Dan & Phil Part 90: Fish Daddies

[liola]

About a month ago I spoke about the issue of their communication on the phancast, a mere couple of days before Phil dropped DML2. And i still stand by what I've been saying. They're shit at communication, and they don't care about improving or working on it because they know they have a massive audience whose engagement is higher than most, that will allow them to disappear and come back as they please.

They are people and they have all the rights to do what they want and people have the right to complain that they don't like. Its a dual relationship and they're not fulfilling their part. And I'm glad that they're focusing on personal stuff this year, I'm glad they're growing as people and such, but I'm not their family, I'm not their friend, I don't have any personal relationship with them that will benefit from this, just the simple empathy as a fellow human being that is invested in what I see from them. Our relationship with them is mostly "professional" and they basically cut 80% of the tiers with us, so while they're raising high in their personal life - or so I hope! - their professional life regarding their audience is lacking. And it's fine you know, it's their choice in the end, but man - they're lucky it's them and not another YouTuber, because the reaction wouldn't be nearly as mild and they would have to seriously think about their income source

[Megancita75]

After almost a year of broken promises, I no longer have faith in what they say. I hate that. I miss them, and I want them to say something true so I can get on the path to believing them again.

But have they made any actual concrete promises? I am a new fan since BIG and COTY, but I've gone back and watched that Christmas live show and it didn't seem to me they promised anything; if anything, it seems to me they've tried to be open about not knowing what's next, which is maybe the best they can do right now.

[flarequake]

They said the gaming channel would have a break and pinof was done, and that nothing else would change, so not all joint videos, not liveshows, not Dan’s channel, and since the last videos, also nothing about now Phil’s channel too, he addressed joint content.

[rizzo]

I don't think I agree with this concept that Dan and Phil haven't communicated. I mean, they're certainly not rockstars at it, but they've done enough in my opinion.

Phil's DML2 said exactly what needed to be said: We've spent the last god-knows-how-many years making work the priority and this year, our personal life is the priority. I'm going to keep making videos (with no promise of frequency). And I also have longer term goals. That's it. That's all that my work will entail in the near future. Everything else is dog, house, friends, etc

We've got years of understanding how Dan functions. Nothing's a surprise there. Liveshows ended long ago and Phil didn't promise they'd be back. Everything else was addressed.

My only complaint when I posted previously was that we don't have a date on which to hang our hopes. That sucks, but it's not their fault. I think they've communicated plenty re: what they're doing. We're just disappointed with that communication. And that's totally fine! I mean, I'm in that very boat.

IMHO, the only real miscommunication was the loss of liveshows. I'm still clinging to the hope of a mukbang before end of year. Otherwise, yeah... if that doesn't happen, maybe I'll start to get annoyed with them rather than the situation.

It sucks that they've chosen to go about 2019 in this fashion and that they're not like other influencers who maybe better engage and involve their audience during downtimes. But they've not really done anything to suggest they ever were. We're unhappy, but that's on us, not them.

[fancybum]

They’re really bad at communicating only if we assume they’re withholding something positive. From my perspective they’ve actually been doing a fantastic job for a long time of communicating just how completely indifferent and unconcerned they are with having an audience at all. Maybe they’re just very patiently waiting out the stragglers still holding on for something. One mukbang a year just doesn’t do it for me and I’m not going to feel guilty for taking the hint after so many slammed doors in the face.

[flarequake]

Certainly if there ends up not being any mukbang or baking this year, people will be surprised and confused, though probably still patient and understanding. Perhaps not everyone and also they weren’t promised, they don’t do that anyway, but I hope they have some clue of how much people are hanging onto what they said about those.

Back in December, we thought Dan might start posting again come the new year. Phil saying he’ll keep posting, but not mentioning a schedule, well he’s done them twice a month for ages, why would we think any different now. He could drop a tweet, but is there a need for me to say that, we’ve said it all year, but that would be doing enough.

[liola]

I hard disagree that they've communicated plenty tbh but I understand that this is a matter of personal view at this point. For me when I say lack of communication comes down to avoid talking what needs to be communicated. Hell Phil waited to give some kind of answer about the gaming channel until Vidcon and that's only because he couldn't avoid it. And he knew we've been asking, he made it clear that he knew because he said he was sure it was the most asked question, and that makes you think - then why didn't you answer before?

That's my issue with them. They avoid talking about things until the last possible minute, and ignore people' questions and that's just unprofessional in my opinion. Let it be clear, I don't care about wanting to know what they're doing in their personal life, but i would love to know what the return will be in our investment (which I know from my part will still be here).

I don't know I guess I'm just sad that they seem to be okay with letting us go and as someone whose professional life is about social media and managing digital media I can't help but roll my eyes at this, what can I say

[Becky.rigby]

To me, as bad as Dan and Phil are, I feel like that is what YouTube is becoming. Most youtubers I watch dont upload as frequently as what used to be normal back in the day. It kind of annoys me as it seems they have done it just for money, as now they have the recognition and money they need, they dont need to bother as much. Dan's beck from the dead merch made so many people think he was going to be back to uploading and even Dan made a comment a while ago in his next video. I get they want to live their life privately but then why did they come out as surely they knew as a consequence of that they wouldn't be able to upload together without people being annoying. Unless like a lot of people have said, it was a hint that they were going to stop uploading and focus on their life. But if that is the case then why did they go vidcon? Why did Dan release back from the dead merch? Why did Phil mention about mukbangs and about possibly bringing the gaming channel back. I'm just so confused at the moment about what they are planning, which to be suggests their communication is bad.

[Neons]

I've also only been a fan since BIG/COTY so the level of content now is all I've known and I'm generally fine with it as I'd rather they do what makes them happy than just try and appease people. And getting little snippets of their lives seems more authentic to me than constant output just for the sake of being entertaining.

I do think though that at least some vague outline of a regular upload schedule would be nice for the people who've paid for membership to Phil's channel for example.

I also agree with the poster above about Dan's merch drops; saying you're "back from the dead" to encourage people to invest in your merch is a little misleading IMO. And the school stuff felt like a blatant cash grab.

[Megancita75]

I’ve read this here before but I struggle to understand the distinction people make between being a YouTube fan and being a fan of an author or musician who produces far less content and doesn’t always announce when new content Is arriving. Like I don’t see a YouTuber as being obliged to provide regular content or keep to a regular posting schedule just because that’s the creative medium they have chosen. This is an interesting conversation to me in general about what it means to be a fan (above and beyond the specifics of DnP) and whether creators of any sort owe anything at all to fans. Sure you’d want to acknowledge how the existence of fans allows you to have a career and if you want to maintain a career it is essential to think about things like fan engagement and communication with fans, but I still strongly feel being a fan is mostly a one-way relationship and that creators at the end of the day don’t owe us anything and should create and produce according to their own schedules and interests. I guess I don’t get the anger directed at DnP but not at, say, a musician who hasn’t produced an album in 5 years or a writer who is taking a long time to write the next book on a series.

Edited to add: and after typing all that out, maybe the main difference is that YouTube is designed to be addictive in a way other mediums aren't and that accounts in part for the different reaction.

[Birdie]

I’ve read this here before but I struggle to understand the distinction people make between being a YouTube fan and being a fan of an author or musician who produces far less content and doesn’t always announce when new content Is arriving.

This is not really the discussion we're having right now since we're talking about their lack of communication, not necessarily their lack of content, but anyways: Making an album as a musician or writing a book takes months or even years. The content you get might not seem a lot but when you look at the amount of work that goes into a pop album - or literally just a single pop song - it's insane. Most writers take about six months to finish a novel and it's not even done when the last word is written. These people are constantly working to put out content, even if the content looks little.

I'm not sure how long it takes to make a single video and I'd take BIG out of this equation since that one did take Dan months to make but the usual Youtube video doesn't take months to film, edit etc. . An album or a book does. I don't think it's fair to compare these jobs by how big the finished product looks. Compare the effort and time it takes to make the product instead and it will look quite different.

[flarequake]

Yeah, the point is telling us, we understand they need time, a break, a change. I don’t think we’ve had clear info about half of it, but we’ve guessed most of it by now.

[Becky.rigby]

I’ve read this here before but I struggle to understand the distinction people make between being a YouTube fan and being a fan of an author or musician who produces far less content and doesn’t always announce when new content Is arriving. Like I don’t see a YouTuber as being obliged to provide regular content or keep to a regular posting schedule just because that’s the creative medium they have chosen. This is an interesting conversation to me in general about what it means to be a fan (above and beyond the specifics of DnP) and whether creators of any sort owe anything at all to fans. Sure you’d want to acknowledge how the existence of fans allows you to have a career and if you want to maintain a career it is essential to think about things like fan engagement and communication with fans, but I still strongly feel being a fan is mostly a one-way relationship and that creators at the end of the day don’t owe us anything and should create and produce according to their own schedules and interests. I guess I don’t get the anger directed at DnP but not at, say, a musician who hasn’t produced an album in 5 years or a writer who is taking a long time to write the next book on a series.

Edited to add: and after typing all that out, maybe the main difference is that YouTube is designed to be addictive in a way other mediums aren't and that accounts in part for the different reaction.

This is interesting, I guess it goes back to the fact on what we were used to, youtubers used to upload constantly so to go from that to what we have now is a big change to deal with. Whereas artists, authors etc I guess its always been like that and I guess it doesn't really feel like (to me anyway) you have a connection with them as youtubers portrayed this persona to me as someone I guess like a friend who would talk about their life etc, take weekly liveshows for example.

[liola]

They're also different medias with different types of expectations of content production times. But besides that, the relationship of musicians or book authors is vastly different in this era than it was before.

Ariana grande for example, she uses social constantly, to tease music but also just to - chat. Or pentatonix, which I feel is the closest example to dnp since they were considered youtubers for years and got famous around the same years as them - they use Twitter and instagram constantly, even when they go months between releasing music, they post teasers They tour, they film videos etc - you always know what they're up to and they communicate, not perfectly but they do.

And book authors? I'm a big fan and follow rick riordan, who just yesterday posted a teaser of his upcoming book and doesn't use socials as much but he still does. Even then, you always know when he's writing, when the next book is coming, he has a website for news etc

What I mean to say is that there's no comparing youtubers to other kind of creators, and even when we talk about communication, the rules still apply. I complain about ptx's lack of answers about a European tour all the time. People complainedabout their lack of south American dates for years.

If you ignore a question that your audience keeps asking, be assured that people will loudly complain - you just don't notice it until you're part of the crowd.

[knq]

I've also only been a fan since BIG/COTY so the level of content now is all I've known and I'm generally fine with it as I'd rather they do what makes them happy than just try and appease people. And getting little snippets of their lives seems more authentic to me than constant output just for the sake of being entertaining.

I do think though that at least some vague outline of a regular upload schedule would be nice for the people who've paid for membership to Phil's channel for example.

I also agree with the poster above about Dan's merch drops; saying you're "back from the dead" to encourage people to invest in your merch is a little misleading IMO. And the school stuff felt like a blatant cash grab.

I think it's interesting how different our expectations can be based on when we joined the fandom. From the phandom survey, the majority of fans (or at least fans invested enough to take a survey) have been in the phandom for years and have therefore been through the changes in Dan and Phil's content and frequency while it happened.

Since I joined at the beginning of 2018, DINOF has gotten 4 new videos, one of which was a trailer, and AP has gotten around 25. So, to me, Phil is an active YouTuber, Dan is not, and they were both active gaming YouTubers until that went on hiatus. So my expectations, despite understanding their posting schedules were different in the past, are still very based on what they've done while I've known who they were and been a fan.

What they tell us matters too, of course. I understand from DML2 that Phil intends to be less active on YouTube in order to achieve a better work/life balance. But still, largely my expectations and I imagine the expectations of fans who have been in the phandom longer or shorter periods of time than me are based on their actions and history.

... I think I may have intended to have more of a point when I started this comment. Oops. I generally agree that Dan's 'back from the dead' merch and Phil's channel memberships are kind of misleading. Not to the point where they're unethical or anything, just to the point where I side-eye a bit.

[Neons]

I watched Interactive Introverts for the first time this afternoon (boyfriend bought me the DVD as a present) and Phil being perched on a piano staring at Dan while he plays it and sings is my new happy place.

[dancy]

See, I agree with @rizzo that especially Phil's Draw My Life video (as well as his VidCon Q&A and Dan's video) explained a lot, regarding the break Dan took earlier this year, the gaming channel hiatus, the joint branding, the toll all their projects and other work took on them, the fact that things could be going on behind-the-scenes which they prefer to keep secret until they're actually confirmed, wanting to focus more on their lives and whatnot. Do I consider it sufficient information,? Eh, I wish liveshows would've been discussed too seeing as those got stopped without any warning and are the type of content I miss the most but I guess it's one of those things they just wanted to let die quietly

It just sucks not knowing what's happening next and when anything will happen. Yes, I'm sure there's more Instagram Stories and tweets to come which I do like but other than that? Not a clue. It's already been a little over a month since Phil's last video and 3 months since Dan's. We don't know if Dan's uploading another video this year, Phil isn't uploading as frequently as before and it doesn't seem like live shows are coming back. In regards to joint content, Phil said they'll keep making appearances in each other's videos but I don't have very high hopes for that to happen much either at the moment. Also, the last 3 months of the year were always the most fun because of Spooky Week, baking, PINOF, Gamingmas etc. It's a real shame that none of that will be happening this time around, except maybe a baking video or a mukbang but I don't want to count on either in case I get disappointed. In conclusion, I do think they've addressed many things that I've had questions about in the past year but I'd still say the future's quite unclear and for two "entertainers", D&P are not being particularly entertaining lately.

[blueapple_x]

Dang, I haven't quoted in a while.

I don't think I agree with this concept that Dan and Phil haven't communicated. I mean, they're certainly not rockstars at it, but they've done enough in my opinion.

Phil's DML2 said exactly what needed to be said: We've spent the last god-knows-how-many years making work the priority and this year, our personal life is the priority. I'm going to keep making videos (with no promise of frequency). And I also have longer term goals. That's it. That's all that my work will entail in the near future. Everything else is dog, house, friends, etc

We've got years of understanding how Dan functions. Nothing's a surprise there. Liveshows ended long ago and Phil didn't promise they'd be back. Everything else was addressed.

What they tell us matters too, of course. I understand from DML2 that Phil intends to be less active on YouTube in order to achieve a better work/life balance. But still, largely my expectations and I imagine the expectations of fans who have been in the phandom longer or shorter periods of time than me are based on their actions and history.

I haven't watched phil's dml2 in a while so maybe I forgot but...I took his comments regarding him wanting to find a better work-life balance to mean he doesn't want to be the 'yes man' who takes on a bunch of overwhelming side projects all at once (like how they used to), not that he was going to be less active on his youtube channel starting now. That's the impression I remember getting at the time anyway. If his intentions were to say he was also winding down on making youtube vids (and channel membership posts lol and to confirm that liveshows are dead) going forward, I don’t know if he made that clear enough judging by the some people's dissatisfaction with the current situation? Maybe there was just some honest miscommunication

[flarequake]

Two whole seconds, woo

[Templeofshame]

Two whole seconds, woo

Interesting how Dan doesn't make the title or the little pics at the beginning, but does make the vid (it seems like the twins and one other YouTuber are in that boat). (Also where is their copyeditor, AmazingPhil is one word...)

[Susanisnotafish]

It’s very weird to me that they each did 3 videos for Vidcon Now and now this shoutout vid that they’re both in and the Youtubers React vids, but they’ve hardly posted on their own channels. I thought in one of Dan’s old liveshows and maybe also in DML2 they realized they shouldn’t be doing things for other people’s channels (like radio 1) bc it was a lot of work with little benefit to them. They could have made videos on their own channels and chosen what the videos were about and edited them how they wanted. At least we got some content out of it, but other than Dan’s monologue, I think stuff they did themselves would have been much more enjoyable to me and more profitable to them. I’m not surprised they wanted to go to Vidcon this year to see all their friends, but I don’t think they get paid for Youtubers React or Vidcon Now, or do they? I’m questioning their decisions, but whatever works for them.

[nicky1388]

If we’re not the priority, they’re gambling that enough of us will still be here after 9 months now of waiting and wondering. They’re lucky bastards that us saps will be, enough came back after big and coty, though kpop has been a big draw away from them too.

yeah, but a lot of kpop fans manage to be multi-fandom. i speak from expierience as a massive BTS stan (and kpop in general)

[Templeofshame]

It’s very weird to me that they each did 3 videos for Vidcon Now and now this shoutout vid that they’re both in and the Youtubers React vids, but they’ve hardly posted on their own channels. I thought in one of Dan’s old liveshows and maybe also in DML2 they realized they shouldn’t be doing things for other people’s channels (like radio 1) bc it was a lot of work with little benefit to them. They could have made videos on their own channels and chosen what the videos were about and edited them how they wanted. At least we got some content out of it, but other than Dan’s monologue, I think stuff they did themselves would have been much more enjoyable to me and more profitable to them. I’m not surprised they wanted to go to Vidcon this year to see all their friends, but I don’t think they get paid for Youtubers React or Vidcon Now, or do they? I’m questioning their decisions, but whatever works for them.

With the amount of money FBE makes and the size of YouTubers they can get, they must pay, right? Their regular reactors are auditioned and paid, and I can't see a lot of the YouTubers who do it wanting to do it for exposure or out of some mind of goodwill. (I also am of the opinion that Vidcon must've paid them a large amount to get them back there, and filming the Vidcon stuff would likely be a package deal with that, but I have no idea how that actually works. It just doesn't make sense to me that they'd go back to Vidcon in 2019 unless they were making good money and using the excuse for their desert trip.) Apart from money, this kind of stuff and the extended BBC interview seem like less work on their part than an actual video and something to appease us with.

[chicken]

I went back to rewatch DML2, and in the last few minutes, Phil does pretty much say that he's working on secret projects & that he's more interested in using youtube as a creative outlet, even if it's not getting tons and tons of views. I think that part maybe got overshadowed by some of the other stuff in that video?

I'm also kinda curious about Dan's comment in the BBC interview about being surprised by the reaction to BIG. It seems wild in retrospect, but I wonder if part of it is that they just downplayed the impact that would have when they were planning for this year? I don't think the pace they were going before was really sustainable, but maybe they just need time to adjust & find their footing a little bit before they can return to the stuff they do want to work on.

[Tottrie]

On the topic of Dan and Phil content, I think I have a different view than many others.

I think when I started watching them back in 2012 I saw them as YouTubers. But I don't anymore. Now I see them as, artists/entertainers that do a lot of things. Videos is one of them, but not exclusively.

I see their merch as not just merch, it's content from them because it's one of their creative outlets. It's different from other YouTubers because it's not something that other people see and go "oh, that's youtube merch!". I have so many friends that has asked me where I have bought the fox, and corgi sweater, because they want it too.

We know that Phil is writing something that may be released in the future. That won't be a YouTube video but it's still content from him. It's one type of creative outlet.

With Dan I don't know what he wants to do other than youtube. But what I do think is that he want to do more meaningful videos. Videos like 'Philosophy Tube'. They take more time than a "usual" video.

For now I'm happy knowing they are doing things, just like Phil said, behind the scenes. Like any other artists that don't release things every day but still working.