- Dream SMP, a private server for Minecraft content creators, has exploded in popularity.
- Hundreds of thousands of fans watch videos about stories and characters in the expanding universe of the server.
- Fan-managed social media accounts catalog the story, allowing fans to follow the content.
- Visit the Insider home page for more stories.
Minecraft was launched more than a decade ago and the video game is more popular than ever. With more than 126 million players worldwide, the voxel-based survival game takes adventurers into a world where they can create, build, explore, destroy and create whatever they want. Aided by tools, blocks and creativity, the simple sandbox world allows anyone on the PC, console or smartphone to have the chance to project their own feelings and creations directly into their virtual space.
“As long as you have the mind for it, you can really do anything,” 17-year-old Minecraft YouTuber Purpled, who has 700,000 subscribers, told Insider. “Because Minecraft is simple and easy to build with, you can create anything you want.”
In recent years, Microsoft’s endless game has evolved into a tool for content creators to express themselves, leading to high-level collaborations with some of YouTube’s biggest personalities. By creating their own private Minecraft servers, creators were able to create ornate worlds and stories that they can explore in streams and videos, immersing fans in a universe of cinematic style.
Minecraft has a long history on YouTube
Minecraft’s versatility has made it an incredibly popular game for content creators and influencers. In 2012, a change in the YouTube algorithm that promotes watch time instead of video clicks led to the revival of “Let’s go players”, who recorded themselves reacting and playing their favorite games. Minecraft was one of the most successful, generating some of the biggest channels of the time, such as SkyDoesMinecraft (11.3 million subscribers) and Tobuscus (6.25 million subscribers).
While Minecraft’s popularity has remained reasonably stable, content about the title has declined somewhat over the next decade, due to content fatigue or more recent titles like “Fortnite” gaining prominence. 2020 brought the title back to the forefront, with streamers and YouTubers capitalizing on the title’s popularity.
Minecraft’s biggest star in recent years is Dream, a faceless expert player with a neon green avatar with over 17 million YouTube subscribers. YouTube has labeled him as the second overall content creator of the year, and his streams consistently attract 250,000 people.
In May 2020, Dream decided to create a small private server for his friends to play with. This SMP server, or “survival multiplayer”, started with just a handful of content creators being invited. Soon, the server would expand to more than 30 members, bringing millions of fan views that chronicle every moment of the tradition that the creators eventually created.
The audience for Twitch of Minecraft content went from 17 million hours watched in January 2020 to 74 million in January 2021, according to data from analyst Rainmaker.gg provided by StreamElements.
How Dream SMP grew from a private server with friends to a cultural landmark
Purpled has been playing Minecraft for the past eight years and is a high ranking player in a multiplayer game mode called “Bed Wars”. He started talking to Dream in the summer of 2019, when the two were little mutual fans.
“When SMP was in its infancy, I just asked him if there were any rooms, because he said it is only for friends and if a friend wants to come in, they can,” said Purpled. “So I asked him, he said, ‘Sure.’ He sent me the IP and I was in. “
The server was originally just a place to create a hangout, with no intention of creating a comprehensive story or storyline.
Fundy, a 21-year-old Dutch YouTuber with 2.7 million subscribers, joined when only a handful of other creators were active. “I had talked to Dream on a few occasions, the unexpected Dream sent me a message about a world of survival that they had. It was very small at first,” said Fundy. “I thought it might be a fun little side project that I could broadcast from time to time on Twitch, so I decided to join.”
Fundy first joined with Wilbur Soot, a 24-year-old YouTuber with 3.8 million subscribers. After trying to create an “illegal potions shop” on the server, Soot decided to establish a nation of non-American players called L’Manberg. Soot said he wrote a “treatment” of what his country would look like, creating an official canon that fans could follow.
“I was invited to Dream SMP near its beginning, but I only fully joined when I came up with the idea of building a country on Minecraft,” said Soot. “I write a series of plot hooks and stitches that must connect, however, we improvise dialogue and comedy to get us from one point to another.”
All of these streams and pieces of content had a canon that could be followed and consumed like a television program. L’Manberg eventually started a war against Dream for its independence, staging a rebellion recorded on YouTube videos with millions of views.
These streams and videos are not just randoms in Minecraft trying to defeat the Ender Dragon in the final game – they are artists presenting a show that their fans can’t miss. As the tradition expanded, so did the rules necessary to maintain a sense of continuity and order. For example, each player has only three lives before they are removed and deleted from the server.
“It went from a casual survival game to a story full of plots and twists,” said Fundy. “Role-playing at this point is a key feature of Dream SMP, some parts are scripted, some parts are improvised and some parts are ‘non-canonical’, where it is only counted as a standard Minecraft server.”
Fan communities stood up and made their voices heard
In the coming months, tradition and the world would continue to grow, as would the fan base. Hundreds of thousands of viewers would tune into these streams, trying to keep up with tradition and content. To help catalog the story, a network of fans has established themselves as guardians of tradition, documenting every moment for those who missed a broadcast.
The “DREAMSMP UPDATES!” Twitter account has established itself as one of the most popular places to find all this content and knowledge on social networks. As of December 2020, the account has grown to more than 147,000 users with just a team of seven administrators, aged between 14 and 17, in different locations around the world, posting updates and stream notifications to fans. Minecraft is a game that appeals to all ages, but the audience for this content tends to be younger, with 41% of the Twitch user base between 16 and 24 years old, according to GlobalWebIndex.
—DREAMSMP UPDATES! (@smpupdate) December 6, 2020
“You can say that they are all friends and it is much more cheerful in general and that shows”, mod in “DREAMSMP UPDATES!” Said Twitter account eclaire in the Discord chat app. “When it’s not tradition, you see them having good chemistry and it really pulls you because it’s almost like they’re being pulled into a group of friends.”
User SamHQ started the fan account with some friends from high school, but the group quickly expanded after the account tweeted that they needed more fans from certain streamers to join. She is online and manages her account “24 hours a day, 7 days a week”, but “it’s like replying to a text message”.
“When I started the account, I knew a lot of people who couldn’t keep up because of work or school,” said SamHQ. “So I gathered friends to help and now people trust us when someone is broadcasting or to follow the tradition when they are unable to watch.”
For fans running the upgrade account, following the Dream SMP is no different than following the Marvel Cinematic Universe or a long-running television program. The characters come and go, but improvisation and interpretation remain.
“Dream SMP did something really special – taking an original idea, creating new things that have never been seen in Minecraft and incorporating them with humor and characters that you can easily connect with,” said mod NotAlex.
While other SMP RPG servers, such as EarthSMP and SMPLive, have been created over the years, none have been as successful or popular as Dream SMP.
Finding a fan base on Dream SMP can lead to great growth.
For performers on the server, addressing fans and their responses comes with the territory.
“Dream SMP viewers are very important to Dream SMP, and the fact that they talk openly about how a transmission was determined only helps to improve the transmission,” said Fundy. “It is basically an instant review of what was appreciated and what was not.”
Like most big fandoms with a young audience, fanfiction from these streamers appeared online. Dozens of Dream fics and drawings exist online, some going a bit far and bringing together underage characters. Dream responded to these “ships” on Twitter, writing that they should not “send creators who are uncomfortable with it, especially minors”.
—Dream (@dreamwastaken) January 22, 2021
The Dream fans, or super fans, also tend to talk a lot online about SMP. Hashtags on Twitter like #dreamnotfound and #dreamfanart consistently advance to the trends page, confusing those who have no idea that this world exists. The fiercest of stans sometimes crosses the line between polite disagreement and direct harassment. This vocal minority sent death threats and harassment waves for those who criticize or disagree with your favorite creators.
The growth and future of these channels is largely due to the Dream SMP server
The popularity of Dream SMP has helped to increase the content creators who participate in it. Since joining the server, Purpled has been gaining three times as many subscribers per month on YouTube and has been introduced to an entirely new fan base. Your YouTube streams used to attract 3,000 viewers, but now your average on Twitch is close to 15,000 to 25,000 viewers.
“Some people think of them as obsessive fans or stalkers, but they are people who really like to talk about certain creators and really invest in things,” said Purpled. “And it’s great because they care a lot more and connect more with the creator than with the content.”
These creators understand the power of the fan base and know that they come from the content.
“I think Dream SMP is popular thanks to the brilliant creators and the funny moments of improv,” said Soot. “I think we will see the rise of a large wave of RPG-centric gaming communities.”