- YouTuber
John Swan has left social media after saying that he was involved in impersonating YouTuber Dream. - Dream, a
Minecraft YouTuber, claimed Swan impersonated him and sent chats to fans and associates - The commentary community that defended Swan has been quick to apologize.
John Swan, an internet drama commentary YouTuber with 170,000 subscribers, has left social media after he said he was involved in impersonating a well-known Minecraft YouTuber Dream in DMs sent to a fan. Known for his videos on controversial figures like Suzy Lu and Chris Hansen, Swan has deleted his Twitter and disappeared from his own Discord server.
John Swan angered Dream fans before more drama ensued
On February 14, Swan tweeted out that Dream was a "dou---bag" alongside a clip of YouTuber penguinz0 criticizing him. Dream fans were not happy with this categorization of their favorite content creator and replied by the hundreds to Swan's account.
"Well thank you to all the stans that have interacted with my tweets today," Swan wrote in the now-deleted tweet. "This has reinforced everything I thought about stans and stan
Swan's response was posted to the DreamIsTaken2 subreddit, with the title "What a way to milk the drama." Dream responded to the post, writing that Swan had interviewed him for his Minecraft documentary series a year ago.
Dream said that he believed later, Swan changed his own profile picture and avatar pretending to be Dream sending "the n-word" as well as "sexual stuff" to multiple fans, one of whom contacted him. The comment had only received 22 likes before Swan posted a rebuttal to Dream's claims.
"Dream has made accusations about me on Reddit to try and smear my credibility," Swan wrote on February 15. In a Twitter thread, Swan claimed that he had logged into his Discord account on a friend's computer and that the friend had "decided it would be a good idea to start trolling," sending out the n-word as well as conversations about a "Minecraft sex mod" to others, including YouTuber and fan of Swan's HarleyTBS. Harley is a small YouTuber with 13,000 subscribers that had reached out to Swan to talk over Discord.
This Twitter thread caused the drama to continue to snowball, with Dream responding to the thread, writing that he "didn't believe" Swan's story.
—dream (@dreamwastaken) February 15, 2021
On February 16, Dream went to his Twitch and streamed to an audience of a quarter of a million people explaining why he didn't believe Swan's story. Over the course of the now-deleted hour-long stream, Dream showed the messages sent to HarleyTBS from Swan's account as well as one pretending to be Dream, comparing the language to how Swan typically talks online. The stream itself spread throughout the internet with "caught in 4k" and "john swan lied" trending on Twitter with thousands of tweets over the next few hours.
"Why would I, as a creator wanting to get big on the platform, try to smear another popular creator by creating an alt account and sending troll messages to 1 person," Swan wrote in a now-deleted tweet. "This just makes no sense optically and logically."
Later that day, Daniel "Keemstar" Keem created multiple Twitter videos asking Swan to come on his DramaAlert show and appear in a debate with Dream. Swan declined, telling fellow YouTuber Optimus that he was only given 10 minutes to prepare, which wasn't enough time. Keem denied that, tweeting that he had been given at least two hours before he was set to record.
—Opti ⛩️ (@SubToOptimus) February 16, 2021
When reached for comment on February 17, Swan told Insider he "wouldn't be doing any interviews until my response drops."
Over a week later on February 24, Swan releases an 18-page Google Doc and audiobook explaining his side of the story. In the doc he attempts to debunk every single claim made by Dream in his live stream and tweets. Swan also attempted to hurt HarleyTBS' credibility, writing that "you probably shouldn't be listening to him when it comes to his takes on serious allegations."
John Swan eventually said he had lied
A few days later on February 27, Swan posted on Twitter that he had been lying and he was involved in sending the messages. "I told a lie and I thought it would never get brought back up again," Swan wrote. "I have let you all down. I am ashamed and disappointed in myself. And I am sorry."
YouTuber LtCobra wrote on his Twitter, claiming that he was the one on Swan's account and had "pretended he was good friends with dream and sent Harley dreams discord account."
—Arlus “Cobra” Finch (@Arlus) February 27, 2021
Fellow YouTubers and collaborators that had defended Swan over the past month started to come out and speak out against him. "I've been shown proof tonight that has made me come to the conclusion that John Swan has been lying to me pretty flagrantly for the last few weeks," YouTuber Nicholas Deorio wrote. YouTubers like Kavos, AugieRFC, and Optimus tweeted their fury about the situation.
—Kavos (@KavosYT) February 27, 2021
—AugieRFC (@AugieRFC) February 27, 2021
—Opti ⛩️ (@SubToOptimus) February 27, 2021
Dream responded with his own Twitter thread, writing that he is "severely disappointed in John Swan for continuing to lie about me" and "very disappointed in all the commentary channels that made the narrative that I 'slandered a small creator'."
—dream (@dreamwastaken) February 27, 2021
John Swan did not return an earlier request for comment today.