#zero care for what ACTUALLY contributed to the situation or how it effected dnp OR how it effected fans & fan culture

[freckliedan]

hi jam, what actually happened in 2012/2013? i got into the phandom in 2020, so i guess i just never fully understood? of course no worries if you don’t want to bring it up for whatever reason. (:

hi anon! i am always happy to discuss dan and phil history (editing to add: you can check out my tag on that here), especially since i've been around for long enough to have seen a Lot of it. the biggest factor is that dan and phil were outed in 2012; i have written about that before here.

i would reccomend rewatching dan's mental health series of videos (meaning of life, something i'm forgetting, daniel and depression, trying to live my truth) + BIG with the additional understanding that being outed at that point had a catastrophic impact on dan's mental health, especially considering his past traumas.

there were a lot of other reasons 2012 and 2013 were bad, some of which we knew at the time and some that we didn't.

dan's younger brother started to have social media, and fans were harassing him for information/pretending to be friends with him to get information/bullying him. that's something dan shut down HARD.

dan's grandma was also on twitter around this time iirc? so there was a very real chance he could've been outed to his family if someone had decided to cross the line in the worst way they could.

dan and phil had moved to london in 2012 without being able to afford it and without being sure they would get the bbc radio 1 jobs. so they were also under stupid amounts of financial stress while also adjusting to life in a new city when all of this happened.

2013 is also the year phil's dad was diagnosed with cancer. that's something that phil never shared until 2019 in his draw my life 2, but that's such a scary and overwhelming thing to be dealing with!

all at the same time!

the radio show era is also a time when dan and phil were so busy with projects and opportunities and saying yes to everything that it very, very clearly had a negative impact on them, which is something they have mentioned a number of times.

they were dealing with the transition into proper fame, too. i don't have enough toughts to gather about that but i'm sure someone else can speak to what that was like. a lot of youtubers of their original era left the platform at that that time due to the everything.

so. short answer. 2012-2013 was one of the most intense, overwhelming and difficult periods we know of in dan and phil's lives for so many reasons, even without factoring in the fact that they were outed. which also happened then.

they did not, in fact, have a difficult 2012 because people posted smut of them and they accidentally saw it. dan had already mentioned reading fic about himself on purpose at that point in time.