000dia000 wrote: Wed Aug 30, 2017 10:31 pm
gohomohowell wrote: Wed Aug 30, 2017 9:38 pm
It's weird, though. Despite many people claiming they prefer Phil, I think we can all agree that there's a bit of focus on Dan on here. You know, we talk about his mental health a lot more than Phil's just as we talk more about his family than Phil's. Thoughts?
I think, as it was once put, Dan puts forward a lot more ambiguity. He alludes to something and leaves people stumped. Then people come here to talk about it. However, Phil tends to be quite blatant about things and says things outright, or otherwise completely ignores topics and just doesn't discuss it. Think of Dan as having difficulty disguising emotion and letting things blurt out, while Phil is quite tight-lipped and discreet. However, contrary to what people may suggest, there's actually no mystery to Phil (if you consider his words) but Dan's words hold more interpretation. Phil is also sneaky and says things indirectly and kind of off-hand, therefore going under the radar. You see a lot of people commenting
"wait....Phil said WHAT!!!" because they miss him his subtlety and general quietness over Dan being quite loud and dominant in videos.
Dan's a bit dramatic. He doesn't upload regularly, and when he does he hypes it up. He calls for people to get excited, then delivers, and there's the positive and negative fallout. He's over dramatic in his videos. He's loud. He get's people's attention. Phil's sometimes lost underneath it all because he's a lot quieter, calmer, more straight-forward.
Also, while I'm not sure everybody's willing to admit it, but Dan just get's more attention because he's more popular. However, I do think people are more open to criticizing him/commending him than they are for Phil. While Phil does get negative attention, usually someone has to point out how Dan is getting so much negative attention that it finally diverts. Dan videos bring up discussions like sexuality, quality content, mental health, secret projects and the like. Phil's video's are more slice of life, talks about himself or things he does. You learn about what he does and what's flashy and bright, but nothing about Phil as a person. Dan presents topics, open for discussion. But Phil presents a picture, and yet people still sometimes miss what's right in front of them.
Also, people might just more subconsciously like Dan. People might just find that there's more to talk about with Dan, even if they prefer Phil, they might not have anything to say beyond what they like about him or his videos. I usually try to make posts about Phil due to these reasons, and analysis (or even call-outs) of him are usually some of the more interesting topics on this forum because of that. Dan can get a little repetitive sometimes, he's more "exciting" but he sure does go around in circles.
Concerning family and mental health: Phil shows his family more than Dan's, so that self explains how Dan's family remains a "mystery." A lot of what we know about him and his family can be easily accessed through videos or social media, they've appeared in videos, and his own brother helps run a company! Dan, on the other hand, we know so little about him and his family from his videos. Everything else has to be pulled from
supah secret tumblr blogs you have to search for, screenshots of an old website, and from speculation of itself. In regards to mental health, that's where things are quite different from them. Dan seems to be open about being upset, about things getting him down, crisis and mood swings. Failure and uncertainty. Phil, on the other hand, we've learned so little. We know that his friend died, that he sometimes has such bad nightmares and wakes up crying, that he's afraid of death and does everything but confront it, and seems to have quite a case of Peter Pan syndrome. Most importantly, we know that a secret video of his, being emotionally open, was dispensed across the internet for everyone to see, and yet so many people made it all about Dan. Why? Because Dan was the one who opened up about it, insisted it was fake, made a tumblr blog in defense of it, and lashed out at people concerning it. Dan was the open "sufferer" and people still make it all about Dan. We honestly don't know a lot about Phil, only that he's private, but that he's emotionally and mentally quite strong. In the recent interview with Sue, Dan expressed how hate comments don't bother Phil, he's passive and let's it get by without it even bothering him. This same Phil once expressed wanting to delete his channel when he got his first hate comment. This same Phil recounted how a bully stabbed him with a compass and then proceeded to shrug it off. That's Phil. He shrugs off things that could bother him or what other people hold very tightly as a defense. Or just ignores anything that's better off being ignored (death and maturity)
seriously, who the fuck wants to talk about death?. He's passive and he's (as far as we can tell) an emotionally strong person that likes to keep things to himself. I think he's had a much more successful adulthood than Dan has, in that he has had the environment to find himself, find out who he is, and emotionally balance himself. Dan hasn't had this opportunity and doesn't know what to do with his life and who he is. But I digress.
I don't think how people talk and view Dan and Phil would change unless they switched places. Arguably, Phil would be more talked about if he were to tackle hard cases head on. I don't think he could put himself out there naked and vulnerable as Dan is able to do, but that's what makes him different. If Phil took on Dan's qualities of being assertive, open, and downright waffly about topics, then he might lose the characteristics that a lot of people like him for. Vice versa for Dan. I would like Phil to be more open, but I don't think I would like him to be more vulnerable, or expose himself. I'm glad that he knows that too, and that him and Dan assert that about him. I don't think anything will change how people on IDB, the phandom, how damn interviewers, and (as Dan puts it) "the filmmakers of YouTube" talk about them. Dan's the approachable "complexity", Phil isn't complex by what he gives, it's what he leaves up to speculation that people are not able to touch.
/word vomit over
dan howell gives me life 
And this might be an unpopular opinion? but I don't think they have what it takes to make any sort of TV show, movie or write (another) book. It'd be cool if they started a podcast, though but I can't see them actually doing that. But when they actually do quit YouTube I hope that we'll still get some kind of content from them, so, again, a podcast would be perfect!
Oh, and I very, very rarely see anything from them that I'd call shipbaiting. Them coming as queer is not one of those things, lmao. It would actually piss me off if I saw people saying that.
I'm honestly just curious why it hasn't been unlisted, as they've (maybe just Dan?) pulled videos before for having offensive humor...