The Minecraft community is in turmoil as YouTube star Dream continues to court controversy

• Minecraft YouTube star Dream has been embroiled in controversy this week.
• It started when Twitch streamer Kaceytron appeared to criticize him and angered his fans.
• Dream told his fans to stand down, but then he faced his own backlash.

Minecraft YouTube star Dream, who is known for his anonymity, has been involved in waves of controversy online this week.

It started when Twitch streamer Kaceytron, whose real name is Kacey, appeared to criticize Dream, one of the fastest-growing YouTube channels with 19.8 million subscribers. His fans came to his defense and began harassing Kacey.

The tables then turned as Dream himself was accused of saying a racial slur in a recently resurfaced clip. The hashtag "#dreamisoverparty" trended on Twitter on Thursday night.

Amid the controversy, Kacey, the streamer who has 560,000 followers on Twitch, then spoke out against what she described as a toxic culture perpetuated by Minecraft superfans.

It was a lot to follow and the drama appears to still be unfolding. Here's what you need to know.

Twitch streamer Kaceytron appeared to accuse YouTube star Dream of 'gay baiting'

On March 19, Kacey, who does not reveal her last name online, tweeted a joke about how some streamers are canceled just for breathing, while famous ones have been known to "gay bait" in their content. Urban Dictionary defines "gay bait" as "a straight person who is flirtatious with people of the same sex for the self esteem boost and personal satisfaction."

The tweet appeared to reference streamers Dream and Tommy, who have been accused of "queer baiting" in the past after flirting on-stream with YouTuber GeorgeNotFound.

Kacey, 30, then went on to clarify her tweet by adding that her "largely gay audience is f---ing sick of their identity being used as the butt of a joke constantly." She deleted the tweets within an hour, but they were archived by Minecraft fans.

After that tweet, Dream fans looked through Kaceytron's catalogue of online content and resurfaced some controversial and offensive comments. The streamer's name trended on Twitter and was shared by thousands of fans of the Minecraft community, who accused her of being "racist" and "homophobic."

Tweets accused Kacey of speaking in AAVE, or African American Vernacular English, and dug up clips of her from the past that appear to show her saying the N-word. One clip was from 2014 and another was from a 2020 Halloween stream in which she sang along to "Hood Go Crazy" by Tech9. In a Twitter thread, she wrote that she did not say the word in the Halloween clip.

-kaceytron (@kaceytron) March 19, 2021

In a Google Doc shared on Twitter on Sunday, Kacey addressed the other allegations and content being shared about her online. She said that the 2014 clip was from a viewer donation "where they spelled out things phonetically and tricked me into saying the N-word" and that "AAVE can be used to be disparaging, mocking and hateful towards black people ... But I have never used it that way."

Kacey did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

Dream said he did not condone 'any kind of disrespect' towards Kacey

Dream, the largest Minecraft YouTuber who founded the SMP server, appeared to respond to the backlash Kacey was receiving. In a tweet on Saturday, he said, "obviously I don't support death threats or threats at all, or any kind of disrespect and I call it out all the time in my community."

But Kacey continued to receive hate online. She said on Twitter that she was doxxed (meaning that she had private information leaked online) and that people faked private messages to defame her.

-kaceytron (@kaceytron) March 23, 2021

On Tuesday night, Dream joined Kacey on her Twitch stream where the pair discussed what's been going on.

Dream said he disavowed the accounts that allegedly "doxxed" the streamer. He said that he reached out to Kacey once he saw her name trending.

"I didn't read anything that was happening, I just saw that your name was trending so I replied to you and I saw your replies to people and I thought, 'oh my gosh, this is going to turn bad,'" Dream said at the end of the half-hour conversation. "I think everybody needs to be more willing not to fight fire with fire and you could have responded better but you don't deserve any of the hate and death threats that came to you."

Kacey trolled her viewers, which is what she's become known for

After the stream with Dream on Tuesday, Kacey posted a video called "my apology…" on her YouTube channel, gaining 130,000 views and over 24,000 dislikes in one day.

But the video was an elaborate troll, featuring somber music and clips from her streams alongside hateful messages she's received. The video did not contain an apology.

Kacey began video-game streaming in 2013 as mostly a character who actively antagonized her audience to grow her brand. She played games like League of Legends as poorly as possible, for example, to purposefully annoy or upset fans. Though she abandoned that faux persona after a few years, her trolling behavior is still integral to her brand.

In 2019, she and a group of other women streamers planned an event called the "Slutstream" to bring awareness to the harassment female streamers receive on Twitch.

In March 2020, she received a Twitch suspension after making a joke about coronavirus, saying, "the world would be a better place without old and poor people."

Dream was then accused of using a racial slur himself

In the wake of the harassment against Kacey, Dream was accused of having used a racial slur.

On Thursday evening, a clip surfaced online from a now-private video that showed a Minecraft account called itself "Dream" saying the N-word. The clip moved through Reddit and Twitter, gaining traction with both those who dislike the Minecraft content creator and the stans defending him.

-Windy @ p5s platinum grind (@gamingguru456) March 25, 2021

It appeared that the person using the racial slur was not Dream, but rather someone who previously had that same Minecraft username.

-dream (@dreamwastaken) March 25, 2021

Dream then tweeted that the person in the video was not him, which brought even more attention to the video. According to Google Trends data, immediately after the tweet, searches for "Dream N-word" increased dramatically.

Dream did not respond to Insider's request for comment.