- Dream, a 23-year-old gamer, deleted a face-reveal video and vowed to be a faceless creator again.
- Dream, whose real name is Clay, posted a 4-minute video where he had a new mask created.
Popular Minecraft gamer Dream has deleted his face reveal video and vowed to go back to being an anonymous creator, saying he regretted the "attention and hate" he received.
Dream, a 23-year-old content creator with some 31 million subscribers on YouTube, uploaded a video to his channel on June 9 titled "bye, from Dream."
"I deleted my face reveal, and this is why," he wrote as the caption. "After face revealing and removing my mask, I regretted the attention and hate, and am walking it back."
Dream said in earlier videos that his first name is Clay, but didn't give other details like his surname.
The video mentions comments that bullied Dream after he showed his face, he kept it light-hearted, leading some fans to believe it may be a prank. He and his friends joked about him being so "ugly" and that his views would increase if he started hiding his face again.
Dream then showed a new mask, and was told by his friends he had to keep it on at all times.
"I will also be wearing my mask everywhere from now on," Dream said at the end of the video, which showed him pulling up to a McDonald's drive-thru in his new disguise. "Yes even in public. Yes I'm seriously putting the mask back on."
He added in the caption that he would be deleting all pictures of him online, "and going back to just being a gamer in a mask."
"Thank you all from the bottom of my heart to those that supported me, even though I am ugly," he said. "I appreciate you all more than you could ever know, and I will be working on my face while I'm masked again."
Dream showed his face for the first time in October 2022, after posting his videos facelessly for eight years. He became one of the fastest-growing creators on YouTube when he started out. Psychologists previously told Insider his anonymity might have had something to do with it, because faceless figures are inherently intriguing.
Dream said he made the decision to show his face because threats of having his identity leaked were becoming too much and he wanted to have control over it himself. Over 1.2 million people tuned in to watch the reveal live, and hundreds of creators reacted to it. While he received plenty of support, he was also subjected to name calling and criticisms about his appearance.
"Hi, it feels so awkward talking to the camera for the first time," Dream said after removing his characteristic smiley-face mask.
"Hi, my name is Clay, otherwise known as Dream online. You may have heard of me, may have not, maybe you clicked on this video just out of pure curiosity and you don't care who I am. But now you have seen my face, obviously you know who I am."
His goal, he said at the time, was to go out and meet people as himself, "and be an actual creator, be a person."