Dan & Phil Part 35: knock knock, who’s there, i hate you

[Artdefines06]

Possible reasons Dan isn't tweeting:

- He's playing the genocide route of Undertale. He'll emerge sometime mid-January with a soul deadened by the amount of pixelated murder his hands have committed.
- He's with Phil on the Isle of Man.
- Romantic getaway with the secret girlfriend he met on his secret tinder profile.
- He's with Phil in London already, both of them graduated ninja school and can travel entirely undercover now.
- He's made a Christmas tradition of breaking his phone and can't get it fixed.
- The wifi/phone service is just epic bad this year.
- He's with Martyn on the Isle of Man. #dartyn
- He's too busy contemplating which IDB Awards categories to vote for, has no time for tweeting.
- They eloped on Boxing Day. Honeymoon in Japan for the new year.
- This year he's decided to focus on his holiday time on the true reason for the season: bonding with Colin the dog.

Another #whereisdan scenario came to me in the shower:

Being a self-proclaimed Star Wars nerd, he could be in mourning for the death of Princess Leia / Carrie Fisher. And now sadly, the Queen Mother has also left this dimension.

(soz.)

Hey. I've been avoiding the clikbait/queerbait/phan or not phan convo's, but here is my contribution to #whereisdan

Have we already forgotten about his 100k makuharu CoffeeshopAU? people are hungry for the next update since he had to take off so much time during gamingmas

For real though, I would say its a combo of things that have already been mentioned - Mourning Debbie and Carrie by playing Undertale while Colin sleeps in his lap and Dan contemplates 1. how to steal him and 2. Phil's selfie.

Also, on Frisk's gender. I did some digging and have found that the makers of the game will never answer questions about it. They refuse to even discuss it. So they are not on the same soapbox and do not require that everyone see frisk as non-binary. It's possible they made it vague so that everyone could have the experience they want, and if Phil wants frisk to be a little girl that's fine, because games are supposed to make people happy.

[ismelindsey]

Just gonna put in a little 2 cents on the nb gender thing. Just to get it off me chest.

I was annoyed with the boys when they didn't refer to Frisk as gender neutral terms, just as I was when Jacksepticeye for it. But jack read his comments learnt his mistake and literally said sorry for it and said I'll try to remember to say they but I may forget and accidentally say she and im sorry for it. Like Deppys fanbase has gotta be more woke than his, so is there really anyway they didnt see it?

Also anyone else miss day in the life vids? Has it been over a year since the last one? It feels it.

[Catallena]

Phil Lester has a big willy

Enjoying all your #whereisdan theories. I think normally they'd be home from their families and in London by now. Didn't Dan say he wanted to make a video before the end of 2016? Maybe's he's making something.

[Moony]

#whereisdan

his christmas sweater got stuck somewhere because of the pompoms and it strangled him in the process
his family is now debating how to tell the world the news


Anyone else already missing the nerds Gamingmas has turned me into a thirsty bitch
they deserve their time off though

[fancybum]

Also, on Frisk's gender. I did some digging and have found that the makers of the game will never answer questions about it. They refuse to even discuss it. So they are not on the same soapbox and do not require that everyone see frisk as non-binary. It's possible they made it vague so that everyone could have the experience they want, and if Phil wants frisk to be a little girl that's fine, because games are supposed to make people happy.

I mean... I feel like going out of their way not to comment on it is a comment itself (and I don't remember anyone climbing on a soapbox over it). I realize this is just a computer game so people's levels of giving a shit will vary, but it's kind of like slapping a sexuality label on Dan just for one's own comfort even though he's made a point of not putting a label out there for himself. The game quite clearly sticks with 'they' for Frisk, not him or her and since (spoiler if people haven't watched the full playthrough yet?)

Frisk isn't Toto (meaning Frisk isn't just the irl player), but an actual existing character within the world, their non-label is intended. Actually the spoiler tag wasn't necessary was it since the name Frisk is already.. whatever nm. JUST IN CASE.

But just generally if a person hasn't told you how they identify it's not cool to just slap a label on them for the heck of it. And yes I know it's 'just' a video game, but considering everything else it had going on with character portrayals, I don't really see the pointed non-labelling of Frisk as an oversight (or something they'd leave up to the player without saying that's what they intended, y'know).

Anyone else already missing the nerds Gamingmas has turned me into a thirsty bitch
they deserve their time off though

The thirst is so real in me rn. I feel like Phil is just going to drop a video out of nowhere any day now but idk. Wishful thinking.

[Catallena]

Anyone else already missing the nerds Gamingmas has turned me into a thirsty bitch
they deserve their time off though

Post gamingmas depression tbh.

i'm sad because i totally forgot to submit that for thread title but i like this one too

[MoonPride]

I am finding the lack on content now hard, wasn't hard when I was a casual viewer but now I am suffering and not sure what to do with my time and I've lost my child to Pokemon Moon lol. I don't know how you guys survived in the past.

[000dia000]

Didn't they say that they wanted to post a video to both of their channels by the end of the year? That's what's troubling me. Are they going to keep their word? Today, Tomorrow, New-Year's Eve? Haru it?

[melon lord]

I mean... I feel like going out of their way not to comment on it is a comment itself (and I don't remember anyone climbing on a soapbox over it). I realize this is just a computer game so people's levels of giving a shit will vary, but it's kind of like slapping a sexuality label on Dan just for one's own comfort even though he's made a point of not putting a label out there for himself. The game quite clearly sticks with 'they' for Frisk, not him or her and since (spoiler if people haven't watched the full playthrough yet?)

Frisk isn't Toto (meaning Frisk isn't just the irl player), but an actual existing character within the world, their non-label is intended. Actually the spoiler tag wasn't necessary was it since the name Frisk is already.. whatever nm. JUST IN CASE.

But just generally if a person hasn't told you how they identify it's not cool to just slap a label on them for the heck of it. And yes I know it's 'just' a video game, but considering everything else it had going on with character portrayals, I don't really see the pointed non-labelling of Frisk as an oversight (or something they'd leave up to the player without saying that's what they intended, y'know).

Undertale is a horrible example to judge gender on. New players of the game are subtly urged to use their own name when naming the character, to enhance the experience. So already most people who do use their name (most Youtubers use a silly name just to be funny but you can tell they already project themselves onto the protagonist), see the character as themselves and use the pronouns they are comfortable with.

You need to understand (that comes off as arrogant, I'm sorry, I don't mean it that way) that using they/them for the protagonist is crucial to the plot. You, the player, will not know that you are NOT the same fallen human from the intro until that fight with Asriel. By giving the protagonist a gender you are removing the entire point of the experience of Undertale, which is a personal adventure. You'll notice NONE of the characters refer to the human by their name. It's always "human", or they talk to the child directly. That's the whole fun of the twist! That actually the intro shows *another* fallen human, the one you named. Suddenly the projection and bond you placed through the child belongs to another previous character. And you are given a name, Frisk. That's canon. The other child's name isn't, unless you do a genocide run (or for some reason you google it). Who is Frisk? Well, by this point it doesn't matter if frisk identifies as a boy, girl, both or neither. Because by the end of the game you are still going to see yourself in Frisk.

Yes, there ARE canon names for all characters (yes even the original fallen child). But no, it doesn't matter. And it never will. Using they/them is a great way to remove plot pitfalls and spoil the charm of the story. Some Youtubers still didn't understand that Frisk WASN'T the "original" fallen child. Some Youtubers picked it up quite early. Most put the pieces together as the game gave them the information.

A lot of people flip flop with Frisk and that's okay. But also a lot of people don't care. I have seen a lot of fanart of Frisk and all of them are so lovely and you can't tell the gender and that's what's amazing about it. Some do a girl Frisk or a boy Frisk but Frisk is just an avatar for yourself. The appearance is neutral and "Frisk" gains nothing from this. It's all from the player. The player bonds with the characters, the player defeats flowey, the player makes choices whether to comfort characters, to spare them or kill them. Frisk is not a sentient character. That's how it was designed.

[majitzu]

It's been only 4 days since the last video I'm okay, I'm on vacation but I feel like I don't have time.

[coldnnights]

I love all these #whereisdan theories, i'll add one

- Dan is too busy lurking on idb to be tweeting anything

Didn't they say that they wanted to post a video to both of their channels by the end of the year? That's what's troubling me. Are they going to keep their word? Today, Tomorrow, New-Year's Eve? Haru it?

Yeah, I've been wondering what they'll do. Maybe tomorrow? I don't think they'll post today but who knows, i guess we'll see what happens.

[malday]

I was re-watching the pinof8 bloopers and noticed @6:09 it looks like Dan is doing something off-camera to cause Phil to look down and start laughing.

[PhansThrowPillows]

internetakeover I know what you mean about feeling upset every time Dan or Phil ''slips up'' when talking about gender. To me, it's like a little jab into my subconsciousness, generally I feel very included by their way of speaking so I've let my walls come down therefore I can ease up and not actively wait to be misgendered or ignored, so when stuff like that happens it's just another reminder of the world's gender binarism and how easily you can be 'othered'. It sucks when it comes from people who are so kind and considerate and in many ways very socially aware. I too don't think they mean any harm. It's just...

I actually meant to mention this topic earlier this year when Phil had his pet shrimp. I remember feeling really happy at first when he made it a point to not assume the shrimps gender but then later on changed the name because the shrimp had an egg sac...the casual cissexism of that bothered me.

Like other people have pointed out I think that both Dan and Phil are sensitive and accepting of different people and that everyone has a ton of unlearning to do, but those 'slip ups' tell me that their knowledge regarding gender seems to be theoretical, superficial and novel (more with Phil it seems). And that's why their inclusiveness can sometimes seem like an afterthought or why they might sometimes miss the mark completely. I don't dislike them or anything like that and I don't have any pitchforks , these are just casual observations made by me.

I do think that they are the kind of people who strive to be better and listen to others. For example I don't know if this was brought up but when they were playing one of the gamingmas games (bubble bobble maybe?) Phil mentioned that they had followers who are Inuit and then Dan said something about hoping that Phil used the right terminology and his voice kinda cracked like he was caught off guard by Phil's comment and that reminder made him slightly uncomfortable because he feels bad and now knows better? Maybe I'm over-analyzing that but I read it as them getting the feedback from their dapgo mistake and learning from it.

Anyways, just decided to pop-in and join in the nb-discussion. Back to lurking!

[mermaid blood]

tl;dr i don't think the term "queerbaiting" can be applied to real people and we should be reluctant in its use because of its implications.

I agree with a lot of your post, but to avoid quoting too much of it I'm just going to distill it down to this line. I think the problem here is going to be in how people fundamentally approach Dan and Phil; people who believe strongly that what we see aren't the real Dan and Phil rely heavily on that to explain how queerbaiting can apply to this (as they see it) fictionalized version of real people. Dan and Phil, if you believe they scripting their own personas and videos to that extent, can queerbait.

But I personally don't see Dan and Phil as scripting that much. I don't think selectively choosing which facets of your personality you want to expose to your audience of millions is the same as fictionializing, therefore I agree that I think queerbaiting isn't the right word. (I mean, I'd go with closeted, but to each their own.) The line of thought - judging someone else's sexuality or expression of it by the standards of assuming that they're doing it somehow because of you - seems inherently selfish to me too. The fandom culture preaches self-acceptance but leaves no room for celebrities to have a learning curve of their own, instead believing that everything they do must be in some way because of fans (to misguide them, to manipulate them, etc) and that if they are legitimately non-het they have an expectation to come out (to clear up fans confusion, to be representation, etc).

I don't go visit my grandmother and walk into the room announcing my sexuality to her. If I'm at a work event with people I don't know, I might choose discretion as a default. If I'm at a party with friends, I might be more open.Closets comes in many forms. None of that invalidates my actual sexuality. The same way I believe it makes sense that Dan and Phil at one point openly identified as bisexual, then decided they were no longer comfortable sharing that identity as their audience grew. They may grow more comfortable again. That comfort may manifest in a different way. That's how actually living in the world and being queer works.

Basically, imo: Dan and Phil have the right to decide what type of audience they're comfortable being up front about their sexuality to, except - if they're accused of queerbaiting the moment they deviate from what fans think should be the narrow line between 'telling the truth' and 'lying' then actually don't really get that right. So not only is the phrase queerbaiting technically wrong, imo, it's dehumanizing in that it reduces real people to fictional concepts.

- They're busy being happy.

Well, if you insist on being sensible and realistic... Go on then. I'll settle for this one!

idk if we're talking sensible and realistic I think your secret project in space one might really be it.

welcome lurker! i skip over most discussion on this subject on idb because...a lot of it is just not logical but i'm so glad you brought up this point. and dizzy.


in my opinion a lot of the angst still comes from their denials in the past. no you shouldn't have to explicitly state your sexuality or relationship status to be taken seriously and treated fairly, but they live in a heteronormative society and if you lie at any point you will have to explicitly explain again to reverse the damage. as demonstrated by the multitudes of posters on this very site. that's the real underlying inequality and unfortunately will dominate their career above any content they put out unless they make further sacrifices. chosing not to make those sacrifices and reveal more of their private struggles means they'll forever be accused of baiting for profit because the majority of viewers are either well intentioned but heterosexual and clueless themselves, or deliberately narrow-minded. they'll never be given the benefit of the doubt and the closet as a complex sociological phenomena will never be taken seriously because the majority will never experience it and the majority always wins.

I noticed Phil said she in the last undertale too! but i doubted myself and assumed i'd missed a piece of info and the character was female. so interesting to read here that he was also mistaken. i wonder why he went to female and not male? perhaps not internalising the character as himself the whole time afterall. are we sure he knew the character was nb? (i didn't pick up on it- but to he fair i zoned out of lot of this gameplay, and you would've thought Phil might be more aware as the player?)

I hope Dan is busy having a "good breakfast" at his grandparents as per Phil's complimentary review of their hospitality a few years ago. (eternally mourning the radioshow, weep)

[anathema]

What pronouns did Phil (and Dan) use for Toto/Frisk before? Does anyone remember? I cba to try and figure it out.

Also, as to why Dan's not tweeting, I vote that he's piano shopping

[Amiaw]

I've enjoyed Dan watch 2016 and I'm sure he'll turn up soon. He could be back in London - most likely they both are and are just not ready to jump back into things yet.

PJ just tweeted this:

Could be related and mean he's hanging out with Dan, could also be unrelated and it could be PJ just being PJ?

Will we ever know? The last great mystery of this year.

[secretagentphan]

I won't add much to the Undertale gender discussion because as a cis person I feel like it's not really my place. I will say though when I first played Undertale I briefly thought frisk was a girl because I misread one of the speech bubble things and I thought they called them a "she" when in reality they were talking about Torial.

Overall I'm glad Phil and especially Dan have come so far when it comes to being understanding about lgbt issues. I'm willing to forgive 2012 Dan for a lot of heteronormative annoying things he said because it was so clear how much he was struggling with his identity. His tipsy liveshow comes to mind for me especially, and the fact that he was tipsy makes what he said even more telling. He at one point says that he isn't comfortable putting on makeup as a joke like other youtubers (gendering makeup is annoying but whatever we've come a long way) because he'd just look like a good looking girl since he's "a few years delayed in developing" or whatever. Idk he seemed really uncomfortable and sad about it and I can only imagine how being constantly called a bottom and gay based on nothing but rude stereotypes must feel when you're already that insecure. 2012 Dan was an ass but I did really feel for him because of how unhappy he seemed about these things. I was completely in denial about being gay and stuff to the point where I didn't accept that I was bi until I was 17, so I see my past self in past Dan a little.

[internetakeover]

Thank you for adding your thoughts, PhansThrowPillows! I don't have much to add because I largely just agree/relate, but wanted to acknowledge it anyway! I agree that they seem to have noticed/learnt from the Inuit thing, too, and that this is just another subject they're learning on.

I noticed Phil said she in the last undertale too! but i doubted myself and assumed i'd missed a piece of info and the character was female. so interesting to read here that he was also mistaken. i wonder why he went to female and not male? perhaps not internalising the character as himself the whole time afterall. are we sure he knew the character was nb? (i didn't pick up on it- but to he fair i zoned out of lot of this gameplay, and you would've thought Phil might be more aware as the player?)

You're never directly informed of Frisk's gender and pronouns/terms are just left neutral - presumably so that you can view yourself in their place, as melon lord mentioned - so I guess it's hard to definitely say if Phil knew that the character was largely viewed as nb - or even that he was precisely wrong to say otherwise. Personally, I agree with fancybum that from the way the creators talk about Frisk that they are probably intended to be nb, or at least they liked/didn't want to disrupt the idea after the fact, and regardless the game doesn't gender them in any way and therefore any gender does come from the player - again, quite possibly so you can project yourself onto them, but this isn't what Phil does. (I wish I had an answer for the question of why he went to female, projecting yourself onto them seems to make so much more sense!) It seems to me that Phil would know the character was largely considered to be nb from the comments on the Undertale video, and he and Dan did both refer to them with 'they' pronouns and non-gendered language throughout the playthrough at various points.

-partially answered your question above, anathema, but being a little more specific: I'm not sure how often Phil personally used 'they' pronouns, but I'm pretty certain Dan did it fairly regularly and I distinctly remember Phil using 'they' least once and I don't think either of them used gendered pronouns outside of Phil's last one and the very opening scene where Dan used 'she' then questioned himself and they both reverted to 'it' for a brief period - wish I'd tracked this properly now so I could provide decent references!

[malday]

[SquishPhan]

I know it's weird, but I'm happy that he is they are home.

[Amiaw]

Sounds a lot like Martyn's tweet from yesterday- those zany Lesters. (I want to be one too!)

I bet he got back last night or early this morning and reunited with Dan but again, who knows

[internetakeover]

- Actual hibernation. Bear is not a nickname, it is Dan's animal form.

Phil's been lurking and saw dizzy figuring out that Dan is actually in hibernation right now and is trying to head us off

Also I was annoyingly just too late to edit my post but wanted to make it clear: I'm not ~angry at Phil misgendering an avatar - or even angry to any degree at all! - simply noting his inability to maintain the non-binary/lack of gender the two of them seemed to be acting in accordance with for Frisk, suggesting that he might not have fully internalised or be fully comfortable/confident with nb genders. (Which yeah, did upset me, but that's not really the point I'm making either!)

[annetamiau]

Not the apartment, or the house. Home. HOME. H-O-M-E.

(Sorry for such an irrelevant post).

[PhansThrowPillows]

Also I was annoyingly just too late to edit my post but wanted to make it clear: I'm not ~angry at Phil misgendering an avatar - or even angry to any degree at all! - simply noting his inability to maintain the non-binary/lack of gender the two of them seemed to be acting in accordance with for Frisk, suggesting that he might not have fully internalised or be fully comfortable/confident with nb genders. (Which yeah, did upset me, but that's not really the point I'm making either!)

Pretty much just wanted to say: same!

[spaceguitar]

I miss Dan
Actually though, in the time that I've been following them, this might be the longest that Dan has gone w/o tweeting? Or maybe its just the gamingmas withdrawal making me feel this way.