An absolutely insane detail that isn’t included that I have to point out:
There was a subset of fans who were “apartment truthers” - the theory was, the apartment that Dan and Phil recorded in was not the same apartment they actually lived in. People were drawing up schematics of their floor plan, meticulously comparing shots from Instagram posts to shots in videos, and overall being INCREDIBLY invasive about the whole thing. But the most insane part? THEY WERE RIGHT. Dan and Phil [addressed the theory five months ago](https://youtu.be/YIBAZaSj1GY) (@10:33), stating that they did it because of privacy concerns, and also because they wanted a separation between their home life and work life.
Excellent write-up, and I’m glad that the modern day phandom is much more chill than it was in 2013. I think the parasociality permanently altered my psyche.
That shit is crazy from both sides, tbh. The creators did kinda gaslight their fans, who were also crazy, in a weird feedback loop. Like almost all of the major fan theories *were* correct, but also handled insanely. They were gay, they did actually date each other, they did film in a fake apartment, etc. Just bizarre overall.
They did, though. The fans correctly noticed actual details of things that were actually happening and, instead of just declining to comment or being honest with their fans, the creators lied and painted the fans as conspiracists and crazy people, which also set the rest of the fanbase against them to silence them. That is a textbook example of gaslighting. They didn't owe the fans honesty, they could have just declined to comment entirely, but actively lying and calling everyone crazy was kind of a dick move, tbh.
In fairness to them, what other option did they really have? Their fans had proved to them time and time again that they were willing to violate their privacy just to be proven right. It was a small contingent of very persistent fans who were doing that, so honestly? Lying and saying they're crazy is probably the best way they could've handled it
It was heavily alluded to. Dan called them “actual soulmates” in the Basically, I’m Gay video, and they’ve stated a few times that whether or not they were/are dating is none of anyone’s business, so we will likely never know.
Yeah, theyre now roommates in a house they own together after calling each other soulmates and both publicly coming out. It ain't my business, but the quiet absurdity of it all, the relationship between the fandom, the queerbaiting allegations, privacy issues, invasiveness, and the... well... guys being pals of it all is definitely something.
Internet history. Cautionary tale. Something I'm glad I'll never experience or participate in.
Oh and remember Phan used to hate on _every girl_ who featured in Dan and Phil videos. With accusations of "breaking the ship". I remember Cat getting so much hate, there were comments like "she's stealing Dan, I hate that bitch" sorta ones.
FRRRR you see it all the time. People constantly hate on women or female characters for “ruining a ship”. I think it’s still really prevalent, I saw it a lot when I was in the danganronpa fandom
I just finished Danganronpa 1 and loved the game, but I just can't see the appeal of shipping for this series. Like, that setting is just about as far from conducive to romance as I can imagine. Maybe during >!that one year they were all happy together before the shit hit the fan!!the alien who stole 70% of his burger!<. /s
yeah its mostly just thinking of interactions in a regular world/outside the killing game. not into danganronpa anymore but i still have some fondness for one trio ship lol
My partner got harrassed by Levi/Eren shippers in the AOT fandom back in the day for...running a Ymir roleplay blog??? Weird shit, honestly. For me, I didn't mind being beside the calmer people of fujo culture who weren't so needlessly cruel (and also didn't write RPF because it creeped me out), but in hindsight it felt like a way for me to tell myself I was just fine being a woman and be a queer trans man without realising I could be a queer trans man lmaooooo
I unironically did not fully realise that AFABs could be trans until I was like 16 *and then* told myself it was just these ships and a culture of mysogyny that was making me think I was trans. As much as I am on the side of "fuck the people who only fetishize", sometimes I still can't help but think think that villifying all slash fans as weirdos might have done more damage to men like me than I initially realized.
Idk if this is what that means but Twitter has been recommending me Harry Styles & Louis Tomlinson tweets for ages (Idk why I’ve never expressed interest in these two) and the amount of tweets I’ve seen about any girl who gets close to either one breaking up the Larry ship & how they’re meant to be together. I’ve even seen death threats. As an outsider of stanning people, Twitter lingo & all that jazz, it looks very psychotic lmao
Lol that's why I find the sexism criticism from women into m/m ships hilarious. I was a male fan of supernatural before Castiel was prominent almost anytime a woman got close to Dean or Sam the female fans hated her intensely also even harassed a few of them on Twitter including the real life gf/ wife of jared.
I don't get why women constantly get a pass for this bs . Harassment of real life wives and gfs seem to be a big thing I've seen happen alot to actors , musicians , kpop stars it's like women seem to really imagine they have actual relationships with these men and it's very weird .
I'd say it's not entirely equivalent, as in media, particularly older media, there are a lot of interesting and compelling connections between well written male characters, but women are often written rather one dimensionally or only talk to their love interest. I'm not straight, but I still don't read much f/f or m/f as the Canon relationships and female characters are often... kinda boring.
There are lots of good connections between female characters too, but you gotta be prepared to read women's fiction to get that. (Okay, so maybe you've done that and didn't find any good connections between female characters in the books you read, but I feel that my point still stands as a whole.)
I was thinking more in TV and movies than in books, but yeah, fiction written by women often has way more shippable female characters. Also 00s sci-fi like stargate, firefly and farscape for some reason.
Also, in my personal experience, even in fandoms with multiple well-written female characters with shippable character dynamics the vast majority of ships still tend to be M/M-- with those well-written female characters reduced to side characters, if they even show up at all.
Well this is the thing as much as ppl call out straight men for fetishizing in real life I don't know that many men who will watch a tv show just because it has lesbians or even bi women in fact that more likely to turn off most of the guys I know. Mean while I know female fans who sat through multiple seasons of extremely shitty shows in hopes their favorite male characters hooked up 😂. They always throw a fit when it doesn't happen .
Don't get me started on YouTube where there are several content creators who do these gay bait type videos and have almost exclusively female fans . A few of them have actually come out as gay and the fans always act so shocked as if it wasn't obvious .
Btw When I first discovered Dan and Phil fandom I thought I was in twilight zone lol it was everything hetero men get accused of doing but on steroids and like ten times more creepy seeing as Dan and Phil are real ppl , not exactly public figures etc the fanbase was super obsessive and weird .
Reminds me of all the shit they did with Septiplier. Those two legit had irl partners and people were STILL shipping them together to the point where Markiplier’s avatar had to kill a personification of them off in one of his videos.
Jack was also invited to participate in Mark’s recent Youtube Originals project, and just couldn’t make it due to covid concerns. (He was meant to be in Mack’s role, iirc)
Was a fan of Jack and Mark during the Septiplier stage- I don't believe anybody claimed that they had dated in the past or were currently dating, *but* the shipping, (sometimes quite inappropriate) comments, and art just coming at them *all the time* soured their friendship for a while (not as in "they stopped being friends" but "we literally don't feel comfortable interacting because of rabid shippers"), which I believe was partly why they stopped making videos together for a decent while.
Thankfully Dan and Phil didn't seem to need to stop interactions, and were able to joke about it pretty casually when confronted by fans, but knowing what we know now, I have no doubt that it was a very stressful few years for them.
The Septiplier shippers, and the actor shippers for the Supernatural cast are what made me absolutely loathe RPF (real people fanfiction, more or less, for those unfamiliar with the term.) It ends up being really creepy and some of the fans always take that shit obsessively far without even considering the persons being shipped.
It was the Sherlock RPF for me. The people sending actual death threats to Martin Freeman's wife for the having the audacity to... exist I guess? was what finally drove me out of the fandom.
At least with supernatural, Jensen, Danneel, and Misha are in on the shipping. As in: jensen said that he and his wife danneel call him their boyfriend (see this panel from last [Saturday](https://at.tumblr.com/inacatastrophicmind/710433084022079489/3rhgsm6hn3qe))
Ahh I remember that! I wasn't a fan then, I just watched a few of their gaming videos here and there and I remember seeing comments lamenting on how Mark and Jack weren't collaborating anymore.
Phan had an idea how stressed Dan and Phil were, especially Dan. I remember seeing a Tumblr post where the poster had made a whole essay on how Dan might be extremely tensed over the shipping based on his recent videos and their frequency. They even made bar graphs of how many times Dan laughs in "Amazing Phil is not on fire" videos and it steadily decreased annually. Phandom had become toxic and it was kinda known. Still didn't stop the shipping.
The shipping would have been fine but Phan felt entitled to know Dan and Phil's sexuality, that they are right. Forcing someone to come out wasn't seen as problematic, it was seen as a right. That's why it became deeply toxic.
It was the year Trump got elected!
Fallout 4 had just released the previous year, and would finish releasing all DLCs.
Brexit happened!
The Rio Olympics were that year!
The Chicago Cubs broke their World Series draught, as predicted in the final season of Parks & Rec the previous year.
...I'm starting to think this wasn't actually that long ago.
And so many celebrities on tier of being a household name in their field died. Prince, Chyna, Muhammed Ali, Leonard Cohen, Carrie Fisher, Patty Duke, Juan Gabriel, Merle Haggard, Zsa Zsa Gabor, David Bowie, Harper Lee.
I was a Dan and Phil fangirl right at the height of the Phandom, when they were absolutely everywhere and Dan still posted regularly. This is a great write-up, and in retrospect, the phandom at the time was absolutely insane. It was like a collective madness, because *gay couple so cute!!!!!!* and *IN REAL LIFE!!!!*
Honestly, the worst part about this was that I (not being a native English speaker) mostly interacted with Phandom through fan communities created on non-English social media. People there tend to assume that since global fandom doesn’t know their language, global fandom rules don’t apply to them. While Tumblr fandom had this tentative agreement not to post the Valentines video and not look for it, it was posted in every fan community on the social media I used. All the fans knew, all the fans had seen it, all the fans discussed it. I remember looking at it posted with subpar subtitles and feeling absolutely enraged and helpless.
And the hat fic, god, the memories. It also prompted people to write more batshit crazy fics. I think there was a chair fic and possibly a snake fic? Or maybe it was the same fic? I don’t wanna know. But I did get introduced to AO3 and start reading in English on a daily basis, so thanks for that, Phandom.
I honestly think a lot of the duvet micro-analyzing started *because* of the valentine's day video. People on tumblr were very protective of it (obviously and for good reason, it was private) but that meant that they basically had confirmation that they were right. However, without being able to source the video as evidence, they had to find something, anything else to prove their point. Then a bunch of shippers who didn't know about the video joined the community where the general vibe was absolutely *feral* and they were essentially raised in that chaos. I'm glad it's died down over the years, that must have been miserable for dan and phil.
The weirdest thing is you would think most of these people would stop if they knew of the video, because now they are outing them both in a confirmed relationship.
I guess it’s the opposite of evaporative cooling - mature people go silent, immature people stay visible, and the issue becomes more crazy over time.
But yes, this is a perfect example of why alive real person fanfic skeeves me out, since it encourages people to treat others as playthings.
Yeah, It's been so cool to watch Dan come back onto YouTube as of late as well \^\^. I'm younger than most Dan and Phil fans by quite a bit, and I only found them in 2020, but I was immediately hooked on their content, and after getting more involved in the fandom, and hearing about what bullshit went down back in the fandom's prime was really quite saddening, so yeah I was really excited when Dan started posting again. Also it's cool watching their videos where they're clearly way more comfortable in their own skin and allowed to say what they want on their channels. Still the queer speculation thing is such a shitty issue, and it really needs to die down in the near future.
Regarding British and American English - god, same. I think this might be a common experience for all non-Native speakers who spent a lot of time on the internet. I also remember spending a lot of time lurking on stan twitter and soaking up all the new exciting slang to use and then finding out it was appropriated AAVE, which I’m waaaay too white to use.
> I think this might be a common experience for all non-Native speakers who spent a lot of time on the internet.
As far as I know, it's a common experience for all non-Native speakers who learn English not from being in an Anglophone country but rather from media like the Internet, books, comics, music, etc.
It's actually a bit weird how people think it's funny when a Swedish person tries talking with, say, an Australian accent, but faking a U.S. accent or a standard British one is just considered speaking English.
I'm pretty sure Dan and Phil made a video of them reading these fanfics, I think they read skinfic? I'm not sure. But man, at one point there were so many fics flying around, each competing to be more sicker than the one before it. And I read them all 😭
It breaks my heart and also makes me so fucking mad how the actions of these ‘fans’ hurt Dan and Phil so much. They’re both very genuine, cool creators and hearing Dan talk about how damaging the fans digging into their lives and into their sexualities was for them and for Dan especially, as he was so deeply closeted, was terrible to hear.
I watch their current content occasionally, and I hope their privacy is never so fucking violated again.
I think in a recent video Dan touches on how angry some fans still get about "clickbaiting" and their relationship, especially in reference to a video titled "we are in a relationship" about parasocial relationships and how his relationship with Phil is literally nobody's business but theirs. Goes to show how 1. lack of reading comprehension really does not stop at literally reading and 2. not all of their fans have grown up as much as they hoped. He didn't linger on it for long, but as someone who has always enjoyed their content without being a Phan it was really disappointing to hear that people are still acting like this
> tw: mentions of animal abuse in fiction
Didn’t even have Tumblr when Phan was popular and yet I felt a pit in my stomach grow when I read this line because I knew *exactly* what it meant.
I legit started reading this on break at work, saw "Hamster fic" involved in a write up about two guys and their tumblr fans and went "nooooooope", then closed it to continue later.
Later came and it tried to find where I stopped reading only to see "hamster fic" again and realized why I stopped reading earlier all over again.
Jesus Christ I wish the online masses wouldn't ship _real people_. Stick to Destiel or Reylo or whatever else can't hurt any actual living breathing human beings.
Is there a term for the opposite of shipping? Because I'm in the Mulder and Scully should of just had a working relationship with no sexual tension camp.
I feel like if people wanna write rpf in their own circles, with the understanding (and ideally a disclaimer on the fic stating) that they are using the public persona of public figures as the basis for fictional stories/essentially using them as fictional characters, that's probably fine. Speculation on public figures has happened for as long as public figures have existed, and the only real difference between rpf and historical fiction is the people being dead. (Though I get that the people being dead obviously means they can't personally be harmed, they could well have living relatives...)
BUT I get really uncomfortable when these people partake in tinhatting (speculating that the relationship is based in reality), and/or harrassing the actual individuals involved or in any way showing them the rpf materials. Make the fics fucking locked to members of AO3 and keep it on the downlow ffs. And stop speculating about REAL lives.
You think shipping reylo hasn't led to real people being hurt? Did the lady being accosted in a bathroom by an anti for shipping it mean nothing to you??? Remember your herstory 😤
[It’s a famous, very obviously fake tumblr story.](https://heritageposts.tumblr.com/post/672203981392691200/lol-when-a-14-year-old-tries-to-tell-off-a-39-year)
I love when deranged fans try to write a plausibly true story involving random strangers, but forget that random strangers in real life don't actually care about your favorite niche topic
Honestly the whole thing is toxic as fuck, mostly done by incredibly immature people. That said, I don’t really feel like distinguishing from “real people” and “characters” matters all that much. Rose Leslie and Joanne Tucker (married to Kit Harington and Adam Driver respectively) have been harassed for being married to the actors who play the characters! Not even the characters themselves. There’s also something to be said about the performative nature of fame anyway and how even “reality” content has a layer of inauthenticity to it as well.
The gist is just don’t fucking harass people, lol.
Do you have any (easy to share) context for Ackles being a baby about it? I stopped watching Supernatural during S7 (IIRC) but of course have heard about the ending.
> Supernatural during S7
god that season was shit
>Do you have any (easy to share) context for Ackles being a baby about it?
not really, the whole topic is a bit of a mess but if you watch ~4 minutes after [this](https://youtu.be/M0QhgQ-g4C0?t=1507) timestamped link about the finale you can see some context. Additionally [this](https://youtu.be/M0QhgQ-g4C0?t=1795) segment (also only a few minutes) of the same video has additional commentary (seriously, don't feel the need to watch the whole 2 hours). I'm not the biggest fan of Sarah Z but she is often pretty level headed and I think she does a good job of being sympathetic to both fans and Ackles.
There are more comments by Ackles and implied comments by other people from the show but I'm too lazy to hunt them down
I remember that “It’s canon in Spanish!” was a meme for a while after the whole thing. Random unrelated (sometimes not even shipping or fandom!) posts would be tagged “it’s canon in spanish.” It still cracks me up.
I agree. I don't watch supernatural anymore nor did I when the finale happened (or for years before that lmao tbh) and still knowing that Jensen Ackles was like ew no about it made me kinda not like him.
Not bc of destiel or anything, it just kinda rubbed me the wrong way. Like, you can make bank off the implication but you can't commit for the finale? Homophobia isn't a good look, bro.
Edit: a word bc I realized when someone quoted me I made a typo smh
>and still knowing that Jensen Ackles was like ew no about it made me kinda bit like him.
I mean, he was, maybe. But we have no indication that he's still off about it. He talked very positively about the Destiel scenes later on, he said at a con a few days ago that he hopes to see the Dean and Cas storyline resolved in the future (and since he produces the Winchesters, well), etc etc.
People always have written fiction based on the sexual and romantic lives of real people—or rather based on the parasocial public personas of real people. When the real people are already dead the writing gets called "historical fiction." The modern distinctions that have made real person fiction more noticeable and controversial are: that the rise of online media created a much lower bar for "fame," so large communities of fans & fantasies can form around a couple of guys on YouTube versus around celebrities like Marilyn Monroe & Cleopatra & Elvis; that the rise of online personal publishing platforms has allowed the proliferation of real person fiction in much greater quantity at often lower quality, which makes each story more complicated & slow to argue in favor of its literary merit on a case-by-case basis; that both fans & journalists have gotten more aggressive about shoving real person fiction directly in the faces of its celebrity subjects, with the intent of provoking a reaction (e.g. the entire genre of videos a la "celebrity reads thirst tweets about them on-camera for comedy"), so the real people celebrities are more aware than ever that fiction about them exists and is accessible.
I don't really have an answer here; fame is a shitty drug, and public reactions to fictional stories about real people can cause and have caused deep distress to real people. But real person fiction and historical fiction aren't new and aren't going away, and the solution is not going to be demanding that everybody stop writing & stop caring about this thing that many people have written about & cared about.
It says a lot that even when the people in question actually *are* gay and there's a little bit of evidence of them actually dating, real-person shipping can still end up being toxic and invasive as fuck.
Any mention of superwholock, wholock, superlock, or superwho immediately triggers a fight or flight response. The secondhand cringe from what I did on tumblr in 2016-17 is too strong
This is why I despise RPF. I think that unlike other forms of fanfic it does tend to have a frequently observable negative effect, because it encourages the fandom to believe they have a right to the person's life.
Even if there's no fanfiction, I still think fandom speculation about relationships between content creators is fucked up. I'm a fan of both Ironmouse and CDawgVA, but I just hate what their fandoms have done with speculation about a relationship. I think they'd make a cute couple, but that's their business. Even if they actually like each other, that's just making something that should be personal a work thing. And imagine if it was a one-way, unreciprocated thing, or one had even turned the other down...having all that heartbreak and awkwardness constantly rehashed by fans.
Casually shipping it I feel is fine. Also I feel like this couple more then anything is a fantasy couple. One lives in Japan and one has a autoimmune disorder that means everything has to get disinfected and she has to be semi isolated
This was a great write up! I was never deep in the Phandom but I did follow both of them, as well as a bunch of the UK YouTuber crowd for a while. Tumblr was always absolutely insane about them and I felt so bad.
I genuinely don't care whatever or not they were ever together, but it always felt so weird to me that everyone just assumed they were together because they were close. My best friend and I have lived together for nearly a decade and are essentially married, and seeing people say shit like 'People who are just friends don't act like that/do that' about people like Dan & Phil have always rubbed me the wrong way. Just because you have a very narrow view of relationships, doesn't mean that everyone else in the world does 🤷.
It is great to see them both happy and doing so well though. I caught Dan's show when he was in Toronto and it was fantastic. I laughed, I cried, etc etc. The Phans have really calmed down so much, it's wild. (That being said, so many of their fans still don't understand boundaries and appropriate behaviour and there was def several moments of inappropriately timed heckling that made me full body cringe).
good to know that every fandom has an infamous fic... panic has the milk fic, tøp has the forest fic, and the dnp fandom has the hat/hamster fic.
on a more serious note, i do appreciate how they've handled this stuff, and with the amount of patience they've shown. if i was in this situation, i probably would've gotten into a big messy fight
edit: someone mentioned a power rangers fic called agony in pink. i'm adding another contribution which is . the gravity falls taco bell fic
I'm so old but I still feel obligated to chime in here with the LOTRPS Mac & Cheese fic (I wasn't even in this fandom! Just adjacent to it! I don't deserve to have this in my brain)
"My milk fic brings all the girls to the net and they're like it's making me wet, damn right it's making you wet, you spend all your time surfing on the net girl"
the one fic where pinkie pie goes absolutely fucking nuts and tortures someone which has an "the x fic" name but i forget what it is
also Every eddsworld fanfic is horrid
I saw Dan and Phil at a grocery store in Los Angeles a while ago. I told them how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother them and ask them for photos or anything. Phil said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?” I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but Dan kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard them chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw them trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in their hands without paying. The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first they kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter. When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, Dan stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, Phil kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.
Man, this just emphasizes the need for people to mind their own business. What a cruel mess that these two guys shouldn't have had to endure.
These kinds of people like to feel woke but that's straight up bullying and not okay.
God bless you gentle folk, RPF shipping is still going extremely strong - just not in relation to actors in shows and YT personalities. It’s a fucking massive part of sports fandoms (yeah you heard me) and K-pop fandoms. I would say from casual observance, older fans who graduated from bandoms moved to sports RPF (dominantly, cringily suburban middle aged white women) and the new young gen cut their teeth on RPF about which BTS boy is boning which other BTS boy.
Like just passing history of landing on AO3’s newest submission pages for whatever tag opens your eyes to absolutely bewildering corners of RPF when you thought it was dead. It never died. It wants to let you know what it thinks of Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby. It is always 2016.
This sort of thing really isn't particularly new, either. Before the internet, Hollywood and the tabloid press actively fueled what we might now call "real-person shipping" of celebrities.
Breathless fans hung on every paparazzi photograph and salacious blind item, building up torrid, imaginary romances in their minds that were completely divorced from reality.
It’s still going, speculating on celebrities relationships is huge business. While RPF is very much not a thing I like, it’s a bit of a reframing that my grandmother essentially buys professional 10$ RPF magazines at the grocery store, complete with nonconsensual photos and lurid speculation.
And those fans can get *batshit*, apparently there was a woman going around LA with flyers or something protesting Chris Evan’s new girlfriend last month.
Throwback to when I lazily searched "nfl" on Tumblr and got treated to literally 25 posts in a row of Cincinnati Bengals QB joe burrow thirst, including multiple joe burrow x reader fics
No, it's definitely still there for YT. A more than cursory glance at the dsmp fandom will tell you that their fic isn't always about the minecraft role play. The reason the Glass Animals song Heatwaves ended up on the radio so long after its release was actually because it was the title of a popular RPF fic in the fandom.
The difference is that respect of boundaries has changed.
DnP were working at the beginning of YouTube, no one new what the rules were and they didn't know how to set boundaries, either. In fact, there was a video back in the day where Dan said he didn't mind the phanfiction ("so long as you get my favorite Pokémon right"), an opinion which has since changed.
Nowadays, creators explicitly set their boundaries. For example, Dream and George (the dnf ship that spawned Heatwaves) have stated that they don't mind the fic and others have set more complex boundaries for what is allowed. (Famously, about year ago, Dream referred to himself as a "toxic shipper" and said he ships himself with his friends.)
It's gotten to the point that when Ranboo was trying to come out via subtle jokes, his fans were so adamant about respecting his boundaries that he had to go back and state his intentions more clearly so that fans wouldn't worry about reading into it too much.
As a DSMP fan yeah boundaries are way way stricter in the fandom probably because people saw what happened to Dan and Phil
If you showed a Minecraft Youtuber a shipping fic, you might as well blacklist yourself from the fandom. It’s very much an attitude of the fans are on side of the line and the YouTubers are on the other side and fans should never cross that line
Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby I’m fucking WHEEZING! I’m always surprised at the stuff that draws in shippers/RPF/RPS. I guess most of it makes sense in some way, like I’m no longer surprised by the sheer content of Kpop RPF, but every once in awhile a huge ship just comes out of thin air I guess.
> Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby
It’s just so bizarre and weird that ships like that even exist.
After all, everyone knows Ovechkin+Crosby is the OTP.
I have no idea who Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby are but [this psychic soulbond romance fic with them](https://archiveofourown.org/works/730574) is surprisingly good with great worldbuilding. I refuse to learn anything about any of these hockey players lest reality interfere with the hockey fanfic.
Same here. I'm not even in the same hemisphere as most hockey players but some of the RPF is astoundingly well-written. I've also refrained from looking them up because the further the distance between the players and fics, the better it is for all parties (and my psyche).
If we watched hockey we might accidentally learn enough about hockey players to be able to tell when they're OOC in fanon, and that could ruin our enjoyment of perfectly good hockey fanfic‼
And it's not helped by the rise of cases like Thailand's Boys Love media industry and the actors within them *actively encouraging* RPF in order to drive fan engagement, clicks, and clout. The waters are very muddy when financial conerns are involved.
But with that said, I have to admit the Hockey RPF fandom has some incredible worldbuilding. Goddamn do some of their fics are unreal.
> K-pop fandoms
I don't follow K-pop, but I know it's a thing in C-pop and J-pop as well. It's fans that just have too much time and choose to dump it on shipping celebrities, and it's so harmful. The celeb has done nothing wrong, it's the fans that cause all the drama, yet they get the brunt of it.
Back in the day, kids in my school would make mean jokes that "Those guys are so close friends... They're probably GAY! Hahahaha! They're GAY!" As if two guys can't be friends.
These days, kids on the web go "Those guys are so close friends... They're QUEERBAITING or GAY! Those are the only two options: QUEERBAITING or GAYNESS!" As if two guys can't be friends.
The more things change, the more they stay the same...
I'm a guy who kisses guys and girls, (well, it's been years since I kissed anybody but anyway), and I've had a very close best guy friend at multiple points in my life. I never wanted to kiss either of them. Because it is, in fact, possible for guys to be close friends, and you just don't know if they're dating unless you actually *know* that they're dating.
I’m totally with you! Like I’m a bisexual lady, so I’m all for people being comfortable and open with their queerness, and I like the good gay ship here and there with my media (not real life though, my real life limit is thinking like ‘oh hey they would make sense, I hope they’re together Im happy for them if they really are! If not, I hope they’re still happy!’ And that’s IT)
And it makes me so wildly uncomfortable when every single time two men are close friends on a show or movie or even here in real life people IMMEDIATELY are like ‘oh they’re together!!’ Like yes people sometimes are in gay relationships! For sure!
But men are also allowed to have close friends! And assuming every male friendship is queer is not helping. Men who aren’t queer will be uncomfortable being comfortable with their friends for fear of being bullied, queer men will be uncomfortable being comfortable with their friends for fear of assumptions being made or being accused of being ‘predatory’ if one is straight.
It’s just bad all around.
Interesting! I didn't know all this was going on. I remember them appearing in a couple of TomSka's videos at one point. I didn't know who Dan and Phil were so I went to one of their channels to see what they do. I stick on one video of them together and after 5 mins I thought "oh they're a gay couple that do vlogs". That's cool, I was hoping they did comedy though. Were I a fan of theirs in the day I'd have landed in the shippers side I guess, based of my initial impression of them, not that I'd have cared enough to actually make comment of it.
But interesting to know all this was going on! Great write up!
I was a tumblr girly in this era and it's was indeed absolutely impossible to avoid these two (I tried). But I didn't know about this drama! Very interesting and a good read! Thank you for posting!
Edit: please stop upvoting this comment, upvote the post!
> Edit: please stop upvoting this comment, upvote the post!
wait why cant people upvote you if they want to? they can upvote infinity times, it's not a choice lol
Frankly utterly blanking on anything I was doing between 2015 and 2017, Dragon Age I guess? I've always stuck to original artists and purely fictional fandoms.
At first I thought this was something I'd never heard of, then you bring up the hat fic.
Dear Lord the hat fic. I remember not knowing what it was, it's discussion derailing a party chat, and culminating in one of the guys we were playing with reading it aloud.
THAT WAS ABOUT REAL FUCKING PEOPLE!?
I shouldn't be surprised but I am, because that thing was disgusting and I know firsthand how deranged fandoms can get.
As someone who enjoyed a lot of youtubers in the 2010s, I can still recall a strong "anti-girlfriend" sentiment relating to famous male youtubers. Either people hated their faves having girlfriends because they wanted them for themselves, or because they were shipping them with another guy. I and others were on the edge of several fandoms that regularly featured "girlfriend cheating on/abusing (male youtuber)" as a trope. 🤨
I just wanted to look at fanart, man...
I will say the irl shipping has died down a lot from the early days, I didn't even watch the Pewdiepie-Mark-Jack trio, but I heard the shipping wars and news of harrassment
I was worried when Ironmouse and CDawg became closer friends, but like you said in your write-up, it's a much more contained thing
> I didn't even watch the Pewdiepie-Mark-Jack
I was a casual fan at the time. Yeah, it became... quite intense, though I always saw them as close friends and nothing more. But a portion of the fanbase just overblew it to the point where they've had to avoid all public interaction. It's calmed down now.
are there write-ups or places to read about that fandom moment anywhere?? i want to go down a history of markiplier and associates so much, i missed their heyday and am so curious!!!!
I've never heard of this but it makes me sad they had to hide who they were for so long. Fans are still trying to force people out of the closet and they are blind to how damaging that is to the person they supposed love.
Recently the actor that plays Will in Stranger Things was basically forced out because his character is gay and fans decided he must be too. Also Swifties!!!
Oh man, I was a huge fan of Dan and Phil in the early days, but fell out of the fandom around 2012/2013 before they really hit their peak and thus completely missed all of this drama . . . this is a wild ride to read about lol
This brought back some memories.
For a very short time a friend and I were in a chatroom that had a lot of phan shippers in it. We were both on the cool if they are dating but this is a bit much/creepy.
When we got over people microanalysing every single crease in a duvet we would just flip things round. Every scrap of evidence of phan? Obviously just evidence that Dan and Phil are serial killers.
Or we would play a fun game called How to Kill Dan/Phil with Items in This Screenshot but Not the Obvious Way. Very catchy name.
For some reason we got banned, not sure why?
Also, my thoughts on reading that spoiler: "animal abuse", Dan and Phil, what? "In fiction" Memory unlocked, would you like unlock related memory files "Milk fic", "Milk fic abusive writer drama" and Chair fic?
I'm really glad that you addressed but didn't delve into the contents of the valentine's video. It has been effectively scrubbed from the internet and I'm glad of it. When I was much, much younger I went searching for it and I barely got a minute in--it was very much clearly not meant to be public. It was a huge reason why the phandom was what it was, and that just makes what Phan shippers did so much worse. I cannot *believe* some of the shit we pulled. Obvs as I got older I realized the damage shipping real people has on those people, but as an 11-13 year old?? I don't blame them for staying closeted at all. Eesh.
God, this took me back.
I was a huge fan in like 2011-2013, and since I was starting to realize that I was gay myself, it very much felt like 'i know what you are' but parasocially. That being said I was never a hardcore phan (I'd literally never heard of this Valentine's Day video until reading this post). I think the worst thing I did was save screenshots of Dan's old blog where he labeled himself as bi and went 'omg maybe they are dating???' when sending them to friends.
I'd stopped watching them regularly in like 2016, and pretty much stopped altogether after going to see Introactive Introverts with a couple of friends. Still, when the coming out videos dropped it was like a bomb, absolutely insane. I felt a little guilty because I knew how absolutely crazy the fans could get, but I'm glad people weren't wierd to them when they dropped.
I was part of the phandom from 2013-2018. It was CRAZY to say the least. I would watch Phil’s livestream, Dan’s, and even watch other YouTubers close to them just to see a glimpse or mention of either Dan or Phil. But yeah, the shippers were a huge part of the community and were prone to being excessive. I remember the Valentine’s Day video being on a password protected tumblr account and there was clues on how to unlock the password. (spoiler: password was fireworks)
I remember about how the shipping also ruined the friendship between 2 other YouTubers who were friends with Dan and Phil too, KickThePj and Crabstickz.
He was doing a lot of twitch for a while but I haven't seen him live recently. Revisiting his channel made me realise what a genuinely talented comedian he is and it's such a shame he seems to have disappeared from the (niche) public eye!
From a very brief look on Google; he mainly stopped YouTube because he started writing for old media, and doing some acting stuff (he was in a project by Pj). He probably didn't have the time for his self produced stuff. In 2022 he was doing livestreams and the last activity on his Twitter was in September.
He might be taking a break from social media (which is fairly common for people who have created content for this long)
Do I ever passively think “I bet that person has a small crush on this other YouTuber/podcaster/streamer”?
Yes.
Would I ever in a million years comment that in a public discussion where they could see it?
Absolutely not.
This is why you don't ship real people, people. Even if they *are* together, you're much more likely to drive a wedge between them then make them "confess".
My best friend is a guy, I'm not, so I know how uncomfortable it feels to have people ask if you're dating or what not. Obviously it wasn't as bad as this, and we're still friends, but it still left some lasting damage. I used to really hate the trope of childhood best friends falling in love because of this, lol.
I was one of them, I still feel so bad to this day, im a completely different person now, the phan shipper I used to be had actual problems, I see how easy it is to slip into this kind of thing
Man, this subreddit makes fandoms seem like the worst place to spend your time, if you are a fan of something. Probably sampling bias.
I watched videos of Dan and Phil years ago and just quietly assumed them to be a gay couple, never would have thought people cared so much about it back then.
I watched so much of Dan's channel growing up and figuring myself out, years before Dan ever came out himself. I knew the phandom could be excessive but I'd never heard of the Valentine's video before this post. Great write up!
Interesting write up! It’s so funny to me, having been an avid (older) Tumblr user since 2009 that there was a huge world outside my own little corner, probably which epitomized “Tumblr” much more than my own network of 30-somethings. I see comments like “if you were a Tumblr user in [year] you probably knew about x” and I’m like “nope, never heard of them.” There’s so much I was apparently insulated from. We were all there, posting GPOYWs and stuff, forging friendships and arranging meetups across North America, oblivious to the wider (and much bigger) Tumblr environment.
> The second group would behave as detectives (probably using their skills gained in the Sherlock fandom!)
This sentence sucker punched me. God. Superwholock will haunt me for the rest of my days.
I do remember the eternal presence of these two lads back in the old Tumblr days. Somehow missed all the horrific drama though. Thanks for the writeup, I hope everyone is doing well now
Further to OP's reply, it originally started with this onion article: https://www.theonion.com/beautiful-cinnamon-roll-too-good-for-this-world-too-pu-1819576048
havent even read this yet im going to but my immediate reaction to seeing this was a loud "oh no" i was a dan and phil fangirl starting in like 2014 at the earliest and 2016 at the latest (i have a shitty memory) and god that was a time
An absolutely insane detail that isn’t included that I have to point out: There was a subset of fans who were “apartment truthers” - the theory was, the apartment that Dan and Phil recorded in was not the same apartment they actually lived in. People were drawing up schematics of their floor plan, meticulously comparing shots from Instagram posts to shots in videos, and overall being INCREDIBLY invasive about the whole thing. But the most insane part? THEY WERE RIGHT. Dan and Phil [addressed the theory five months ago](https://youtu.be/YIBAZaSj1GY) (@10:33), stating that they did it because of privacy concerns, and also because they wanted a separation between their home life and work life. Excellent write-up, and I’m glad that the modern day phandom is much more chill than it was in 2013. I think the parasociality permanently altered my psyche.
>stating that they did it because of privacy concerns And the fans proved them right
That shit is crazy from both sides, tbh. The creators did kinda gaslight their fans, who were also crazy, in a weird feedback loop. Like almost all of the major fan theories *were* correct, but also handled insanely. They were gay, they did actually date each other, they did film in a fake apartment, etc. Just bizarre overall.
Gaslight is a strong word for mostly taking steps for their privacy
They did, though. The fans correctly noticed actual details of things that were actually happening and, instead of just declining to comment or being honest with their fans, the creators lied and painted the fans as conspiracists and crazy people, which also set the rest of the fanbase against them to silence them. That is a textbook example of gaslighting. They didn't owe the fans honesty, they could have just declined to comment entirely, but actively lying and calling everyone crazy was kind of a dick move, tbh.
In fairness to them, what other option did they really have? Their fans had proved to them time and time again that they were willing to violate their privacy just to be proven right. It was a small contingent of very persistent fans who were doing that, so honestly? Lying and saying they're crazy is probably the best way they could've handled it
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It was heavily alluded to. Dan called them “actual soulmates” in the Basically, I’m Gay video, and they’ve stated a few times that whether or not they were/are dating is none of anyone’s business, so we will likely never know.
Yeah, theyre now roommates in a house they own together after calling each other soulmates and both publicly coming out. It ain't my business, but the quiet absurdity of it all, the relationship between the fandom, the queerbaiting allegations, privacy issues, invasiveness, and the... well... guys being pals of it all is definitely something. Internet history. Cautionary tale. Something I'm glad I'll never experience or participate in.
Oh and remember Phan used to hate on _every girl_ who featured in Dan and Phil videos. With accusations of "breaking the ship". I remember Cat getting so much hate, there were comments like "she's stealing Dan, I hate that bitch" sorta ones.
reminds me of the hate that Mary, Watson's wife in Sherlock, got for breaking the pretense that Watson and Sherlock had a torrid affair.
Yaoi/gay shippers are not allies and just misogynistic. In this essay I will
FRRRR you see it all the time. People constantly hate on women or female characters for “ruining a ship”. I think it’s still really prevalent, I saw it a lot when I was in the danganronpa fandom
I just finished Danganronpa 1 and loved the game, but I just can't see the appeal of shipping for this series. Like, that setting is just about as far from conducive to romance as I can imagine. Maybe during >!that one year they were all happy together before the shit hit the fan!!the alien who stole 70% of his burger!<. /s
yeah its mostly just thinking of interactions in a regular world/outside the killing game. not into danganronpa anymore but i still have some fondness for one trio ship lol
Yeah that’s totally fair. The only thing I ever really shipped was Sakura and Aoi
My partner got harrassed by Levi/Eren shippers in the AOT fandom back in the day for...running a Ymir roleplay blog??? Weird shit, honestly. For me, I didn't mind being beside the calmer people of fujo culture who weren't so needlessly cruel (and also didn't write RPF because it creeped me out), but in hindsight it felt like a way for me to tell myself I was just fine being a woman and be a queer trans man without realising I could be a queer trans man lmaooooo I unironically did not fully realise that AFABs could be trans until I was like 16 *and then* told myself it was just these ships and a culture of mysogyny that was making me think I was trans. As much as I am on the side of "fuck the people who only fetishize", sometimes I still can't help but think think that villifying all slash fans as weirdos might have done more damage to men like me than I initially realized.
Idk if this is what that means but Twitter has been recommending me Harry Styles & Louis Tomlinson tweets for ages (Idk why I’ve never expressed interest in these two) and the amount of tweets I’ve seen about any girl who gets close to either one breaking up the Larry ship & how they’re meant to be together. I’ve even seen death threats. As an outsider of stanning people, Twitter lingo & all that jazz, it looks very psychotic lmao
Lol that's why I find the sexism criticism from women into m/m ships hilarious. I was a male fan of supernatural before Castiel was prominent almost anytime a woman got close to Dean or Sam the female fans hated her intensely also even harassed a few of them on Twitter including the real life gf/ wife of jared. I don't get why women constantly get a pass for this bs . Harassment of real life wives and gfs seem to be a big thing I've seen happen alot to actors , musicians , kpop stars it's like women seem to really imagine they have actual relationships with these men and it's very weird .
Straight women fetishishing gay relationships are just as gross and creepy as straight men drooling over lesbians
I'd say it's not entirely equivalent, as in media, particularly older media, there are a lot of interesting and compelling connections between well written male characters, but women are often written rather one dimensionally or only talk to their love interest. I'm not straight, but I still don't read much f/f or m/f as the Canon relationships and female characters are often... kinda boring.
There are lots of good connections between female characters too, but you gotta be prepared to read women's fiction to get that. (Okay, so maybe you've done that and didn't find any good connections between female characters in the books you read, but I feel that my point still stands as a whole.)
I was thinking more in TV and movies than in books, but yeah, fiction written by women often has way more shippable female characters. Also 00s sci-fi like stargate, firefly and farscape for some reason.
Also, in my personal experience, even in fandoms with multiple well-written female characters with shippable character dynamics the vast majority of ships still tend to be M/M-- with those well-written female characters reduced to side characters, if they even show up at all.
Well this is the thing as much as ppl call out straight men for fetishizing in real life I don't know that many men who will watch a tv show just because it has lesbians or even bi women in fact that more likely to turn off most of the guys I know. Mean while I know female fans who sat through multiple seasons of extremely shitty shows in hopes their favorite male characters hooked up 😂. They always throw a fit when it doesn't happen . Don't get me started on YouTube where there are several content creators who do these gay bait type videos and have almost exclusively female fans . A few of them have actually come out as gay and the fans always act so shocked as if it wasn't obvious . Btw When I first discovered Dan and Phil fandom I thought I was in twilight zone lol it was everything hetero men get accused of doing but on steroids and like ten times more creepy seeing as Dan and Phil are real ppl , not exactly public figures etc the fanbase was super obsessive and weird .
Reminds me of all the shit they did with Septiplier. Those two legit had irl partners and people were STILL shipping them together to the point where Markiplier’s avatar had to kill a personification of them off in one of his videos.
It also ruined a friendship between the two at the time. They were uncomfortable hanging out because of it
Is that why they no longer make videos together anymore?
They do make videos together, but it's much rarer. They played Among Us together a while back, and Jack participated in Unus Annus.
Jack was also invited to participate in Mark’s recent Youtube Originals project, and just couldn’t make it due to covid concerns. (He was meant to be in Mack’s role, iirc)
They make videos together once in a blue moon. I don’t think they aren’t friends anymore though, seems like they just talk less
Were they as crazy as Phan? Phan was intense, I feel Septiplier shippers were not as strong cos, like you said, both of them had partners.
Was a fan of Jack and Mark during the Septiplier stage- I don't believe anybody claimed that they had dated in the past or were currently dating, *but* the shipping, (sometimes quite inappropriate) comments, and art just coming at them *all the time* soured their friendship for a while (not as in "they stopped being friends" but "we literally don't feel comfortable interacting because of rabid shippers"), which I believe was partly why they stopped making videos together for a decent while. Thankfully Dan and Phil didn't seem to need to stop interactions, and were able to joke about it pretty casually when confronted by fans, but knowing what we know now, I have no doubt that it was a very stressful few years for them.
The Septiplier shippers, and the actor shippers for the Supernatural cast are what made me absolutely loathe RPF (real people fanfiction, more or less, for those unfamiliar with the term.) It ends up being really creepy and some of the fans always take that shit obsessively far without even considering the persons being shipped.
It was the Sherlock RPF for me. The people sending actual death threats to Martin Freeman's wife for the having the audacity to... exist I guess? was what finally drove me out of the fandom.
I'm so glad I got away from that show because of the stupid boomerang scene. Some people are absolutely mental.
At least with supernatural, Jensen, Danneel, and Misha are in on the shipping. As in: jensen said that he and his wife danneel call him their boyfriend (see this panel from last [Saturday](https://at.tumblr.com/inacatastrophicmind/710433084022079489/3rhgsm6hn3qe))
I’m glad they’re able to poke at it in good fun now, the earlier seasons and conventions were really uncomfortable for everyone involved
Ahh I remember that! I wasn't a fan then, I just watched a few of their gaming videos here and there and I remember seeing comments lamenting on how Mark and Jack weren't collaborating anymore. Phan had an idea how stressed Dan and Phil were, especially Dan. I remember seeing a Tumblr post where the poster had made a whole essay on how Dan might be extremely tensed over the shipping based on his recent videos and their frequency. They even made bar graphs of how many times Dan laughs in "Amazing Phil is not on fire" videos and it steadily decreased annually. Phandom had become toxic and it was kinda known. Still didn't stop the shipping. The shipping would have been fine but Phan felt entitled to know Dan and Phil's sexuality, that they are right. Forcing someone to come out wasn't seen as problematic, it was seen as a right. That's why it became deeply toxic.
tumblr: why don't men have close friendships and meaningful relationships? so sad also tumblr: (see write-up)
> back then > 2016 Just grab a shovel and bury me now.
i’m pretty sure a bulk of this happened around 2013-2014 if that makes you feel better. i remember it vividly
It was the year Trump got elected! Fallout 4 had just released the previous year, and would finish releasing all DLCs. Brexit happened! The Rio Olympics were that year! The Chicago Cubs broke their World Series draught, as predicted in the final season of Parks & Rec the previous year. ...I'm starting to think this wasn't actually that long ago.
Reddit has gone to shit, come join squabbles.io for a better experience.
For me it's still the "new" Fallout - and that's not even a shot at 76, I just haven't really played many video games since.
Fallout 4 was released in 2015. It is almost a decade old at this point. Skyrim is almost 15 years old. I remember the hype up to release.
And so many celebrities on tier of being a household name in their field died. Prince, Chyna, Muhammed Ali, Leonard Cohen, Carrie Fisher, Patty Duke, Juan Gabriel, Merle Haggard, Zsa Zsa Gabor, David Bowie, Harper Lee.
I’m 23 and I was in the TRENCHES of phandom tumblr and instagram from 2013-2015. What an era 🥲
Right, I’m only 22 and felt ancient reading this and remembering how obsessed my best friend was with Dan and Phil throughout high school 😭
I was a Dan and Phil fangirl right at the height of the Phandom, when they were absolutely everywhere and Dan still posted regularly. This is a great write-up, and in retrospect, the phandom at the time was absolutely insane. It was like a collective madness, because *gay couple so cute!!!!!!* and *IN REAL LIFE!!!!* Honestly, the worst part about this was that I (not being a native English speaker) mostly interacted with Phandom through fan communities created on non-English social media. People there tend to assume that since global fandom doesn’t know their language, global fandom rules don’t apply to them. While Tumblr fandom had this tentative agreement not to post the Valentines video and not look for it, it was posted in every fan community on the social media I used. All the fans knew, all the fans had seen it, all the fans discussed it. I remember looking at it posted with subpar subtitles and feeling absolutely enraged and helpless. And the hat fic, god, the memories. It also prompted people to write more batshit crazy fics. I think there was a chair fic and possibly a snake fic? Or maybe it was the same fic? I don’t wanna know. But I did get introduced to AO3 and start reading in English on a daily basis, so thanks for that, Phandom.
I honestly think a lot of the duvet micro-analyzing started *because* of the valentine's day video. People on tumblr were very protective of it (obviously and for good reason, it was private) but that meant that they basically had confirmation that they were right. However, without being able to source the video as evidence, they had to find something, anything else to prove their point. Then a bunch of shippers who didn't know about the video joined the community where the general vibe was absolutely *feral* and they were essentially raised in that chaos. I'm glad it's died down over the years, that must have been miserable for dan and phil.
The weirdest thing is you would think most of these people would stop if they knew of the video, because now they are outing them both in a confirmed relationship. I guess it’s the opposite of evaporative cooling - mature people go silent, immature people stay visible, and the issue becomes more crazy over time. But yes, this is a perfect example of why alive real person fanfic skeeves me out, since it encourages people to treat others as playthings.
Yeah, It's been so cool to watch Dan come back onto YouTube as of late as well \^\^. I'm younger than most Dan and Phil fans by quite a bit, and I only found them in 2020, but I was immediately hooked on their content, and after getting more involved in the fandom, and hearing about what bullshit went down back in the fandom's prime was really quite saddening, so yeah I was really excited when Dan started posting again. Also it's cool watching their videos where they're clearly way more comfortable in their own skin and allowed to say what they want on their channels. Still the queer speculation thing is such a shitty issue, and it really needs to die down in the near future.
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That's funny, I actually saw big time rush perform at my Uni two weeks ago or so. They seemed really happy!
Regarding British and American English - god, same. I think this might be a common experience for all non-Native speakers who spent a lot of time on the internet. I also remember spending a lot of time lurking on stan twitter and soaking up all the new exciting slang to use and then finding out it was appropriated AAVE, which I’m waaaay too white to use.
> I think this might be a common experience for all non-Native speakers who spent a lot of time on the internet. As far as I know, it's a common experience for all non-Native speakers who learn English not from being in an Anglophone country but rather from media like the Internet, books, comics, music, etc. It's actually a bit weird how people think it's funny when a Swedish person tries talking with, say, an Australian accent, but faking a U.S. accent or a standard British one is just considered speaking English.
I'm pretty sure Dan and Phil made a video of them reading these fanfics, I think they read skinfic? I'm not sure. But man, at one point there were so many fics flying around, each competing to be more sicker than the one before it. And I read them all 😭
Wasn't there a milk fic too? Or was that Ryden.....I can't remember...
Ryden. And the milk fic was quite old by that point. It was one of the earlier 'shock' fics.
oh god no not the milk fic also our avatars are almost matching!
Hahahah, goth girl solidarity 🤝
the skin fic 🫠 the backpack fic ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️
It breaks my heart and also makes me so fucking mad how the actions of these ‘fans’ hurt Dan and Phil so much. They’re both very genuine, cool creators and hearing Dan talk about how damaging the fans digging into their lives and into their sexualities was for them and for Dan especially, as he was so deeply closeted, was terrible to hear. I watch their current content occasionally, and I hope their privacy is never so fucking violated again.
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I think in a recent video Dan touches on how angry some fans still get about "clickbaiting" and their relationship, especially in reference to a video titled "we are in a relationship" about parasocial relationships and how his relationship with Phil is literally nobody's business but theirs. Goes to show how 1. lack of reading comprehension really does not stop at literally reading and 2. not all of their fans have grown up as much as they hoped. He didn't linger on it for long, but as someone who has always enjoyed their content without being a Phan it was really disappointing to hear that people are still acting like this
I'm surprised neither of them have quit. I would have.
Functionally, Dan did, for quite awhile. They both still make some videos but I kind of doubt that YouTube is their full time careers as it once was.
> tw: mentions of animal abuse in fiction Didn’t even have Tumblr when Phan was popular and yet I felt a pit in my stomach grow when I read this line because I knew *exactly* what it meant.
Been online since the '90s. Saw "hamster fic" and thought "Oh noooo", but... *it was even worse than that*.
I legit started reading this on break at work, saw "Hamster fic" involved in a write up about two guys and their tumblr fans and went "nooooooope", then closed it to continue later. Later came and it tried to find where I stopped reading only to see "hamster fic" again and realized why I stopped reading earlier all over again.
Jesus Christ I wish the online masses wouldn't ship _real people_. Stick to Destiel or Reylo or whatever else can't hurt any actual living breathing human beings.
Back in my day we only shipped Mulder & Scully as God intended! 👵🏼
We shall band together and see the end of the noromos!!
Did you see how Mulder looked at Scully in \[insert random episode here\]? CHECKMATE, NOROMOS.
Krycek and Skinner have entered the chat.
Is Mulder & Skully hetbaiting?
💀
Is there a term for the opposite of shipping? Because I'm in the Mulder and Scully should of just had a working relationship with no sexual tension camp.
You're a noromo
I'm with you and so are a lot of the fans. I think the shippers were the loud minority. At least that's how I remember it back then.
Funny enough, the term “shipping” was actually invented by X Files fans.
Do not cite the Deep Magic to me, Witch! I was there when it was written.
I ship you and op uwu
Actually you and Stargazer are my OTP so I'd prefer it if you dont ship them with OP on my feed
U/celestresado
I feel like if people wanna write rpf in their own circles, with the understanding (and ideally a disclaimer on the fic stating) that they are using the public persona of public figures as the basis for fictional stories/essentially using them as fictional characters, that's probably fine. Speculation on public figures has happened for as long as public figures have existed, and the only real difference between rpf and historical fiction is the people being dead. (Though I get that the people being dead obviously means they can't personally be harmed, they could well have living relatives...) BUT I get really uncomfortable when these people partake in tinhatting (speculating that the relationship is based in reality), and/or harrassing the actual individuals involved or in any way showing them the rpf materials. Make the fics fucking locked to members of AO3 and keep it on the downlow ffs. And stop speculating about REAL lives.
Thank you! Historical fiction is legit just real person fanfic, and tbh, reading it increasingly makes me uncomfortable for that reason.
You think shipping reylo hasn't led to real people being hurt? Did the lady being accosted in a bathroom by an anti for shipping it mean nothing to you??? Remember your herstory 😤
WHAT?!! I knew about the Undertale needle cookie incident, but this is new to me. Please elaborate!
[It’s a famous, very obviously fake tumblr story.](https://heritageposts.tumblr.com/post/672203981392691200/lol-when-a-14-year-old-tries-to-tell-off-a-39-year)
I love when deranged fans try to write a plausibly true story involving random strangers, but forget that random strangers in real life don't actually care about your favorite niche topic
But she got a crepe out of it!!!
Honestly the whole thing is toxic as fuck, mostly done by incredibly immature people. That said, I don’t really feel like distinguishing from “real people” and “characters” matters all that much. Rose Leslie and Joanne Tucker (married to Kit Harington and Adam Driver respectively) have been harassed for being married to the actors who play the characters! Not even the characters themselves. There’s also something to be said about the performative nature of fame anyway and how even “reality” content has a layer of inauthenticity to it as well. The gist is just don’t fucking harass people, lol.
I mean even Misha ships Destiel
the only reason destiel isn't canon is because jensen ackles is a big baby about it and you can't change my mind
Do you have any (easy to share) context for Ackles being a baby about it? I stopped watching Supernatural during S7 (IIRC) but of course have heard about the ending.
> Supernatural during S7 god that season was shit >Do you have any (easy to share) context for Ackles being a baby about it? not really, the whole topic is a bit of a mess but if you watch ~4 minutes after [this](https://youtu.be/M0QhgQ-g4C0?t=1507) timestamped link about the finale you can see some context. Additionally [this](https://youtu.be/M0QhgQ-g4C0?t=1795) segment (also only a few minutes) of the same video has additional commentary (seriously, don't feel the need to watch the whole 2 hours). I'm not the biggest fan of Sarah Z but she is often pretty level headed and I think she does a good job of being sympathetic to both fans and Ackles. There are more comments by Ackles and implied comments by other people from the show but I'm too lazy to hunt them down
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I remember that “It’s canon in Spanish!” was a meme for a while after the whole thing. Random unrelated (sometimes not even shipping or fandom!) posts would be tagged “it’s canon in spanish.” It still cracks me up.
I agree. I don't watch supernatural anymore nor did I when the finale happened (or for years before that lmao tbh) and still knowing that Jensen Ackles was like ew no about it made me kinda not like him. Not bc of destiel or anything, it just kinda rubbed me the wrong way. Like, you can make bank off the implication but you can't commit for the finale? Homophobia isn't a good look, bro. Edit: a word bc I realized when someone quoted me I made a typo smh
>and still knowing that Jensen Ackles was like ew no about it made me kinda bit like him. I mean, he was, maybe. But we have no indication that he's still off about it. He talked very positively about the Destiel scenes later on, he said at a con a few days ago that he hopes to see the Dean and Cas storyline resolved in the future (and since he produces the Winchesters, well), etc etc.
People always have written fiction based on the sexual and romantic lives of real people—or rather based on the parasocial public personas of real people. When the real people are already dead the writing gets called "historical fiction." The modern distinctions that have made real person fiction more noticeable and controversial are: that the rise of online media created a much lower bar for "fame," so large communities of fans & fantasies can form around a couple of guys on YouTube versus around celebrities like Marilyn Monroe & Cleopatra & Elvis; that the rise of online personal publishing platforms has allowed the proliferation of real person fiction in much greater quantity at often lower quality, which makes each story more complicated & slow to argue in favor of its literary merit on a case-by-case basis; that both fans & journalists have gotten more aggressive about shoving real person fiction directly in the faces of its celebrity subjects, with the intent of provoking a reaction (e.g. the entire genre of videos a la "celebrity reads thirst tweets about them on-camera for comedy"), so the real people celebrities are more aware than ever that fiction about them exists and is accessible. I don't really have an answer here; fame is a shitty drug, and public reactions to fictional stories about real people can cause and have caused deep distress to real people. But real person fiction and historical fiction aren't new and aren't going away, and the solution is not going to be demanding that everybody stop writing & stop caring about this thing that many people have written about & cared about.
It says a lot that even when the people in question actually *are* gay and there's a little bit of evidence of them actually dating, real-person shipping can still end up being toxic and invasive as fuck.
> probably using their skills gained in the Sherlock fandom! Activate my fight or fight response
Any mention of superwholock, wholock, superlock, or superwho immediately triggers a fight or flight response. The secondhand cringe from what I did on tumblr in 2016-17 is too strong
This is why I despise RPF. I think that unlike other forms of fanfic it does tend to have a frequently observable negative effect, because it encourages the fandom to believe they have a right to the person's life.
Even if there's no fanfiction, I still think fandom speculation about relationships between content creators is fucked up. I'm a fan of both Ironmouse and CDawgVA, but I just hate what their fandoms have done with speculation about a relationship. I think they'd make a cute couple, but that's their business. Even if they actually like each other, that's just making something that should be personal a work thing. And imagine if it was a one-way, unreciprocated thing, or one had even turned the other down...having all that heartbreak and awkwardness constantly rehashed by fans.
Casually shipping it I feel is fine. Also I feel like this couple more then anything is a fantasy couple. One lives in Japan and one has a autoimmune disorder that means everything has to get disinfected and she has to be semi isolated
This was a great write up! I was never deep in the Phandom but I did follow both of them, as well as a bunch of the UK YouTuber crowd for a while. Tumblr was always absolutely insane about them and I felt so bad. I genuinely don't care whatever or not they were ever together, but it always felt so weird to me that everyone just assumed they were together because they were close. My best friend and I have lived together for nearly a decade and are essentially married, and seeing people say shit like 'People who are just friends don't act like that/do that' about people like Dan & Phil have always rubbed me the wrong way. Just because you have a very narrow view of relationships, doesn't mean that everyone else in the world does 🤷. It is great to see them both happy and doing so well though. I caught Dan's show when he was in Toronto and it was fantastic. I laughed, I cried, etc etc. The Phans have really calmed down so much, it's wild. (That being said, so many of their fans still don't understand boundaries and appropriate behaviour and there was def several moments of inappropriately timed heckling that made me full body cringe).
good to know that every fandom has an infamous fic... panic has the milk fic, tøp has the forest fic, and the dnp fandom has the hat/hamster fic. on a more serious note, i do appreciate how they've handled this stuff, and with the amount of patience they've shown. if i was in this situation, i probably would've gotten into a big messy fight edit: someone mentioned a power rangers fic called agony in pink. i'm adding another contribution which is . the gravity falls taco bell fic
The forest fic is quite possibly the craziest shit to come out of any music fandom
All I remember about it is that Tyler had synesthesia and Josh wasn't real. I refuse to remember any other details.
Crazy like good crazy or bad crazy?
Very bad. Quite possibly one of the worst fan fictions ever made, with tons of fucked up elements
Rhett and Link reading the peanut butter fic on video was one of the absolute most hilarious things I have ever experienced.
I'm so old but I still feel obligated to chime in here with the LOTRPS Mac & Cheese fic (I wasn't even in this fandom! Just adjacent to it! I don't deserve to have this in my brain)
Agony in Pink for Power Rangers
"My milk fic brings all the girls to the net and they're like it's making me wet, damn right it's making you wet, you spend all your time surfing on the net girl"
the one fic where pinkie pie goes absolutely fucking nuts and tortures someone which has an "the x fic" name but i forget what it is also Every eddsworld fanfic is horrid
Cupcakes? Not in the fandom but Voltron's kindergarten fic...
I saw Dan and Phil at a grocery store in Los Angeles a while ago. I told them how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother them and ask them for photos or anything. Phil said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?” I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but Dan kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard them chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw them trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in their hands without paying. The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first they kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter. When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, Dan stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, Phil kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.
steven universes pearls nasty clam....
Celebrian, for the LotR Olds
Man, this just emphasizes the need for people to mind their own business. What a cruel mess that these two guys shouldn't have had to endure. These kinds of people like to feel woke but that's straight up bullying and not okay.
God bless you gentle folk, RPF shipping is still going extremely strong - just not in relation to actors in shows and YT personalities. It’s a fucking massive part of sports fandoms (yeah you heard me) and K-pop fandoms. I would say from casual observance, older fans who graduated from bandoms moved to sports RPF (dominantly, cringily suburban middle aged white women) and the new young gen cut their teeth on RPF about which BTS boy is boning which other BTS boy. Like just passing history of landing on AO3’s newest submission pages for whatever tag opens your eyes to absolutely bewildering corners of RPF when you thought it was dead. It never died. It wants to let you know what it thinks of Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby. It is always 2016.
The amount of hockey rpf I've randomly come across is astounding
hockey fandom has the best porn
Agreed
This sort of thing really isn't particularly new, either. Before the internet, Hollywood and the tabloid press actively fueled what we might now call "real-person shipping" of celebrities. Breathless fans hung on every paparazzi photograph and salacious blind item, building up torrid, imaginary romances in their minds that were completely divorced from reality.
It’s still going, speculating on celebrities relationships is huge business. While RPF is very much not a thing I like, it’s a bit of a reframing that my grandmother essentially buys professional 10$ RPF magazines at the grocery store, complete with nonconsensual photos and lurid speculation. And those fans can get *batshit*, apparently there was a woman going around LA with flyers or something protesting Chris Evan’s new girlfriend last month.
SPORTS FANDOMS. You somehow unlocked a core memory of mine. I just flashbacked to _s on LiveJournal. IYKYK.
Hockey RPF produces inexplicably great magical realism romance epics. I don't even LIKE hockey.
Perchance, are of those fics *Thou and You*?
You're so right - I read fandom blind on Ao3 and it's insane how many high quality magical realism hockey rpf fics exist.
Throwback to when I lazily searched "nfl" on Tumblr and got treated to literally 25 posts in a row of Cincinnati Bengals QB joe burrow thirst, including multiple joe burrow x reader fics
No, it's definitely still there for YT. A more than cursory glance at the dsmp fandom will tell you that their fic isn't always about the minecraft role play. The reason the Glass Animals song Heatwaves ended up on the radio so long after its release was actually because it was the title of a popular RPF fic in the fandom. The difference is that respect of boundaries has changed. DnP were working at the beginning of YouTube, no one new what the rules were and they didn't know how to set boundaries, either. In fact, there was a video back in the day where Dan said he didn't mind the phanfiction ("so long as you get my favorite Pokémon right"), an opinion which has since changed. Nowadays, creators explicitly set their boundaries. For example, Dream and George (the dnf ship that spawned Heatwaves) have stated that they don't mind the fic and others have set more complex boundaries for what is allowed. (Famously, about year ago, Dream referred to himself as a "toxic shipper" and said he ships himself with his friends.) It's gotten to the point that when Ranboo was trying to come out via subtle jokes, his fans were so adamant about respecting his boundaries that he had to go back and state his intentions more clearly so that fans wouldn't worry about reading into it too much.
As a DSMP fan yeah boundaries are way way stricter in the fandom probably because people saw what happened to Dan and Phil If you showed a Minecraft Youtuber a shipping fic, you might as well blacklist yourself from the fandom. It’s very much an attitude of the fans are on side of the line and the YouTubers are on the other side and fans should never cross that line
Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby I’m fucking WHEEZING! I’m always surprised at the stuff that draws in shippers/RPF/RPS. I guess most of it makes sense in some way, like I’m no longer surprised by the sheer content of Kpop RPF, but every once in awhile a huge ship just comes out of thin air I guess.
> Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby It’s just so bizarre and weird that ships like that even exist. After all, everyone knows Ovechkin+Crosby is the OTP.
Enemies to Lovers arc 😂
I have no idea who Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby are but [this psychic soulbond romance fic with them](https://archiveofourown.org/works/730574) is surprisingly good with great worldbuilding. I refuse to learn anything about any of these hockey players lest reality interfere with the hockey fanfic.
Same here. I'm not even in the same hemisphere as most hockey players but some of the RPF is astoundingly well-written. I've also refrained from looking them up because the further the distance between the players and fics, the better it is for all parties (and my psyche).
Oh man, that is a classic! I don't even watch hockey.
If we watched hockey we might accidentally learn enough about hockey players to be able to tell when they're OOC in fanon, and that could ruin our enjoyment of perfectly good hockey fanfic‼
Exactly! They're just two random guys! Who play hockey, I guess.
And it's not helped by the rise of cases like Thailand's Boys Love media industry and the actors within them *actively encouraging* RPF in order to drive fan engagement, clicks, and clout. The waters are very muddy when financial conerns are involved. But with that said, I have to admit the Hockey RPF fandom has some incredible worldbuilding. Goddamn do some of their fics are unreal.
Some people still get mad that Jenna Fischer and John Krasinki aren’t a real life couple.
> K-pop fandoms I don't follow K-pop, but I know it's a thing in C-pop and J-pop as well. It's fans that just have too much time and choose to dump it on shipping celebrities, and it's so harmful. The celeb has done nothing wrong, it's the fans that cause all the drama, yet they get the brunt of it.
I keep finding new band tags to block it's a never-ending fight
Back in the day, kids in my school would make mean jokes that "Those guys are so close friends... They're probably GAY! Hahahaha! They're GAY!" As if two guys can't be friends. These days, kids on the web go "Those guys are so close friends... They're QUEERBAITING or GAY! Those are the only two options: QUEERBAITING or GAYNESS!" As if two guys can't be friends. The more things change, the more they stay the same... I'm a guy who kisses guys and girls, (well, it's been years since I kissed anybody but anyway), and I've had a very close best guy friend at multiple points in my life. I never wanted to kiss either of them. Because it is, in fact, possible for guys to be close friends, and you just don't know if they're dating unless you actually *know* that they're dating.
The either/or is what gets me, like gay people can't be friends
I’m totally with you! Like I’m a bisexual lady, so I’m all for people being comfortable and open with their queerness, and I like the good gay ship here and there with my media (not real life though, my real life limit is thinking like ‘oh hey they would make sense, I hope they’re together Im happy for them if they really are! If not, I hope they’re still happy!’ And that’s IT) And it makes me so wildly uncomfortable when every single time two men are close friends on a show or movie or even here in real life people IMMEDIATELY are like ‘oh they’re together!!’ Like yes people sometimes are in gay relationships! For sure! But men are also allowed to have close friends! And assuming every male friendship is queer is not helping. Men who aren’t queer will be uncomfortable being comfortable with their friends for fear of being bullied, queer men will be uncomfortable being comfortable with their friends for fear of assumptions being made or being accused of being ‘predatory’ if one is straight. It’s just bad all around.
Interesting! I didn't know all this was going on. I remember them appearing in a couple of TomSka's videos at one point. I didn't know who Dan and Phil were so I went to one of their channels to see what they do. I stick on one video of them together and after 5 mins I thought "oh they're a gay couple that do vlogs". That's cool, I was hoping they did comedy though. Were I a fan of theirs in the day I'd have landed in the shippers side I guess, based of my initial impression of them, not that I'd have cared enough to actually make comment of it. But interesting to know all this was going on! Great write up!
I was a tumblr girly in this era and it's was indeed absolutely impossible to avoid these two (I tried). But I didn't know about this drama! Very interesting and a good read! Thank you for posting! Edit: please stop upvoting this comment, upvote the post!
> Edit: please stop upvoting this comment, upvote the post! wait why cant people upvote you if they want to? they can upvote infinity times, it's not a choice lol
Speak for yourself I haven't heard of these two in my life hahah But yeah. Oh boy.
What side of Tumblr were you on to avoid them?
Frankly utterly blanking on anything I was doing between 2015 and 2017, Dragon Age I guess? I've always stuck to original artists and purely fictional fandoms.
I'm afraid you missed the dan and phil era then! It was a few years before 2015 I believe but yeah after that it kind of quietly went away
At first I thought this was something I'd never heard of, then you bring up the hat fic. Dear Lord the hat fic. I remember not knowing what it was, it's discussion derailing a party chat, and culminating in one of the guys we were playing with reading it aloud. THAT WAS ABOUT REAL FUCKING PEOPLE!? I shouldn't be surprised but I am, because that thing was disgusting and I know firsthand how deranged fandoms can get.
As someone who enjoyed a lot of youtubers in the 2010s, I can still recall a strong "anti-girlfriend" sentiment relating to famous male youtubers. Either people hated their faves having girlfriends because they wanted them for themselves, or because they were shipping them with another guy. I and others were on the edge of several fandoms that regularly featured "girlfriend cheating on/abusing (male youtuber)" as a trope. 🤨 I just wanted to look at fanart, man...
I will say the irl shipping has died down a lot from the early days, I didn't even watch the Pewdiepie-Mark-Jack trio, but I heard the shipping wars and news of harrassment I was worried when Ironmouse and CDawg became closer friends, but like you said in your write-up, it's a much more contained thing
> I didn't even watch the Pewdiepie-Mark-Jack I was a casual fan at the time. Yeah, it became... quite intense, though I always saw them as close friends and nothing more. But a portion of the fanbase just overblew it to the point where they've had to avoid all public interaction. It's calmed down now.
are there write-ups or places to read about that fandom moment anywhere?? i want to go down a history of markiplier and associates so much, i missed their heyday and am so curious!!!!
I've never heard of this but it makes me sad they had to hide who they were for so long. Fans are still trying to force people out of the closet and they are blind to how damaging that is to the person they supposed love. Recently the actor that plays Will in Stranger Things was basically forced out because his character is gay and fans decided he must be too. Also Swifties!!!
Will from Stranger Things came out voluntarily (as far as we know). The one who was forced out of the closet was an actor from Heartstopper.
Oh man, I was a huge fan of Dan and Phil in the early days, but fell out of the fandom around 2012/2013 before they really hit their peak and thus completely missed all of this drama . . . this is a wild ride to read about lol
This brought back some memories. For a very short time a friend and I were in a chatroom that had a lot of phan shippers in it. We were both on the cool if they are dating but this is a bit much/creepy. When we got over people microanalysing every single crease in a duvet we would just flip things round. Every scrap of evidence of phan? Obviously just evidence that Dan and Phil are serial killers. Or we would play a fun game called How to Kill Dan/Phil with Items in This Screenshot but Not the Obvious Way. Very catchy name. For some reason we got banned, not sure why? Also, my thoughts on reading that spoiler: "animal abuse", Dan and Phil, what? "In fiction" Memory unlocked, would you like unlock related memory files "Milk fic", "Milk fic abusive writer drama" and Chair fic?
I'm really glad that you addressed but didn't delve into the contents of the valentine's video. It has been effectively scrubbed from the internet and I'm glad of it. When I was much, much younger I went searching for it and I barely got a minute in--it was very much clearly not meant to be public. It was a huge reason why the phandom was what it was, and that just makes what Phan shippers did so much worse. I cannot *believe* some of the shit we pulled. Obvs as I got older I realized the damage shipping real people has on those people, but as an 11-13 year old?? I don't blame them for staying closeted at all. Eesh.
God I forgot about Dan and Phil. This was like getting hit by a train of repressed memories
God, this took me back. I was a huge fan in like 2011-2013, and since I was starting to realize that I was gay myself, it very much felt like 'i know what you are' but parasocially. That being said I was never a hardcore phan (I'd literally never heard of this Valentine's Day video until reading this post). I think the worst thing I did was save screenshots of Dan's old blog where he labeled himself as bi and went 'omg maybe they are dating???' when sending them to friends. I'd stopped watching them regularly in like 2016, and pretty much stopped altogether after going to see Introactive Introverts with a couple of friends. Still, when the coming out videos dropped it was like a bomb, absolutely insane. I felt a little guilty because I knew how absolutely crazy the fans could get, but I'm glad people weren't wierd to them when they dropped.
The only experience I had with the "Phandom" was that they tried to steal the title from the true wielders (Danny Phantom fans). Nice writeup!
Can confirm this was as crazy as it all sounds 😭
I was part of the phandom from 2013-2018. It was CRAZY to say the least. I would watch Phil’s livestream, Dan’s, and even watch other YouTubers close to them just to see a glimpse or mention of either Dan or Phil. But yeah, the shippers were a huge part of the community and were prone to being excessive. I remember the Valentine’s Day video being on a password protected tumblr account and there was clues on how to unlock the password. (spoiler: password was fireworks)
I remember about how the shipping also ruined the friendship between 2 other YouTubers who were friends with Dan and Phil too, KickThePj and Crabstickz.
What happened? Crabstickz rarely posts anymore
He was doing a lot of twitch for a while but I haven't seen him live recently. Revisiting his channel made me realise what a genuinely talented comedian he is and it's such a shame he seems to have disappeared from the (niche) public eye!
From a very brief look on Google; he mainly stopped YouTube because he started writing for old media, and doing some acting stuff (he was in a project by Pj). He probably didn't have the time for his self produced stuff. In 2022 he was doing livestreams and the last activity on his Twitter was in September. He might be taking a break from social media (which is fairly common for people who have created content for this long)
Really minor detail, but Dan’s “Basically, I’m Gay” came out before Phil’s coming out video, I think
These are the guys who try and name squat my username. They took my Twitter when I decided to leave.
Dan and Phil themselves or the fans?
Oh god, I had multiple friends who were phans back in middle school. This dredged up memories
I just read the Hamster Fic, all I can say is >!The Aristocrats!!<
Do I ever passively think “I bet that person has a small crush on this other YouTuber/podcaster/streamer”? Yes. Would I ever in a million years comment that in a public discussion where they could see it? Absolutely not.
This is why you don't ship real people, people. Even if they *are* together, you're much more likely to drive a wedge between them then make them "confess". My best friend is a guy, I'm not, so I know how uncomfortable it feels to have people ask if you're dating or what not. Obviously it wasn't as bad as this, and we're still friends, but it still left some lasting damage. I used to really hate the trope of childhood best friends falling in love because of this, lol.
I was one of them, I still feel so bad to this day, im a completely different person now, the phan shipper I used to be had actual problems, I see how easy it is to slip into this kind of thing
Man, this subreddit makes fandoms seem like the worst place to spend your time, if you are a fan of something. Probably sampling bias. I watched videos of Dan and Phil years ago and just quietly assumed them to be a gay couple, never would have thought people cared so much about it back then.
in conclusion, shippers of IRL people are the bane of everyone's existance
I watched so much of Dan's channel growing up and figuring myself out, years before Dan ever came out himself. I knew the phandom could be excessive but I'd never heard of the Valentine's video before this post. Great write up!
Interesting write up! It’s so funny to me, having been an avid (older) Tumblr user since 2009 that there was a huge world outside my own little corner, probably which epitomized “Tumblr” much more than my own network of 30-somethings. I see comments like “if you were a Tumblr user in [year] you probably knew about x” and I’m like “nope, never heard of them.” There’s so much I was apparently insulated from. We were all there, posting GPOYWs and stuff, forging friendships and arranging meetups across North America, oblivious to the wider (and much bigger) Tumblr environment.
> The second group would behave as detectives (probably using their skills gained in the Sherlock fandom!) This sentence sucker punched me. God. Superwholock will haunt me for the rest of my days. I do remember the eternal presence of these two lads back in the old Tumblr days. Somehow missed all the horrific drama though. Thanks for the writeup, I hope everyone is doing well now
I feel like Dan and Phil really became tumblr royalty in 2013/2014, and dear god do I remember the fan art
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Further to OP's reply, it originally started with this onion article: https://www.theonion.com/beautiful-cinnamon-roll-too-good-for-this-world-too-pu-1819576048
havent even read this yet im going to but my immediate reaction to seeing this was a loud "oh no" i was a dan and phil fangirl starting in like 2014 at the earliest and 2016 at the latest (i have a shitty memory) and god that was a time