Happy Wheels

I believe the time has come for me to accept that I am no longer in touch with today's young. On a daily basis, I check TikTok. I enjoy playing Fortnite. I can use terms like 'No Cap' and 'Deadass' in everyday conversation without embarrassing myself. On the surface, I'm all for kids, but when it comes to Minecraft YouTubers, that all changes.

Dream, a Minecraft YouTuber, exposed his face on video yesterday night, and it has now garnered tens of millions of views and online dialogues that are generating more interest than most worldwide news items. This is a monumental occasion, yet I have no idea who this individual is.

It appears that I am not alone in my perplexity, and my understanding illustrates a generational divide between those who grew up with Let's Play characters rather than more traditional superstars and others who were entering adulthood when this kind of entertainment was just getting started. When creators like PewdiePie and Markiplier were rising in prominence, playing games like Slender and Happy Wheels to millions of viewers, I was graduating secondary school. Overzealous reactions were all the rage, and I just didn't get it.

I could see the appeal, but I didn't want to watch whole playthroughs of popular games when I could play them myself. It felt like a waste, and I didn't develop the same parasocial bonds that so many others did. Instead, I remained with older websites like Giant Bomb and GameTrailers, which were ahead of their time in terms of video content that YouTubers would extensively use in the coming years. Times were changing, and I realized I wasn't at the right age to see that change properly.

Creators like JackSepticEye weren't just making games for people to watch; they were conversing with them and treating them as equals, inviting them into a small portion of their lives for a limited period of time each day. It may have only been to watch them play a game, but it was a small bit of levity that subscribers grew to appreciate. An entire generation fell in love with these artists not because they were good at video games, but because of their personality. I once sat next to JackSepticEye at an event, and he was quite nice. We even split a bag of gourmet popcorn. But we're not here to talk about our friendship; we're here to talk about whoever this Dream man is. Maybe I'm becoming old, out of touch, or don't hang out in those circles anymore, but his celebrity astounds me. In terms of sheer numbers, he dwarfs the world's biggest popstars and actors.

Minecraft was not something I became interested in. I had a server with friends in school where we developed a tiny community, but I never connected with professional content makers or had a desire to explore everything this game was capable of, and most people my age didn't either. People like Dream and TommyInnit attract a much younger demographic that grew up with emerging games like Minecraft and Fortnite, while content makers came to normalize the process of checking onto YouTube and viewing new uploads as we would the latest episode of our favorite television shows. The torch has been passed, and I don't mind being left behind as I desperately strive to understand a new generation of gamers who will transform the medium in the same manner that I did. Dream's unmasking is a defining moment in popular culture from a time I couldn't be further distant from, similar to the Red Wedding in Game of Thrones or The Inbetweeners sitting their final examinations.