Dan & Phil Part 95: ASS (Aquarium Staff Seminar)

[glitterintheair]

But it wouldn't need to be a solid goodbye? No one is saying that. It could've even been a simple "need a break, maybe I'm done maybe not who knows!" Instead he just.. didn't. He stopped and then we all just assumed and only addressed it briefly months after in the tumblr post and that was it. But even if he never addressed it.. still doesn't explain why oh why he had to stop engaging with his audience, his fans that he pried himself to care for, to understand, to have some kind of relationship with for years. Hell Zoella stopped posting on YouTube even before Dan did but she addressed it and started talking to fans on instagram, and granted she now uses it as a full platform but even 1/100 of that would still be more than what we've had in more than a year.

So idk. It's just sad cause tbh I stopped caring what he does or what he might think, and I know that if he wasn't related to Phil in some ways I probably would've stopped caring altogether, and that's just how it is really. It just makes me sad.

Also, to answer a question above: no, to me Dan isn't a YouTuber anymore (he didn't even want to be considered one anyway). I know it's a debate for more but to me if you don't do something consistently/you stop doing something (unless of course you can't for a variety of reasons).. Well you're not in that profession anymore

Exactly, that’s what I really struggle to understand. I sympathize and empathize with Dan if he doesn’t know what to do, if he’s confused or uncertain about the future of his career because that’s a hell of a mood. However that doesn’t explain why he cut off any sort of engagement with his audience. That’s my main issue with his behavior, something he’s refusing to acknowledge at all.
He doesn’t owe us anything, okay, but he’s gone from being a regular presence to being a ghost without a warning and I think that an explanation as to why is long overdue, imo.
Honestly, I could go another year without any Dan content if he was still present online as a person, talking to us. And if he doesn’t want to do that anymore, if he’s tired of it, fair enough, but again... he could’ve told us so.

[alittledizzy]

But it wouldn't need to be a solid goodbye? No one is saying that. It could've even been a simple "need a break, maybe I'm done maybe not who knows!" Instead he just.. didn't. He stopped and then we all just assumed and only addressed it briefly months after in the tumblr post and that was it. But even if he never addressed it.. still doesn't explain why oh why he had to stop engaging with his audience, his fans that he pried himself to care for, to understand, to have some kind of relationship with for years. Hell Zoella stopped posting on YouTube even before Dan did but she addressed it and started talking to fans on instagram, and granted she now uses it as a full platform but even 1/100 of that would still be more than what we've had in more than a year.

So idk. It's just sad cause tbh I stopped caring what he does or what he might think, and I know that if he wasn't related to Phil in some ways I probably would've stopped caring altogether, and that's just how it is really. It just makes me sad.

Also, to answer a question above: no, to me Dan isn't a YouTuber anymore (he didn't even want to be considered one anyway). I know it's a debate for more but to me if you don't do something consistently/you stop doing something (unless of course you can't for a variety of reasons).. Well you're not in that profession anymore

Exactly, that’s what I really struggle to understand. I sympathize and empathize with Dan if he doesn’t know what to do, if he’s confused or uncertain about the future of his career because that’s a hell of a mood. However that doesn’t explain why he cut off any sort of engagement with his audience. That’s my main issue with his behavior, something he’s refusing to acknowledge at all.
He doesn’t owe us anything, okay, but he’s gone from being a regular presence to being a ghost without a warning and I think that an explanation as to why is long overdue, imo.
Honestly, I could go another year without any Dan content if he was still present online as a person, talking to us. And if he doesn’t want to do that anymore, if he’s tired of it, fair enough, but again... he could’ve told us so.

I don't actually think he can be a 'person' online without it being a part of his career. I don't think that's possible for any entertainer whose career is personality based. Especially one who grew into adulthood with audience interaction being intrinsic to his self worth, in both good and bad ways.

[glitterintheair]

I don't actually think he can be a 'person' online without it being a part of his career. I don't think that's possible for any entertainer whose career is personality based. Especially one who grew into adulthood with audience interaction being intrinsic to his self worth, in both good and bad ways.

I get that but I still think that .. i don’t know, sharing the music he’s been listening recently to on Spotify or posting a selfie so we could remember what he looked like after quite some time of not seeing him doesn’t take that much effort (he hasn’t posted anything with his face on since January) especially in those days where his mentions are filled with people telling him they miss him. I wonder how he feels about it, though, if he misses the connection or if he’s over it, because the latter seems more plausible to me but what do I know, really.

[plinthofmylife]

I'm going to sit here as a fan who is also a creator and say "I miss dan" but also "I understand".

I think he wants a break and wants to figure out the next steps, and his perfectionism make it really hard to update his audience about that. ESPECIALLY because he's playing it by ear right now. I'm sure he believes he's going to come back to youtube, but doesn't know in what capacity and his sky high quality threshold is preventing it.

BIG was a master work for him, and I'm sure it feels really hard to post anything as a follow up to that (imagine an ISG as the next video after BIG, what a letdown - tho I'd take anything).

Him and Phil are both trying to move into the next phases of their careers, and decouple their professional career from their life partners. They have different feelings about youtube, their audience, etc. I also think it's extremely likely that whatever dan is working on - he didn't get to roll out as planned due to covid and I'm 100% sure there's an outside collaborator - publisher, netflix, etc - that has some say in how he does PR for it.

I genuinely don't think Dan owes his audience anything. He's not our friend. We are people who appreciate his content. It would *great* if he updated us, but it's impossible to "exist" on the internet as a creator with a platform his size without it being seen in a bigger way. Imagine if every time you listened to a song on spotify it would get catalogued, uploaded, and you know hundreds of thousands of people would see it. Or if you posted a picture of your dinner on instastories it would be uploaded to youtube. It's hard for him to just *be*.

I don't think losing subscribers is something he should care about. There's some churn for any creator, but he makes enough off his back catalog that he's set up for quite awhile. Just like people who make TV shows that keep running. He's making residuals because people still enjoy the content he worked on in the past.

Charlie McDonnell, Natalie Tran - both are folks that were top youtubers who just kinda...stopped posting. Years later admitted they were done, once they actually knew it.

[liola]

Well, speaking as a fan and also as Manager, i have the opposite view. I miss Dan and I DONT understand him. There is a fine line between retiring from a career and just disregarding it, and Dan is, for what I can see, toeing with it. There is no way that any kind of PR would bound him to not post ANYTHING AT ALL on his social accounts for months, that wouldn't fly on any deal. Not saying anything on a specific project yes sure of course, but no one is talking about him mentioning these projects, we are talking about him existing as a person with yes, a career on the internet, but still a person? That's his own choice.

Actually I'm not sure why every time we start talking about Dan's absence from the internet somehow we end up on the topic that BIG was an extremely hard piece of work and that he doesn't know how to move on from that content wise. Not saying that it's not true, because I firmly believe in that, but as someone who is often raising the point of "where the hell is dan"... who is talking about content?

No I mean, I get it, the theory that we SHOULD care about his content primarily is nice, but that's just it - a theory. For the type of entertainer that he is, the only reason why he becomes appreciated is because of who he is as a person and the way he interacts, because his content is him. So this idea that we should care about the content... if he had a theme, sure.

The majority doesn't care about having videos or projects, they just want Dan to exist online in some capacity like every person does on social media, at least a little bit. I'm not saying that it's EASY or that he has to, but that's..literally all people want. Instead, like mentioned above, people tweet him "hey i miss you" and he maybe replies "thank you, one day the project will be ready" and that is just.. not the same. Because I do understand being unsure about timelines for creative things, and being unsure about the fate of his professional portfolio/account, but that still doesn't explain why he all of a sudden just stopped interacting.

And yes, again, he doesn't owe fans anything, that is for sure. It just sucks, because it was so sudden, and so extreme, and such a difference with how it was from before and he just... never addressed it and ignored questions and it's all fine and dandy if he didn't care about having engaged fans anymore. Except then he mentions projects.

So the way I see it, he's doing an awful job when it comes to him as a professional creator. Because he isn't a singer, or a writer, or any kind of established artist with a specific media or talent that can reach a bigger audience just on the existence of said media - his strength relies on his person being known and loved by a specific audience that he's been alienating for a year and a half. It's just.. naive imo to deny it.

Sure, he still has fans, but boy if that audience hasn't downsized in numbers. And maybe he is fine with it, but I don't know how fine he'd be if he keeps the same attitude for another year (or how long it's going to take before he will need that audience' support ) and suddenly realizes that he was placing a lot of faith on numbers he doesn't have anymore. And god forbid Phil stops posting too - I don't know if we could still talk about a career at that point.

(I don't know much about Charlie McDonnell, but I believe Natalie was a least still existing online in some capacity even if she stopped posting videos, because I often saw at least her tweets around.)

[alittledizzy]

I'm going to sit here as a fan who is also a creator and say "I miss dan" but also "I understand".

I think he wants a break and wants to figure out the next steps, and his perfectionism make it really hard to update his audience about that. ESPECIALLY because he's playing it by ear right now. I'm sure he believes he's going to come back to youtube, but doesn't know in what capacity and his sky high quality threshold is preventing it.

BIG was a master work for him, and I'm sure it feels really hard to post anything as a follow up to that (imagine an ISG as the next video after BIG, what a letdown - tho I'd take anything).

Him and Phil are both trying to move into the next phases of their careers, and decouple their professional career from their life partners. They have different feelings about youtube, their audience, etc. I also think it's extremely likely that whatever dan is working on - he didn't get to roll out as planned due to covid and I'm 100% sure there's an outside collaborator - publisher, netflix, etc - that has some say in how he does PR for it.

I genuinely don't think Dan owes his audience anything. He's not our friend. We are people who appreciate his content. It would *great* if he updated us, but it's impossible to "exist" on the internet as a creator with a platform his size without it being seen in a bigger way. Imagine if every time you listened to a song on spotify it would get catalogued, uploaded, and you know hundreds of thousands of people would see it. Or if you posted a picture of your dinner on instastories it would be uploaded to youtube. It's hard for him to just *be*.

I don't think losing subscribers is something he should care about. There's some churn for any creator, but he makes enough off his back catalog that he's set up for quite awhile. Just like people who make TV shows that keep running. He's making residuals because people still enjoy the content he worked on in the past.

Charlie McDonnell, Natalie Tran - both are folks that were top youtubers who just kinda...stopped posting. Years later admitted they were done, once they actually knew it.

I agree with this whole post and I think the bolded in specific is important - but also, I think not talking about projects before they're ready is actually a long standing Dan and Phil thing. So even if PR were to be telling him he can say something... I don't think he would. I mean, II Mexico is kind of the big obvious example of it; if they say/promise/even slightly hint that something is coming and it doesn't end up happening there's a big emotional backlash. And it doesn't matter if the thing falls through because of something they had control over or not, that emotional backlash will come back solely on Dan and Phil.

I would also imagine that since we know he was working on something late last year that we haven't seen yet and we know he's got a project now that Covid likely delayed, he's probably glad he wasn't hinting at something right around the corner that didn't happen.

[plinthofmylife]

Ah, I think I see where I differ. I tend to think of Dan as far as his content (and primarily his joint content with phil, which I enjoyed the most) and not his "online persona" around the content. But of course, that's what makes influencers a special and powerful force, their relationship with their fans.

(I do agree that this isn't a good business move and I think that's the advantage of being an independent creator; if he was an actor 10 years ago, he may have *had* to certain kinds of things to stay relevent but I don't think he cares, because I think he puts a lot of weight into his projects and thinks they're more *important* than his online persona.)

Natalie is around on twitter still, but it took her years to address why she stopped making videos.

[plinthofmylife]

I'm double posting and I'm sorry, but I will say -regardless of my sympathy and understanding about the gaming channel on hiatus/being wrapped up - I'm still 100% frustrated over them saying a Devan wedding was next and never making it. Like, I get they didn't know if or when the gaming channel is coming back but COME ON. COME ON.

[liola]

Ah, I think I see where I differ. I tend to think of Dan as far as his content (and primarily his joint content with phil, which I enjoyed the most) and not his "online persona" around the content. But of course, that's what makes influencers a special and powerful force, their relationship with their fans.

(I do agree that this isn't a good business move and I think that's the advantage of being an independent creator; if he was an actor 10 years ago, he may have *had* to certain kinds of things to stay relevent but I don't think he cares, because I think he puts a lot of weight into his projects and thinks they're more *important* than his online persona.)

Natalie is around on twitter still, but it took her years to address why she stopped making videos.

Influencers are a special branch in itself for sure. Like I said I know that Dan himself would probably love if we did all see it like you do.. but it's just a matter of the kind of genre/type of creator he was, and like, either you establish a theme or nothing much to do. And the thing is, if his next projects are things where he's behind the scenes, he's not involved as the face of it and he has the promotional support of whatever producer to make it so that it will reach the proper niche... none of this will ever matter. But if it is things where the primary drive would be that people are interested in HIM and his journey/story.. bad, bad move. But we'll see, I guess. Possibly. If 2020 doesn't give us any more surprise.

Re: Natalie, yeah that's what I thought! I said in another post that it would be GREAT if Dan addressed the stopping videos bit, to me at this point that's not even needed, he doesn't have to (it'd be nice, but like... think we got the message there) but i don't think anyone would really care IF he did what Natalie did so like.. sweep the channel talk under a rug but still exist. That's where he lost me

[plinthofmylife]

Yea, I think everything you're saying liola is true - if he's behind the scenes (like Charlie on Quibi) then he needn't continue cultivating/feeding/communicating with his audience if he doesn't want to. I mean, I'm disappointed, but it's less important.

But if it's something he is basing around his own story or he needs his fanbase to be successful - like Hank Green's books, or Lilly Singh's late night show (one of those two examples I think stands on its own merits...the other less so) - then he's not necessarily making great career moves right now.

But I will say, he's a whole person. People need breaks. I truly believe being performative on the internet as a "person" is a totally different job than being a Person with social media presence, ESPECIALLY someone who has had such a large audience since he was a teenager. He's turning 30 next year, right? If I were in his shoes, I would be having a lot of feelings about figuring out what I want in the next season of my life, and probably wanting to figure out how to create a more sustainable work/life boundary separation.

Privacy in their personal lives and reducing the amount of pressure they put on themselves to work is something that has come up in both Dan and Phil's work since II. I'm not sure I would advise Dan on the way he's making choices, but I'm positive his perfectionist nature is coming into play right now.

but i don't think anyone would really care IF he did what Natalie did so like.. sweep the channel talk under a rug but still exist. That's where he lost me

I mean, she stopped making videos 3 years ago but she didn't tweet for the first year or two after. She really only re-emerged on twitter sometime last year. (Apparently she had bad OCD that she had to seek treatment for and was preventing her from working any job full-time or be active online).

She had the same issues as Dan does and Charlie did...literally every single person would just be blowing up her mentions with "Where is [video she had mentioned making in the past]?" and "Are you ever coming back to youtube?" and "We miss you" anytime she tweeted anything, even just responding to a friend. And she has far less rabid fans than deppy. In the end, she addressed leaving youtube because she wanted to have some peace on twitter from those questions. She's also stated open-endedly that someday she might come back to youtube, it's not a forever thing.

[madzilla84]

In regards to the whole social media thing, he stopped posting on insta in January, and barely tweets any more (though that was the case last year a lot of the time). He used to post stuff that wasn’t to do with videos or work, but things like the occasional song or album he liked, or pictures of his plants (or, god forbid, himself), or games he was playing, or just little things like that. He didn’t even post about his own merch restock in May, or anything else at all he’s done all year, even fun stuff. (Except LA, which was work related.) Quite aside from anything he may or may not be working on, the complete stopping of it all feels very much like a conscious, deliberate decision rather than forgetting or losing track of time, and I think that’s what I’d have liked to have heard from him (and I still would), like, why he made that decision and actually saying he was stopping, for a while or forever or whatever the decision was. It feels like his socials - aside from the very occasional Relatable Tweet - are work only these days, and while I can understand that, it’s a big change that he didn’t communicate and I’d have liked to hear his thoughts on it.

Re behind the scenes, I’ve been considering that based on what he was saying about writing - if he wants time off from being in the spotlight then fine, but I admit I’d be disappointed if he moved into a behind the scenes only role (eg writing) for his projects going forward. I’m sure I’d watch it, but I want to see him in things, too.

[Susanisnotafish]

Sorry this is off topic, but I just came across this article with a small deppy mention (as inaccurate as most articles about them). But I like to help make this place include as much as possible that is deppy-related.
https://www.the-new-englander.com/2020/ ... -they-now/

[plinthofmylife]

I am loling at "Phil’s much shorter video gave an abridged version of his struggles growing up gay in his religious family and town."

Phil, the same man who thought that jesus came up from behind an easter rock...

[flarequake]

Oh dear, those inaccuracies indeed, though it’s ‘Jesus came up from behind an Easter rock‘ that has me

Really interesting to read all the discussion too. I’ve said it before and who knows how much I’m projecting, but when I’ve stopped doing something that’s been particularly stressful, I’ve found it hard to engage it in again much at all, so that could explain why he withdrew so much without telling us

[liola]

But I will say, he's a whole person. People need breaks. I truly believe being performative on the internet as a "person" is a totally different job than being a Person with social media presence, ESPECIALLY someone who has had such a large audience since he was a teenager. He's turning 30 next year, right? If I were in his shoes, I would be having a lot of feelings about figuring out what I want in the next season of my life, and probably wanting to figure out how to create a more sustainable work/life boundary separation.

Privacy in their personal lives and reducing the amount of pressure they put on themselves to work is something that has come up in both Dan and Phil's work since II. I'm not sure I would advise Dan on the way he's making choices, but I'm positive his perfectionist nature is coming into play right now.

but i don't think anyone would really care IF he did what Natalie did so like.. sweep the channel talk under a rug but still exist. That's where he lost me

I mean, she stopped making videos 3 years ago but she didn't tweet for the first year or two after. She really only re-emerged on twitter sometime last year. (Apparently she had bad OCD that she had to seek treatment for and was preventing her from working any job full-time or be active online).

She had the same issues as Dan does and Charlie did...literally every single person would just be blowing up her mentions with "Where is [video she had mentioned making in the past]?" and "Are you ever coming back to youtube?" and "We miss you" anytime she tweeted anything, even just responding to a friend. And she has far less rabid fans than deppy. In the end, she addressed leaving youtube because she wanted to have some peace on twitter from those questions. She's also stated open-endedly that someday she might come back to youtube, it's not a forever thing.

Ah thank you for the info on Natalie, I don't follow her I only remember seeing her around more and more even before a formal announcement but I didn't know about the break.

And about your first point, of Dan being a person, absolutely, I agree. Which is why like, he doesn't owe anyone anything, it's just that even fans are people and so they can also be emotions in reaction to a behaviour that is totally human of Dan. That is one point where I think we can definitely agree!

[Phanshy]

I'm still sad we didn't get a Dab and Evan wedding, it would have been a nice goodbye gesture when they decided that the gaming channel hiatus was in fact a 1D style hiatus, maybe they don't feel comfortable doing it because a lot of us have projected Dan and Phil on to Dab and Evan. I also have given up hope of ever seeing Dan and Phil on camera together again.
Side note I'd love to see Phil stream Sims with a new character, I'd love to see Phil unleash his "unique" decorating style without Dan enforcing good taste on him.

I get all the reasons Dan may not want or be able to make YouTube content or be present on social media, I wish I could stop hoping it's only temporary and stop waiting for significant dates in the hope he'll engage with us, because is he doing it because he wants to or because he feels obliged to, like people were asking him to like art on his birthday rather than him doing it organically because he enjoys it.
I feel like Dan wants his future projects to be judged on merit rather than just because we love him, which I understand and I want to tell myself to treat whatever his project is as I would anything else and only buy it or watch it if I'm actually interested in it. The reality is if he announced tomorrow he's releasing a book titled 112 poems about slugs I'd still pre-order it because I'd be excited he's back.

[Becky.rigby]

I just want to add (totally irrelevant)but charlie is now doing twitch streams and I found it so weird because there was only 60 people in the stream and he was reading my messages. It’s weird because I remember Charlie as someone Dan looked up to and like one of the first youtube influencers.

It’s like Dan in a year or two doing a twitch stream and only 50 people watching the stream

[firsttimeposter]

Sorry this is off topic, but I just came across this article with a small deppy mention (as inaccurate as most articles about them). But I like to help make this place include as much as possible that is deppy-related.
https://www.the-new-englander.com/2020/ ... -they-now/

Hm apparently Phil’s coming out video in short was about him growing up ‘in a religious family and town being gay’ ?? I’ve no idea how they got this so wrong lmao

[plinthofmylife]

I just want to add (totally irrelevant)but charlie is now doing twitch streams and I found it so weird because there was only 60 people in the stream and he was reading my messages. It’s weird because I remember Charlie as someone Dan looked up to and like one of the first youtube influencers.

It’s like Dan in a year or two doing a twitch stream and only 50 people watching the stream

Yea, Charlie left a *lot* longer ago, though - nearly 6 years since he stopped doing fun science/the radio show and moved to Canada. He had the fallout of his relationship/friendship/roommateness with ner*mon when the allegations came out about him (and that was what largely broke the existing UK YT community.)

I wish I was into games. I popped into one of the twitch streams for a minute but couldn't find myself very excited about it as he was playing a game.

[alittledizzy]

Sorry this is off topic, but I just came across this article with a small deppy mention (as inaccurate as most articles about them). But I like to help make this place include as much as possible that is deppy-related.
https://www.the-new-englander.com/2020/ ... -they-now/

Hm apparently Phil’s coming out video in short was about him growing up ‘in a religious family and town being gay’ ?? I’ve no idea how they got this so wrong lmao

Did they confuse their professional submission with ao3? Somewhere on the fic archive is there a legit article where this one should be?

Also, happy anniversary to fans seeing Dan and Phil sitting on a towel giggling watching fireworks and then later on them posting a selfie about it.

[bluecaterpillar]

Sorry this is off topic, but I just came across this article with a small deppy mention (as inaccurate as most articles about them). But I like to help make this place include as much as possible that is deppy-related.
https://www.the-new-englander.com/2020/ ... -they-now/

Hm apparently Phil’s coming out video in short was about him growing up ‘in a religious family and town being gay’ ?? I’ve no idea how they got this so wrong lmao

well, that article gave me a bit of a laugh if nothing else. truly astonishing how the writer managed to get something wrong about dnp in virtually every sentence.

[alittledizzy]

The slice of phandom twitter I follow is having a fantastic debate about favorite dapg gaming series. The most surprising to me is that Undertale seems either exalted or reviled and not much in between?

For me top tier gaming series is anything where there's more talking than game play, so I think any google game (google feud is especially fun) or any of their games where one/both of them have a handicap - playing tekken with our feet was just like... pure gold. Same with the one where Dan just trolls Phil all the way through it.

[kavat]

I really liked the Undertale videos when they were posted, mainly because they were long and chatty and they were doing cute voices. If I'm rewatching them now it's mainly as background noise as I'm doing something else.

The series I come back to again and again is Golf with friends. They are both calming and hilarious to me and always makes me feel better when I'm sad.

[liola]

Undertale is definitely my favorite, it's beautiful to me to see them invested in the story and characters and be genuinely interested in the game for more than comedic purposes, I adore that they took to heart lots of characters and gave them a ppersonality, and I also love the game in itself, I loved playing it so it's just nice to see that same enjoyment. And the videos are so long and softspoken most of the times, there's bants, there's domestic moments, there's actual gameplay, it's the full package!! I have rewatched the series so many times and I often fall asleep to it

The rest of my top three is Golf with Friends and Keep Talking and nobody explodes. They are just so fun, they put me in a good move, I like the banters and the difference between them competing and them working together. I know Mark of Oxin was second place but while I love those videos for softness reasons they are lower on my personal list.

I was surprised that The Sims was 7th place as in, I thought it would be both higher and lower in the list lmao

[masterofgeometry]

Golf With Friends is top tier for me, I love the bants and the casual chattiness throughout.

Other series I like would be the Sims or (not entirely a Series, but) their tabletop/card games! I adore those.