I’m over here reading all of these comments about Dan in his ls today like “yup…yup…me too.” Count me among those who felt sort of put off by his dismissiveness. The main difference is that I don’t find myself disliking him because of it. Questioning my own judgment, a bit, yes. Wondering why it matters so much to me, perhaps. But I still find him quite appealing, especially for someone in the public eye, especially in his demographics. I’m usually drawn to actors, artists, etc. who are older than me or at least more mellow and down to earth, but there’s something about Daniel that’s so sweet and sincere, as much as he tends to act otherwise.
I do think he can be a bit arrogant and that he needs to calm the eff down about his work being viewed as “quality” content (premieres at Cannes get booed) and I tend to zone out when he goes into those music tangents (less so with the political ones), but I also think all that comes from genuine passion and interest. He said himself that he was that annoying kid in the back of the classroom making comments and distracting even the other “bad” kids. We all knew a kid like that (maybe some of us were that kid
). Part of me still sees that kid who just wants to be heard but heaven forbid they appear to desire it or appreciate it when they are. Hence the dismissiveness.
But there’s always that hint of sweetness underlying even his most annoying attention-seeking behavior. An example: one thing that both he and Phil do in ls is react to individual “you make me smile/you mean a lot to me/etc.”-type comments personally and sincerely. Both of them seem to get that those comments take them about five seconds to say but could quite possibly make someone’s day, month, year, heck, maybe even life to an extent. When it comes from Phil, though, it sometimes comes across as surface-level appreciation, mainly due to the way he’s branded himself as an always-sunny, pie-in-the-sky sort of fella. With Dan, you get the sense that he knows what it means as he’s “been there” himself, whether “there” is difficult times or wanting to impress someone you look up to. So they feel more sincere coming from him, not necessarily in the delivery but because of how he presents himself in general, his honesty about certain struggles, and the mere fact that he took the time to do it. Dan always comes across to me as caring more, deep down...I'm not exactly sure why.
So, the bottom line, I guess is that I tend to look at his actions rather than the delivery, which I think does sometimes distort his intentions a bit because of his awkwardness. And I do believe he has a good heart under all that sarcasm and pulling faces and brushing off compliments and going into thirty-minute tirades about politics and music. I’ve always (well, always being the year or so that I’ve followed them) thought of Dan as “the sweet one” and still do, even when he's pissy and annoying 90% of the time.
Oh, and I call bs on that explanation for the deppy 2017 “stay hydrated” campaign
on this story.
