Dan & Phil Part 12: Stalking him until he loves you

Our two favourite full time internet nerds who never go outside!
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angrymob
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bedhead91 wrote:
I'm only two years younger then Dan, so when I started watching his videos in 2009 he was actually relatable to me, not just #relatable, as I was in the same ''failed scene kid lol random XD'' tragic phase of life, and was going through some of the same issues thinking about uni and my future. The fact is that I can no longer relate to them because they are now two rich guys with millions of viewers and personas, and their content is aimed at a much younger audience. I now think about things that never occurred to me in past, like their brands and management and how much money they are making off of me watching them. If they are possibly manipulating how I'm seeing their relationship. It's obviously a different viewing experience then when I was watching two guys with funny hair who were around my age and didn't really know what they were doing.

The change was inevitable, obviously. I still enjoy watching their videos. I don't blame them for becoming massively popular, or wanting to make money, or wanting to have control over their image. I just miss the simpler days sometimes.

I also want to defend Dan a bit here...besides that regrettable, short-lived period in 2012, he wasn't as angry, slutty or problematic as people make him out to have been. Dan's sense of humor seems ''problematic'' now, but in 2010 no one batted an eye at people making rape jokes and dead baby jokes on YouTube. (Unfortunately.)
I share your experience almost exactly, as I started watching them around 2008 and am roughly the same age as you. The problem with D&P now, that fuels that nostalgia is that they are not super relatable people now (for reasons you mentioned), but they build their current image off that genuine relatability they had with their subscribers at one point. They're older, but they are still aiming at the same audience they had when they first started out. So even though I too see past/present them as two separate entities, it's sort of like they're trapped in time.
phamnotof wrote: And I guess for me, this way is preferable even as far as experiencing them as celebrities goes, I would just not be comfortable being a fan of someone who I could think of in terms of 'just like me', but that's personal preference and a desire for boundaries. Like I honestly prefer this, I prefer a good production value and a firmly set wall, I've got poorly edited and badly lit friends who make terrible jokes IRL. I like that they're a business now, because I am fascinated by personas, I think they're an artform, good branding is like porn to me, the gap between persona and private citizens keeps me up at night - this is what I like. I like storytelling and entertainment and I don't find it manipulative, fanservice to me is their job, serve me up, bro, just do it in a way that I can enjoy, sell yourself well or then I'll be unhappy. I need you to be fictional to a degree, or else I won't be able to project my everything onto you. But again, this is preference.
I think when and what attracted you to Youtube in general might affect your opinion on this matter. For me, what got me into youtube was the fact that it was amateurish, even the professional filmed stuff, because it was a medium that I hadn't experience before. I didn't many have friends that shared my interests or made videos about funny things that happened or a random story they'd written as a kid, and the fact that they were people from places I personally knew making and sharing videos about those places (which would have been completely ignored by other media) was cool.
phamnotof wrote: And as far as the problematic stuff goes, I really don't find "everyone did it" to be in any way a good enough excuse, like I was 13 in 2009 and even then, I knew better than to laugh at rape jokes. I don't blame him anymore, and it's been a joy to see how much he grew up, but I really don't think that his frankly horrible behaviours at times can be excused. Slutty was a weird word to use on my part though (#problematictoo :D) - I just meant to overly sexed up image he tried to build, the sultry stares, the dancing - not my thing. But there's nothing wrong with it. And I guess I read anger in a lot of his videos, anger and frustration, and not just cause of Voldy, but also the overall pressure put on him from everywhere, becoming famous, moving, dropping out - he just didn't seem happy. And I appreciate that some people related to that & it indeed is valuable.
I'll admit that I was 16 in 2009 and I didn't know better than to laugh at rape jokes at the time. So, it's not so much just that everyone was doing it, it was that everyone didn't have exposure to the same discussions online then than they do now. And I'd still argue that dark humour has it's place in appropariate contexts, but I'm more aware of the potential discomfort caused by dark humour now in large part because of the online presence of those kinds of topics.

I appreciate hearing your opinion though, and it too is weird to think that if you are around long enough, you cultivate multiple distinct fanbases (yet we are all here in the end ). It's like taht with other things too. I definitely don't relate to some of the newer fans of some bands I've listen for years, and I've realized that I wouldn't be fans of those bands if I'd just heard their newer stuff, but I've stuck around because I liked their old stuff. The newer fans may never listen to the older stuff cause it's not their style of music, it's like we're listening to two different genres yet we're fans of the same thing. This metaphor has gone of the rails, I'm sorry.
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internetakeover
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newslang wrote:
eevee wrote:
internetakeover wrote:
phamnotof wrote:internetakeover thanks to you, too! And yeah, I'm fascinated to see how much things change in 7 years, because they're bound to, whether they want them to or not.
No problem, all I did was take a brief look in my memory banks, haha.

Thank you to oqua for such a brilliant actual timeline, I'm definitely going to be spending too much time rewatching liveshows etc and matching them up with that now!
yo i'd love to see liveshows of dan denying phan from 2012 lmao link me
As far as I know, Dan has never outright denied Phan in a liveshow. He has denied being gay several times, I'll link you to both versions.
short version


long version, if you truly hate yourself and want to watch 30 minutes of ''no homo''
newslang has linked to precisely the younow resources I had, and in addition to this oqua has made a brilliant archive of Dan's customerserviceblog/tumblr, including what I believe to be his only actual phan denials, on this thread.
phamnotof
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@angrymob sorry, on mobile and pretending i'm about to go to sleep, so i can't reply properly - and yeah, the preference for a certain type of connection shapes what we wanna see/consider our favourite, absolutely. and the band analogy works pretty well for me, yeah, that's basically it. i do think they're stuck in time thematically, less so tone-vise, but i also think times are achanging there & that they'll find a way to honor their roots while also doing new cool things, eventually. like i'm pretty hopeful there.
as far as dark humor goes, yeah, it does have a place in comedy, even online, but rape jokes to me aren't dark humor, they're a form of abuse. but that's getting into a whole another conversation.
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Winston
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grannypants wrote:
hollyphan wrote:OK DAN.
That aestetic
my first thought was how tired his eyes look too, damn :? on a more positive note his under eye concealer/foundation routine must be killer to get rid of those, teach me daniel maybe an everyday make up routine could be a good replacement for the exam vid? no? ok
also i really wish they wouldn't upload photos this zoomed, it makes me hella uncomfortable idk i'm so used to seeing them at a safe distance a couple of feet back behind a camera... can't deal with seeing the stray eyebrow hairs and close up eyeballs :wtf: its almost like they're real people, say wuuuuut
I'm with you on the too close bit! :shock:
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sweetmm
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Phil tend to really get into it :roll:
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majitzu
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sweetmm wrote:Phil tend to really get into it :roll:
Yeah he looks perfect. Perfectly funny.
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jaej
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to be fair, a lot of dans oldest tweets show clear signs of struggles with body image, lifestyle, loneliness etc, so it's not like any depression rumours came from 'omg he frowned one time he's depressed!!'
Trigger Warning :
little more detail on the tweets
his older tweets have mentions of starving himself to lose weight, scratching his arm until it bleeds (unintentionally, but a bad sign), plenty of jokes about death that all arguably cross the line of 'normal teen feeling sad'. since then, he's posted some blatantly dark stuff that, while definitely a joke, is unsettling
idk ive never had an issue with 'i think this person MIGHT have this condition and as i also feel the same way i can relate and look up to them', because it's not about the term, it's about the individual actions. i relate to dan's spacing out and procrastinating and getting distracted and stuff easily, whether or not his is due to a larger medical condition like mine is. it makes me feel more comfortable to see that someone can have those characteristics and succeed, and makes me more defensive because i know how difficult it can be. i can't relate to dan over a simple term given to the cluster of behaviours i have, but i can relate to him over the individual behaviours that we share
i only really see the problem in 2 ways:
1) when it becomes a diagnosis, or something very serious, not just a feeling you have yourself. this includes searching intensely for proof, i guess, and making stuff up to give them a certain label
2) when it promotes unhealthy ideas. the 'he was depressed and phil saved him!!' isn't healthy. IF dan had any level of depression, from simply bouts of sadness a bit more frequently than average to a clinical diagnosis of a disorder, he ultimately made his own life better
my name is jaejmine masters and i have something to say. dan and phil have fucked up japan :japhan:
phil lester threw the first brick at stonewall, we love a queer icon :biflag:
idk
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in terms of whether or not dan's faced depression, his description for his 'college dropout' video writes "The story of why I was temporarily depressed but now happy"

also i think i recall someone asking him in a liveshow(?) whether he had been depressed and he said something along the lines of 'well yes, but i'm happy now' too (i need to fact check this, my memory is shit)
karma_yeah
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NarrysCanary wrote:

He is wearing a ring in this video, at 15:16.

But I don't know where the picture is from, he does not tie his hair here.

So late to the party! This is the first time I'm seeing this and I'm only a couple of minutes in, but I love Dan's posh accent in this!
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NarrysCanary
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I didn't dare to bring the scratching arm thing up
Gonna put a TW just in case
Trigger Warning :
Self-harm
Because I used to do that when I was 16 but unlike him it was intentional I wasn't doing good when I was 16, I would not say depressed but very very not good (I've had issues with friends at school, my parents would not stop arguing and so on) and as well try to make myself throw up bc I struggled with my body image (never managed to do it though and I'm glad) so that's why I don't take his old tweets as a funny joke to be #relatable. This post is probably TMI but oh well
Last edited by NarrysCanary on Fri May 27, 2016 11:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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mez29
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idk wrote:also i think i recall someone asking him in a liveshow(?) whether he had been depressed and he said something along the lines of 'well yes, but i'm happy now' too (i need to fact check this, my memory is shit)
Yes, wasn't this in a tumblr ask? And in his draw my life video he says something like "I wasn't happy between the ages of 5 and 20 but now I am" or something like that?
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oqua
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mez29 wrote:
idk wrote:also i think i recall someone asking him in a liveshow(?) whether he had been depressed and he said something along the lines of 'well yes, but i'm happy now' too (i need to fact check this, my memory is shit)
Yes, wasn't this in a tumblr ask? And in his draw my life video he says something like "I wasn't happy between the ages of 5 and 20 but now I am" or something like that?
The tumblr ask you're probably thinking of is this one. The question doesn't explicitly ask if he was depressed.

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busy being happy~
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NarrysCanary
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karma_yeah wrote:
NarrysCanary wrote:

He is wearing a ring in this video, at 15:16.

But I don't know where the picture is from, he does not tie his hair here.

So late to the party! This is the first time I'm seeing this and I'm only a couple of minutes in, but I love Dan's posh accent in this!
There are three of those so enjoy them :D !
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felucca
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eevee wrote:yo i'd love to see liveshows of dan denying phan from 2012 lmao link me
I've got a playlist.

Phan relationship denials.

^Everytime they said they're single and phan isn't real + cases of implied singledom.

And for you eevee, 2012 Dan denying phan specifically:




dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas

:dh:
trashqueen
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angrymob wrote:
bedhead91 wrote:
I'm only two years younger then Dan, so when I started watching his videos in 2009 he was actually relatable to me, not just #relatable, as I was in the same ''failed scene kid lol random XD'' tragic phase of life, and was going through some of the same issues thinking about uni and my future. The fact is that I can no longer relate to them because they are now two rich guys with millions of viewers and personas, and their content is aimed at a much younger audience. I now think about things that never occurred to me in past, like their brands and management and how much money they are making off of me watching them. If they are possibly manipulating how I'm seeing their relationship. It's obviously a different viewing experience then when I was watching two guys with funny hair who were around my age and didn't really know what they were doing.

The change was inevitable, obviously. I still enjoy watching their videos. I don't blame them for becoming massively popular, or wanting to make money, or wanting to have control over their image. I just miss the simpler days sometimes.

I also want to defend Dan a bit here...besides that regrettable, short-lived period in 2012, he wasn't as angry, slutty or problematic as people make him out to have been. Dan's sense of humor seems ''problematic'' now, but in 2010 no one batted an eye at people making rape jokes and dead baby jokes on YouTube. (Unfortunately.)
I share your experience almost exactly, as I started watching them around 2008 and am roughly the same age as you. The problem with D&P now, that fuels that nostalgia is that they are not super relatable people now (for reasons you mentioned), but they build their current image off that genuine relatability they had with their subscribers at one point. They're older, but they are still aiming at the same audience they had when they first started out. So even though I too see past/present them as two separate entities, it's sort of like they're trapped in time.
same here

the reason i still like them now is most of the time everything but their content, i'm just invested in them as people at this point, and in youtube as a business and the whole fanservice/marketing yourself stuff that goes on is also fascinating to me (and it gives me great examples to bring up in class lol)

but i can't help being nostalgic sometimes, mostly because i just want them to still make content for me, but nope, i grew up and they are still making content for the teens, meh

and also i agree that 2008-2012 was a different internet time, if i was a teen now i wouldn't have liked dan and phil's old stuff because 2016 internet is a lot more self aware and educated, but back then problematic wasn't even a word and even though i'm a raging feminist now i didn't even question rape jokes so i saw nothing wrong with their stuff and as bedhead said, it was truly releatable
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Dan Howell wrote:'[someone] just sent me a message saying 'Phil'..... same'
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spaceguitar
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To add to the Dan looking weird in M&G photos, I think it is because he is smiling with his teeth. He usually just smiles with his mouth closed
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eevee
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Yo thank you to everyone who posted me phan denial stuff, I'm going to spend as much time as I can tonight reading before my friend drags me out to real life. This is really giving me a nice trip down memory lane tho ha ha
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Phil looks like he went to sleep at 6 AM and is dying inside, Dan glows like he spent the night having orgasms - Ticia
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In regards to the Dan with wristbands, it looks to me like he's just got a load of festival passes on his wrist? I know I've possibly missed a tonne of analysis on this but I remember when I went to festivals is keep my wristband on for a while, and the more I went to the more I'd have, British festivals give you a fabric wristband for the weekend that you have to show at checkpoints and they fasten with a weird metal clip that keeps it securely on you. Its always been a thing for years that you keep your bands on over the summer to show where you've been and just as a happy reminder, and it happened in social groups I knew before I went to my first festival in 2000 and I've seen people doing it last year and probably will this year? IDK, I don't know the timing of that vid but that's what it looks like to me.

Re: concealer: Touche Eclat. It will change yo life. Fairly sure he knows what it is as well (or his make up artists do) and that's why the photo looks almost shimmery with the dregs where it hasn't been taken off properly. Looks awesome IRL and on stage, it can look like shit under flash photography though
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Winston
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sweetmm wrote:Phil tend to really get into it :roll:
Is this photo in reference to something? I don't think I really get the joke. :? I do appreciate how frickin adorbs Phil is though. :)
Last edited by Winston on Sat May 28, 2016 3:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Catallena
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I feel like people exaggerate Dan's past 'problematicness' tbh. Some act like he made nothing but rape jokes and was some raging racist and misogynist. He made insensitive jokes sometimes, but hardly that extreme and he learned from it some years later. Most people his age did. I still like the tasteful dark humor (so without the rape jokes) that made Dan stand out, and I'm pretty sure Dan and Phil still do too but they rarely show it nowadays. Good dark humor is becoming a lost art on the internet it seems, it's like there's no grey area between really gross 'humor' and just cringe memes with bad puns anymore.

It's interesting people say they wouldn't have liked Dan (or Phil) if they had found them a few years ago, it's the exact opposite for me. If I found their videos now, I probably would click away pretty quickly just like I do whenever I watch any video from a Gleamer or someone similar. Aside from Dan and Phil's chemistry together, nothing makes them stand out anymore imo. I don't find their current main channel content as funny as it used to be, their upload schedules have become infuriating (it used to be funny when Dan promised to upload on Thursday but was still editing during Phil's liveshow on Saturday), their personas have become demon hell versions of what they were, and I really just don't give a shit about apps, books and tours.

I admit that a huge factor in my affection for them today is nostalgia and that over the years I've just grown fond them as people, while my love for their content diminished. Plus the phan mystery/shipping keeps me here as well ngl.
tilltomorrow wrote:Like I remember, being a lot more willing to show their videos to friends at 18 but now if someone asks I'm a bit more hesitant because I'm used to their content level but as "an outsider" pointed out recently, some videos now feel like watching a children's show. As a child you see nothing wrong with an adult talking to a blue dog and slowly drawing stick figures in his notepad but watching it back as an adult it feels really weird.
Ohhh I relate to this so much as well. It's almost impossible for me to recommend their videos to people anymore, which is funny because I have very little problem raving about childish things like I've been trying to get my mom started on Miraculous Ladybug for two weeks now :')

biatchqueen wrote:In regards to the Dan with wristbands, it looks to me like he's just got a load of festival passes on his wrist? I know I've possibly missed a tonne of analysis on this but I remember when I went to festivals is keep my wristband on for a while, and the more I went to the more I'd have, British festivals give you a fabric wristband for the weekend that you have to show at checkpoints and they fasten with a weird metal clip that keeps it securely on you. Its always been a thing for years that you keep your bands on over the summer to show where you've been and just as a happy reminder, and it happened in social groups I knew before I went to my first festival in 2000 and I've seen people doing it last year and probably will this year? IDK, I don't know the timing of that vid but that's what it looks like to me.
You're correct, we all know they're Reading Festival wristbands and that he just thought it looked cool. The thing is that over the years some people liked to speculate that Dan had self harm scars under them, and that that's why he insisted on wearing them. It was a really popular theme in phanfic for a while, but most people now know better and it's been a long time since he cut them off so newer fans don't even really know about them (many don't watch older videos).
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idontreallyknow
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what is the arm scratching tweet? I don't remember anything about that?
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Rigby
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Winston wrote:
sweetmm wrote:Phil tend to really get into it :roll:
Is this photo in reference to something? I don't think I really get the joke. :? I do appreciate how frickin adorbs Phil is though. :)
It's a reference to the cover of a magazine where Kim Kardashian is naked.

NSFW
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Winston
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AH yes, I have seen the whole article. Just didn't connect the two.... Thanks! :D

dat ass tho :shock:
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2old4thisshite
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As the boring hetro-in-residence I see genuine denial of gayness in that compilation, without hidden bisexuality or 'struggling to identify my sexuality' or anything.

He's STRAIGHT Itellya!

He had the shizzes in 2012 because they had already denied they were together and how many times can you repeat yourself and not be believed?

*runs for her life emoji*
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2old4thisshite wrote:As the boring hetro-in-residence I see genuine denial of gayness in that compilation, without hidden bisexuality or 'struggling to identify my sexuality' or anything.

He's STRAIGHT Itellya!
So why is it predominantly men that he discusses these days rather than women when he makes suggestive (or even just casual) remarks about what attracts him? Strange behaviour for a defensive straight guy.

'Genuine denial of gayness' doesn't immediately mean 'straight' btw. What a world.
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