I regret to inform my followers that I've fallen headlong into Dream SMP lately, and it’s one of the wildest media experiences I’ve ever had. Some of it reminds me very much of the SCP Foundation experience.
It previously existed in my consciousness as "that fandom that shows up on my dash as either a very weird textpost, or fanart that's 50/50 about Dream SMP or Homestuck." The actual media delivers on inexplicability. I think of it as the Untitled Goose of fiction, because every aspect of it radiates chaos and it causes problems everywhere it goes.
In brief: The Dream SMP is a private multiplayer Minecraft server. A bunch of Twitch/Youtube streamers roleplay on it regularly. It grew a “plot” based on improv which later became somewhat scripted in advance. There are arcs, seasons, worldbuilding, factions…
Some meta reasons I love it and compare it to the SCP wiki:
Non-linear.
If you want to get into it, your best bet is starting with a list of youtube videos on a carrd. Or watch 20 million hours of livestream vods. Or summary videos / “movie” edits made by hardworking fans. Either way, you will miss some stuff.
Everyone is literally the protagonist of their own streams.
The in-character/out-of-character line is blurred.
It didn’t actually become a roleplay until a while into the first “season”. Only a few events are scripted, and I get the impression the “script” is pretty freeform.
Obviously this sometimes becomes kind of a problem for, like, inappropriate fan interactions, which is tough and which I don’t want to trivialize.
Anyhow the line is very blurred within the universe too.
E.g. Technoblade canonically hears his Youtube livestream chat as voices in his head. Nobody else does, except for when they do.
Decentralized ownership and storytelling.
Canon is a spectrum – some things are clearly comedic “bits” and some things are well-established worldbuilding – but there is so much leeway in there.
E.g. At one point, there’s a marriage. The streamers in the marriage now disagree on whether the marriage was canonical or not. But it's not a big deal.
This is real SCP wiki "there is no canon" energy.
You can watch the same event from various character's perspectives and get totally different takes on the same event. (short non-spoiler example)
Unusual delivery format.
You don’t expect emotional depth or great creativity or horror or etc out of a Let’s Play… but my god, you will get them here.
Fun exercise: Grab your boomer parents and try to explain your latest interest to them.
Amateur storytellers.
I mean, they’re making a living from it, so they’re professionals now. But the average server age is 22 and it grew out of a casual hobby, and you can tell.
Every single stream, including the very dark introspective ones, have a bunch of chaotic banter and dick jokes.
There are these really serious bits except that the characters are named things like “Quackity” and “BadBoyHalo”.
This is the polar opposite of a polished narrative.
Many of them – and I say this with great, great love – are not amazing actors. It still works. The vibe is more “a bunch of friends fucking around” then, like, "watching a professional TV show.”
Mechanics are integrated in interesting ways.
Sometimes for plot:
Ability to gather resources – skill, the amount of time they spend digging for material, cool builds and contraptions, etc – do influence how much power they have.
But also sometimes for storytelling or expression - this is Minecraft, you know, the Blocks Game - the actors don’t really have access to normal body language. But it turns out you can fit a lot of meaning into crouches, gentle hits, jumping, looking around, what item you’re holding, what you’re wearing.
Sometimes this is hilariously dissonant:
E.g. Someone saying “look at me” to make emphasis, and the streamer has to look at… the expressionless minecraft head of the person? It’s such a vibe.
Sometimes it’s delightfully innovative and format-specific.
E.g. There are no chairs in minecraft, but there are a lot of occasions in real life where people sit, so people will use staircase blocks as dining chairs, couches, etc, and then either crouch or stand on the block to "sit". In a recent stream, during a conversation, one character went to a crafting table, made a staircase block, put it on the floor (of the other character’s house), said “you’re going to want to be sitting down for this one,” and then refused to proceed until the other character was standing on the staircase block.
A lot of these players are really good at the game, among the best in the world. Some aren’t, or at least aren’t on that tier, which is also endearing.
So if you know Minecraft, then there’s a lot of competence porn, but it's interspersed with a lot of very familiar gameplay.
They also do some non-Vanilla-Minecraft elements. They’re not common, but they keep you on your toes.
And most of them are subtle but also, like… for characters living in a minecraft world, if you’re familiar with the game, the phrase “canonical access to Creative Mode” will and should strike fear into your heart.
