuredly paid him off, earning him 210 mln views in just the first 10 episodes of the series. This proved that the game was still an easy way to garner a massive audience and earn money fortuitously. Thus many viewers, having grown up watching Minecraft Letsplays in their day to day life, decided to join and establish themselves on the platform.

The thumbnail of "Minecraft Part 1", the beginning of PewDiePie's new Minecraft series

TommyInnit making the Pog face

One of them, a now beloved 16 year-old creator known for his loud and energetic behaviour going by the name TommyInnit, posted his first Minecraft video on his main channel, titled “using ed sheeran to win skywars” on 28th October 2018. His already dedicated fanbase, coming over from his Fortnite and PUBG streams on Twitch, gave him the base following needed to establish oneself online. His acclaim only seemed to skyrocket after his taking part in the roleplay server - SMPEarth.

TommyInnit with a Minecraft sword

SMPEarth map

SMPEarth was a private survival multiplayer factions server founded by Chip, WilburSoot, and JoshA20. Basically, the server was a 1:3000 scale replica of the real-life Earth, and factions were used to simulate nations. It had over 60 creators playing on it and a long history of wars, alliances, and treaties. Beginning on 22nd November 2019, it officially closed after 142 days, on 11th April 2020. The server became a breeding ground for social media attention, uniting the players in game as well as their content outside of Minecraft. The event affiliated the aforementioned TommyInnit, musician and youtuber Wilbur Soot and Technoblade, one of the best PvPers on YouTube. They became close after, fascinatingly enough, declaring war on one another during the server’s run and have only seemed to grow closer in the following months.

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WilburSoot, TommyInnit and Technoblade skins

In a similar fashion, another roleplay server was slowly making its way into the spotlight, one that would become a gargantuan sensation in the consecutive months.

Dream SMP, formerly known as Dream Team SMP, is a survival multiplayer roleplay series played by the Dream Team and their friends. Dream - one of the most popular Minecraft speedruners along with his friends Sapnap and GeorgeNotFound formed the server on 25th April 2020.

Skeppy, Dream, Sapnap, GeorgeNotFound and BadBoyHalo skins

While the server was mostly used as a background to their adventures, occasionally including mutual friends and youtubers BadBoyHalo and Skeppy, it was mostly dormant. It all changed heavily, however, after the introduction of TommyInnit, even separated into BT (Before Tommy) and AT (After Tommy) segments on the server’s timeline.

Screenshot_2021-02-25 Timeline of the Dr

DreamSMP event timeline

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His rambunctious attitude and captivating cordiality quickly made him an important part of the lore, and caused an amusing change of pace in the server.

TommyInnit wearing sunglasses

L'Manberg Flag

Members of L'Manberg

Together with Wilbur, they decided to found a nation of their own instead of submitting to the rule of the Dream Team. This caused a very interesting dynamic between the two groups. With the addition of Tubbo, Eret, Niki, Fundy and Jack Manifold, the “L’Manberg” nation gained independence after many battles and trials they had to endure. This quickly garnered public attention, as the compelling narrative presented entirely in roleplay and Wilbur Soot’s genius script were exceedingly entertaining and with all the participants being influencers, the viewers could discover all sides of the story being portrayed.

Shortly after The Dream Team SMP vs. L'Manberg War arc came to an end, on 12th August 2020, the animator and artist SAD-ist posted her now iconic “Dream SMP War” animatic, which with its incredible visuals, great use of quotes from the server and swelling music, created a burst of fame for the Dream SMP.

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Screenshot_2021-02-17 Profil Chef ( gree

DreamSMP poster by greenionpan on Instagram

With this in place more youtubers begun joining the server and the story continued to unfold, like a beautiful caterpillar turning into an even more stunning butterfly. The fans started producing fan content in the mass: animatics, songs, cosplay, art and fanfiction all became the foundation for a massively interactive and devoted fanbase.