A popular YouTuber has revealed what he looks like for the first time after eight years of creating videos while wearing a smiley face mask.
The American creator styled himself as ‘Dream’ and amassed more than 30.5 million subscribers by sharing clips of him playing Minecraft.
But in a video on Monday, ‘Dream’ revealed his real name is Clay and took off his mask to show his face for the first time.
The 23-year-old said the move was designed to help him ‘get out in the world’ and start meeting people face-to-face after years of being anonymous online.
A popular Minecraft YouTuber has revealed what he looks like for the first time after eight years of creating content online
Online gamer Clay, 23 – known to his fans as Dream – delighted audiences when he took to his channel to post a ‘face reveal’ on Monday
He last night took to Twitter to share the exciting news, writing: ‘Will be premiering my face reveal video on YouTube in around 2 hours.
‘My next tweet will be a picture of me and my best friends finally being together.’
The announcement amassed more than 572,700 likes and some 53,400 shares.
The simple reveal video – titled ‘hi, I’m Dream.’ and just a little longer than five minutes – started with Dream in a chair, with his back to the camera.
The creator later took to social media to post snaps with George and fellow Mincecraft creator Nick, 21, known online as Sapnap
‘The dream team collection is complete,’ he captioned in a post on Instagram, where the online creator has 3.2 million followers
‘This is weird. Hello…,’ he began. ‘I don’t know how to do this. I feel like I was waiting to figure out how to do it and I was like, “I’ll just wing it” and then now I’m sitting here like “alright, well, what do I”…
‘Do I just like rip the Band-Aid off…’
The creator stalled for a little while, revealing that he was ‘so nervous’ before shielding his face with his iconic mask, and then finally moving it out the way.
He admitted to feeling ‘awkward’, and then continued with an introduction.
He last night took to Twitter to share the exciting news, writing: ‘Will be premiering my face reveal video on YouTube in around 2 hours
‘Hi, my name is Clay, otherwise known as Dream online…’
Unveiling his reasons for the face reveal, Dream said that his best friend (and fellow Minecraft YouTuber) George Davidson, 25 – who is from the UK but is moving to the US – was a huge motivator.
He admitted that George was on his way over as the video was being filmed, and the pair were going to meet for the first time despite knowing each other and being friends since he was 11 years old.
‘My goal was jus tot start doing things,’ he said. ‘Get out… meet creators, say hi to my friends, finally… just get out in the world, be an actual creator, be a person.’
Dream had never shown his face before, becoming distinctly synonymous with a huge face mask decorated with a smiley face (pictured last year)
Admitting he’d felt ‘bunkered up’ and had to deal with odd instances when it came to being digitally faceless, he was now looking forward to making new content with friends as well as continuing to be a Minecraft creator.
Sharing his love for his fans, Dream concluded: ‘This channel is living proof that anyone can do anything…anyone can be under the mask. I don’t want my face reveal to take away from that fact.
‘Dream could have been anyone from anywhere.’
Social media went wild with #dreamfacereveral trending on Twitter and TikTok, with creators then taking to social media to react to the news.
Dream (pictured left and right, with his friends George and Nick) created his YouTube channel in 2014, and has since been lauded for his quick growth, raking up millions of views on nearly every video
Dream also FaceTimed influencers – including Addison Rae – who captured their reaction on camera, with many remarking how beautiful they found him.
The creator later took to social media to post snaps with George and fellow Mincecraft creator Nick, 21, known online as Sapnap.
‘The dream team collection is complete,’ he captioned in a post on Instagram, where the online creator has 3.2 million followers.
Dream created his YouTube channel in 2014, and has since been lauded for his quick growth, raking up millions of views on nearly every video.
His face reveal currently has more than 14 million views, with some 1.7 million likes.