The Rise of Minecraft

Minecraft, a game where you can explore and build in a world made of blocks, has risen from the grave again. For a few years it was viewed as ‘childish’ and it was seen as cringy until this quarantine. Dream, a fast-rising Minecraft youtuber, helped it come back. He was inspired, and helped by videos released last year. In the summer of 2019, several important events happened.  The SMP Live was started, a multiplayer survival server made by CallmeCarson, a fairly popular youtuber, and Pewdiepie, a large influencer, released his first video in his Minecraft series. SMP Live was crucial in bringing the mainstream creators back to Minecraft, and also allowed them to form connections to use later to make videos with them. It gained a lot of traction, and although it ended fairly soon, it showed that the format of having a bunch of youtubers on a Minecraft world would work and be successful. Pewdiepie’s video reached a wide audience, and it gave Dream the start he needed. His first video to become successful was his video trying to find the Minecraft world Pewdiepie was using for his Minecraft series. Dream experimented with different video formats pre-quarantine, none of which took off as much as they would during quarantine. The many people stuck at home needed something to do, and many went to Youtube. The algorithm gave many Dream manhunt videos, and many were comforted by his videos. During summer this year, with a large audience already, Dream started his own server with his friends, based on the idea of the SMP live. The Dream SMP has a storyline written out, but they improv everything other than the basic storyline. The fake drama is appealing to an at-home audience, and it seems like the regular teen looks upon Minecraft a bit more fondly now.