Throughout this year, our contributors and moderators have been working hard on this zine, which celebrates the meta analysis present in MCYT fandom with both written analysis and artwork. Today, we're excited to finally present it to you all!
You can download the digital version at itch.io here and read it as a flipbook on heyzine here. We've also recorded a read-through of every analysis piece to form the audio/video version of the zine, which is currently premiering on YouTube here so you can listen along or at your own leisure!
Thank you to our contributors, mods, and everyone following along throughout its development - we hope you enjoy!
This bind was supposed to come right after the Etho Zine bind, but a combination of work pressures, Ramadan, post-Ramadan shenanigans, and me being burnt out from all the previous stuff delayed the completion of this zine. For weeks the unfinished text block sat below my cabinet workspace, calling me to clothe the pages.
About a week ago, I finally kicked myself to finish it!
This is the MCYT Metazine, made by the brilliant and talented people at @mcytmetazine, who made this to celebrate the meta analysis of the MCYT fandom. With such a large and diverse base of players and fans, there are a myriad of research studies that could be done; shipping, setting, storylines, interpretations, music, how creators present themselves to their audiences, and so on.
As such, I believe such a publication is deserving of the hardcover treatment. I decided to go on a semi-split boards bind, the same as with the Etho zine. The process is easier now due to familiarity, although I may have made the yellow paper strip overlapping the bookcloth spine and the title paper too large. Mea culpa.
Besides that, I also added a bonus!
I also included an appendix! More specifically, I included the essay '[Meta] Keeping Things Platonic: in Conversation with DSMP Authors' by @antimony-medusa. Not only does her work became one of the analysis pieces in the zine, but she also conducted interviews with 13 other fans whose answers inform her final piece in the zine. Given the valuable context of these interviews, I decided to include them into this bind proper.
All in all, it took me 3 months to finally finish this. I wish I could have completed this bind earlier, but at least now I can put this on my shelf! Special thanks to the amazing team at @mcytmetazine and @antimony-medusa for making this zine bind possible!
Oh my gosh that's absolutely incredible!! It's an honour to have our zine hand-bound into a proper book, and the book and cover are so gorgeous! What a wonderful wonderful ask to wake up to :')
I'll send your post to the contributors right away - gosh this is just so lovely, thank you!!
I just wanted to say that this zine is so cool! This is the first nonfiction fandom zine Iâve seen and the writing is top-notch and in-touch with the fandom (I mean, obviously, itâs by fans for fans), and I will never get tired of the amazing art this fandom creates. And itâs doubly cool that you involved voice actors as well, Iâve been looking for some new listening related to fan-discussions and now I have a whole playlist of it. Great work organizing this!
Thank you so much!
We were so lucky to be able to work with such talented analysts, artists, and VAs for this! MCYT is really a unique space to explore and everyone did an incredible job - it was a delight to work on and we're glad you're enjoying it, thank you again for your kind words!
a while ago we wrote an essay for the @mcytmetazine. now it's on AO3. as a visual eye-catcher for this announcement, here are all the character illustrations which accompany it. they're transparent!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Risk vs. Reward vs. Retention: An Analysis of the Significance of Music in the MCYT Creator Space
(this was written for the @mcytmetazine! it was a pleasure to write for this zine and i'm very happy to finally share my piece. a quick disclaimer - i wrote this piece mostly over spring of this year, so more recent videos and developments in mcyt music are not covered. a very special thank you to jet @jumped-for-the-yaoi, who made some absolutely beautiful art for this piece featured in the zine!)
enjoy!
---
What makes a memorable Minecraft Youtube video? Is it the creator themself, or the elements within the video? Over the last few years, music has risen to the forefront of crucial elements within an MCYT video â often without viewers noticing how important music is to the content they consume. For a majority of creators, music is a key factor in defining their content â whether background, intentional, or a key element their video would not succeed without. When the viewer watches the video, music can be the deciding factor to whether the viewer clicks away or sticks around to watch. In recent years, music within the MCYT space has evolved to resonate with the viewer, enhance storytelling, and craft a specific narrative that would be impossible without the intentional choices of certain tracks. With these creative directions, music has become one of the most imperative elements in a Minecraft upload. Of course, not every facet of MCYT can be explored â there are hundreds of subcommunities within MCYT, and exploring every single one's relationship to music is impossible. In this essay, each of the three main types will be discussed, and analyzed to better understand what a successful video in the MCYT sphere is. Before that discussion, a brief overview of the history of music in MCYT and the recent evolvements will be given.
With the ability to monetize content on Youtube (1), many creators dedicate time into making their videos as retention and algorithm-friendly as possible. From clickbait thumbnails to certain editing styles, every element of a Youtube video has been ticked down to a science (2) â sometimes to the detriment of creativity. In the Minecraft community, study of the algorithm has been no exception. Some creators, such as Karl Jacobs, follow the tried-and-true MrBeast style of over-editing, packing each minute with content built specifically to keep the viewer completely hooked. Other creators, like Wato1876, have worked against the retention standards to create content of a more unique style (3). For most MCYT creators, they fall somewhere between the two ends of the spectrum.
As a key element, music in the Minecraft space has evolved over time. In the earlier years of MCYT, music often was not added, instead relying on the in-game Minecraft music itself, which, while a masterpiece, did not reinforce the creator's content. Today, most MCYT videos utilize certain DMCA free tracks to underscore the tone of their videos. Textbook examples of this can be found in many of Grian's, Smallishbean's, or TommyInnit's videos. In these cases, the music typically stays upbeat, is often used repetitively throughout the video and in subsequent videos, and is used as a simple tool to match the content on-screen. Notably, these videos do not have much storytelling. The music is there to support the entertainment, but does not become a key in their videos. However, thanks to the reinforced usage of certain tracks, it becomes easy to identify songs with a certain creator. For TommyInnit, the Able Sisters track is an example, while Grian and Smallishbeans use the same easily recognizable track in many of their build montages. As a general rule, Grian's videos stay relatively PG. Under these circumstances, Grian's content rarely dips into a deeper storyline, since the heavy undertones could turn away younger viewers and parents. However, in 2021, a new meta emerged, encouraged by the roleplay drama of the Dream SMP, and started to shape itself thanks to a couple experimental moves made by MCYTers, including Grian.
During Grian's Third Life finale, an unexpected shift in his music heightened the emotional ending of his series. Rather than ending the series on the usual upbeat, Grian recognized the potential his series had to tell a story â and took the opportunity. 'Someone to Save' by Timothy Lewis, a track licensed under Epidemic Sound, became the farewell to Third Life (4). The song gave the viewer hope â and despair, as the melodies and chords of the song bid the viewer to stew in what had occurred. Song usage in this way was not common yet, with other members of the series barely editing in music if at all. During Limited Life, InTheLittleWood attempted a similar stunt, adding a suspenseful track moments before he betrayed the final two players (5) left to win the series. In the rest of the MCYT space, 'classic' tracks including songs from Animal Crossing or Undertale dominated storytelling videos. Grian and Martyn were ahead of their time â but ultimately, they never took the plunge into the groundbreaking usage seen today. When considering their audience, this makes sense, although many of their fans greatly enjoyed the dramatic shift.
For this discussion, music use in MCYT has been categorized into three different 'Types' of music form. The first type of music has already been discussed above. Type A, 'The Expected Conventional', includes creators who use classic non-DMCA music for their videos, or do not use their music for narrative-driven storytelling. Many Hermits, Lifestealers, and content creators within Empires SMP are classed here. In many cases, tracks overlap between creators, reminding of the constraints of DMCA â or, to the informed viewer, confirming the creator subscribes to a music service to safely use music without fear of a DMCA notice (6). When listening to the music in these videos, it becomes quickly apparent that music, for creators in Type-A, isn't a relied-on aspect for their content beyond retention.
To understand the key difference between Type-A and Type-B creator's music decisions, careful consideration must be made to the content both types of YouTubers make. Where Type-A keeps their stories lighthearted, with a focus on the game instead of a plotline, Type-B: The Plot-Driven Unexpected delves into Minecraft Roleplay (MCRP), and heavily focuses on telling a lore-driven story. In these cases, the creators still use DMCA-free songs â but each song is chosen carefully, with the goal of pushing their narrative forward. The flair and personality of the creator shines through each song, and in some cases, completely changes the perception of the content.
One example of Type-B can be found from Pentar, an up-and-coming YouTuber with 76.9k subscribers at the time of writing. From his first upload, Pentar's sense for understanding how important music choice is sticks out. A montage of placing fences times perfectly with the beat in the background, drawing attention to the content in the video, and therefore raising the retention rate (7). In many of his videos, Pentar uses music to create a signature for himself, and shape his own narrative. In his recent series, dubbed the Secrets Trilogy, Pentar takes the events of Lifesteal SMP and crafts a specific narrative, all wrapped around his teammate ECorridor. Without the music in certain scenes, heavy emotions and nuance is lost, and when added, the viewer feels every ounce of what Pentar feels. For one scene (8), Pentar struggles morally with the balance of lying to ECorridor for personal gain versus giving up violence for peace with ECorridor. Pentar chose to use the track 'Forgotten' by Evan Honer, with the following lyrics:
If I'm gone will they remember?
How they watched me burn down to embers?
Or will they make up a lie
And tell everyone I was a great guy?
This is far from the first time Honer has appeared on Pentar's channel, especially as insight into Pentar's character. Songs from Honer are used at the rawest moments in each video, typically just once â so Pentar's choice to use his music is intentional, with lyrics from Honer's songs heightening emotions, relatability, and heartbreak from the viewer. Beyond that, Pentar does use Epidemic Sound and MusicBed, but specifically uses tracks that flow perfectly with the scenes in his videos. These choices reminisce to Grian and Martyn's moments in the Life Series, but Pentar keeps the tone throughout the video, choosing to step into territory that is somewhat unexplored.Â
Other creators headed in their own unique directions include Wifiesâ ARG videos, where he uses tracks to heighten the horror of his videos; DumbisDumb, who uses a style similar to Pentar (9); and Wato1876. For Wato, her music use is almost exclusively video game OST (especially Minecraft), but used in a way that directly contradicts the retention meta of Youtube. Another worthy mention of a Type-B creator is Wemmbu. His Unstable Universe series uses non-DMCA music in the narrative-driven style, with each upload raising the bar for himself on how carefully music choices are made. Unsurprisingly, heâs recently been following in his co-creator's footsteps, which may soon place him in the Type-C category.
Each of these styles encourages the viewer to connect with the character on-screen in a deeper, more meaningful way than the Type-A creators â and the reward is a video that drives plot forward through emotion and sound, and stands out to the viewer. Because this is a newer type of meta, many creators stylizing their videos are smaller, but are quickly rising to mainstream MCYT. However, recently, a third type of music use has transcended the already high expectations for this category.
Type-C: The Plot-Driven Groundbreakers contains creators fashioning their music in ways previously completely unseen in the MCYT space. For this class of creators, it is difficult to compare and contrast, because the unique directions each of them have taken sets them apart from each other as much as it places them firmly in the same category. In many cases, the creativity has proved lucrative, with fans praising the effort and recognizing their intent. However, some in this category have faced backlash and misunderstandings from fans about the intent and purpose of songs used. This raises a question: is taking the risk with drastic narrative music worth it? Additionally, where does the line for 'success' versus 'failure' fall? What decides whether or not music in a video matches the narrative, or fails to meet it?
One of the first creators to push into unexplored territory, IvoryCello, found her niche in prewritten scripted content. Ivory's Whitepine series launched last summer, shortly after her return to content after a hiatus. As soon as the first episode aired, one of the notable aspects fans noticed was the use of original piano music. The tracks held a weight to them previously not found in MCYT, and matched Ivory's story in a way no other track could. Ivory not only wrote, directed, and edited Whitepine, but also composed and recorded the piano tracks herself. They are crucial to Whitepine, tied in with a piano in the episodes, and often, the music accompanies plot-relevant montages of moments in the series. Each track is mixed to sound like an older song, as if the musician is part of the world on screen. Without these tracks, Whitepine would not hold the audience as well, nor would the series have the early 1920s atmosphere nailed down. Whitepine has proven itself to be a success, with episodes releasing every month or so, and fans consistently praising the music. Parallel to Ivory, AvidMC's SkyBlock Kingdom series contains tracks composed by him for the series. However, Avid combines non-DMCA tracks with them, and his songs have lyrics sung by himself. As a much smaller creator than Ivory, Avid's work has gone nearly unnoticed by the greater MCYT community. Nonetheless, it firmly falls into the Type-C category.
For Parrotx2, shifting from Type-B to Type-C music use started with his exit from Lifesteal SMP, when he posted an edited compilation of his time on the server (10), starting from his first season all the way to his final. For the first time on Parrot's channel, an overarching narrative took the forefront, with the video clocking over three hours of runtime compared to usual twenty minute videos. This step over the threshold of storytelling marked the start of a new meta - custom soundtrack commissioning (11). Parrot commissioned someone to make tracks that could better accompany his narrative than tracks he could find. At the time, not much note was taken of the decision, nor did Parrot repeat the choice until six months later. By that point, Unstable Universe, a scripted SMP, was well underway. Every episode fell firmly into Type-B, but Parrot's musical decisions gained attention, with fans commenting on the immersive song choices that transcended other MCYT scripted content. Starting in September of 2024 (12), Parrot chose to start commissioning artists for parts of his videos, and has not stopped since. The use of custom soundtrack in his Unstable series birthed a new meta that can now increasingly be seen in a few other creators' videos. Parrot ensured the connection between the story and viewers was as coupled as possible by using the custom soundtrackâfollowing the same meta that movies today use (13). Emotions from the viewer heightened, retention rates rose, and the viewer cared about the story at a greater level than before. Additionally, the story itself is strengthened - by using tracks the way he does, Parrot instills expectation in the viewer, meets it, then is able to use that expectation to break it if needed.
The risk of breaking expectations in MCYT editing and meta is a potentially career-devastating play in the Youtube sphere. When a creator breaks against the standard or decides to try something experimental, the uncertainty and danger of losing their audience heightens. Combined with the ever-changing inhuman algorithm, taking a leap of faith completely differently to any other creator can lead to backlash, and is likely the reason many creators stray away from risking it. The final creator to discuss as an example for Type-C is Spokeishere, a third perspective of Unstable Universe. By the end of last season, Spoke's videos also fell into Type-B. At the start of season two, however, Spoke tried out an unconventional use of music - repeated overuse of commonly used tracks on Youtube, mostly by Kevin Macleod (14). This sparked debate amongst the viewers - what was the purpose of such a decision? Why use tracks that did not match the narrative on the screen?Â
(fig. 1: A screenshot of a comment from one of Spokeâs videos during the â100 daysâ arc)Â
(fig. 2: Another screenshot of a comment from Spokeâs videos, this one criticizing his music choice)Â
(fig.3, fig. 4, fig 5: Further examples of negative comments on Spokeâs videos during his experiment)
By video two, most fans were annoyed with Spoke, and on video three, the majority of comments left in the first few hours were hate-filled or misunderstanding his intention. All five of the figures above are screenshots taken from Spokeâs final â100 daysâ video. Comments filled with more vicious hatred have been deleted by Spoke, or pushed down by Youtubeâs algorithm due to community effort (15). However, by watching the series with a critical mind and an understanding that Spoke chose the music for the narrative, it quickly becomes apparent that the choice was made to match his character's mental wellbeing. Spoke's character, quite literally, is losing his mind - and every single track used pushes a dissociative feeling, to look away from what is really happening. As the episodes progress, Spoke's plan takes forefront, with the visuals, narration, and music all combining together to form a fractured narrative (16). As Spoke's mental state deteriorates, the viewer feels and experiences it with him. The moments Spoke snaps to reality, the music also snaps out of the repetitive overuse. Track use like this elevates Spoke into Type-C, with no creators attempting something similar. However, the backlash and hatred spewed in his Youtube comments and on various social media sites remind of why risks are not often taken. Many viewers have not picked up on the reasoning for Spoke's editing, but some are starting to understand. In the future, Spoke will likely bring his audience back around - but the chances of seeing Spoke take another groundbreaking chance like this is low, given the amount of backlash and viewers who refuse to look deeper.
What defines failure versus success in Type-C? It certainly isn't views â IvoryCello averages less than 450k views per Whitepine upload (17), and yet was the most suggested creator by members of the community when asked for examples of unique music usage in MCYT (18). AvidMC averages around 3k-5k views per video, but has a strong community built up that actively engages and appreciates his music. On the flip side, neither Parrot nor Spoke have any Unstable Universe uploads under a million views (19), but Spoke has faced more controversy regarding his music than any other creator mentioned. If success in music use is decided by community response, Spoke's experiment could be a failure. It is a mark of character that these creators have not moved to exclusively music usage that definitively works within the elusive algorithm. Thus, the answer to the success question is subjective. For Avid and Ivory, their experiments are successful because their communities are established and appreciative of the story built with the music. For Parrot, success is found in the communityâs love for his story and immersion, and the spread of custom music commissioning. As for Spoke, an argument could be made that his success is more in the self-satisfaction of telling the story his own way, and in the comments of the individuals who recognize the potential in his music choices.
To conclude, what decides the success of any creator when it comes to their music choices? Depending on the type of creator, this changes person-to-person. Type-B creators find their success in high engagement levels with their audience, and in the emotional connection their viewers reach with their character. Additionally, Type-B creators can mark success in how their music visibly affects the narrative, pushing their stories to new heights for the viewer to enjoy. Success, for Type-B, is attention, acknowledgement, and discussion of the story. As for Type-A, the connection and plot is less relevant, and thus their success in music use is more dependent on ensuring their videos meet the mark in other ways. As the MCYT community changes, so does the meta â and currently, Type-B and Type-C are on the rise. Several creators have recently started commissioning custom soundtrack, as creators analyze what's working to draw in audiences. Type-A creators are in no trouble when it comes to audience, but their music use is currently stagnant. As the new generation of creators starts to rise, the music meta will continue evolving â and for now, the future is bright for MCYT storytelling and MCRP.
Note: A playlist of videos from creators referenced, and additional examples of all three types can be found here.
Footnotes:
For more information about monetization on Youtube: âWelcome to the Youtube Partner Programâ, Youtube Partner Program, Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/creators/partner-program/
Example of one such study: 133 slide presentation analyzing the MrBeast video style
Wato1876. âI donât want to keep viewer retention, I want to keep your curiosity. Why? If you are curious, youâll want to watch it through, if I just have your attention, I only keep it as long as I give you more and more. End Barrens was not for attention, it was for curiosity.â Twitter, 24 Mar. 2025, 6:26 p.m., https://x.com/Wato1876/status/1904314434220110048
To see the exact example: 3rd Life: Episode 8 - THE FINAL LIFE (timestamp 28:52)
Exact example: OUT OF TIME - Minecraft Limited Life #8 (Finale) (timestamp 32:17)
For more information about Epidemic Sound Licensing: https://www.epidemicsound.com/how-it-works/
How Music Can Boost Engagement: The Psychology of Sound in Content Creation
 Exact example: I Have Minecraft's Deadliest Secret timestamp 37:48
Dumb has acknowledged the importance of music choice in their official Discord: https://imgur.com/a/niAF899
Exact example: The Full Story of Lifesteal SMP. Timestamp not included - custom soundtrack moments can be found throughout the video.
Technically, custom music commissioning has existed for a while as seen in many Hermitcraft videos and the occasional theme song for other creators. For the discussed type of commissioning (soundtrack and narrative-driven), this is a newer meta.
ParrotX2, âI Built Minecraftâs Safest Civilization,â 9 September 2024. 3:47:08, I Built Minecraft's Safest Civilization.
Understanding the Score: Film Music Communicating to and Influencing the Audience
Macleodâs music is often called âthe internetâs musicâ due to the widespread usage of his tracks. He has composed over 1,500 individual tracks, all royalty-free. His website: https://incompetech.com/wordpress/
In the initial backlash of Spokeâs third video, the author of this essay noticed the significant amount of hatred in his comments and arranged an effort between other community members and friends to leave positive feedback and encouragement on the video. Participants also liked each otherâs comments, and disliked the hateful ones. These efforts succeeded, and have made the hatred less visible on both the third and fourth video of the â100 daysâ saga. That being said, some hate is still visible upon scrolling down, although it does not appear as pronounced as before.Parts of the community rally can be found here: https://imgur.com/a/some-of-community-efforts-to-change-spokes-comment-section-NDA0IOw
Exact example(s): 100 Days Hidden in a Minecraft Chunk Base, timestamp 19:27.100 Days TRAPPED in a Minecraft Void Base..., timestamps 25:30, 26:17-27:55, 29:43.Â
 Exact average is 409,500 views per Whitepine upload.
Members of the MCYT community were asked over a period of time in multiple Discords.
 At the time of writing, Spokeâs most recent U.U. upload is still under 1m views. However, at its current trajectory, it is expected to surpass 1m views within the month.
Works Cited
Arnaud, âHow Music Can Boost Engagement: The Psychology of Sound in Content Creation,â Bensound, https://www.bensound.com/blog/how-music-can-boost-engagement/.Â
AvidMc, âDestroying Minecraftâs First Skyblock SMP,â 7 February 2025, 39:45, Destroying Minecraft's First Skyblock SMP.
Caldas, Tyler. âHow Music Crafts a Narrative.â Everything Is Noise, 18 Apr. 2020, everythingisnoise.net/features/how-music-crafts-a-narrative/.
Green, Jessica. âUnderstanding the Score: Film Music Communicating to and Influencing the Audience.â The Journal of Aesthetic Education, vol. 44, no. 4, 2010, pp. 81â94. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.5406/jaesteduc.44.4.0081.Â
Grian, âHermitcraft 10: Episode 38 - TAG RETURNS!â Youtube.com, 3 June 2025, 32:01, Hermitcraft 10: Episode 38 - TAG RETURNS!.
Grian, â3rd Life: Episode 8 - THE FINAL LIFE,â Youtube.com, 8 June 2021, 31:03, 3rd Life: Episode 8 - THE FINAL LIFE.
âHow It Works | Epidemic Sound.â Epidemic Sound, www.epidemicsound.com/how-it-works/.
âHow YouTube Works - Copyright Tools: Rightsholders and Creators,â How YouTube Works, www.youtube.com/howyoutubeworks/copyright/.
InTheLittleWood, âOUT OF TIME - Minecraft Limited Life #8 (Finale),â Youtube.com, 21 April 2023, 35:38. OUT OF TIME - Minecraft Limited Life #8 (Finale).
IvoryTV, âWHITEPINE 1,â Youtube.com, 11 August 2024, 31:19, WHITEPINE 1
LowKeyJude. âI Studied 733 Mr Beast Videos, Hereâs What Worked:â Typefully.com, 27 January 2023, https://typefully.com/LowKeyJude/i-studied-733-mr-beast-videos-heres-what-aDCfm0R.
ParrotX2, âI Built Minecraftâs Safest Civilization,â 9 September 2024. 3:47:08, I Built Minecraft's Safest Civilization.Â
ParrotX2, âThe Full Story of Lifesteal SMP,â Youtube.com, 4 April 2024, 3:18:53, The Full Story of Lifesteal SMP.
Pentar, âI Created a Secret Minecraft Civilization,â Youtube.com, 12 December 2024, 1:17:08, I Created A Secret Minecraft Civilization.
Pentar, âI Have Minecraftâs Deadliest Secret,â Youtube.com, 5 August 2024, 1:07:56, I Have Minecraft's Deadliest Secret.
Pentar, âI Made My Friend Immortal,â Youtube.com, 4 November 2024, 1:10:56, I Made My Friend Immortal.
SmallishBeans, âThe Gate! | Hermitcraft 10 | Ep.5,â Youtube.com, 22 February 2024, 20:01, Hermitcraft 10: Episode 38 - TAG RETURNS!.
Spokeishere, âI Spent 100 Days Hidden in a Secret Minecraft Base,â Youtube.com, 11 March 2025, 1:07:27, I Spent 100 Days Hidden in a Secret Minecraft Base...
Spokeishere, âI Survived 100 Days Inside a Hidden Base,â Youtube.com, 8 April 2025, 1:06:11, I Survived 100 Days Inside a Hidden Base.
Spokeishere, â100 Days Hidden in a Minecraft Chunk Base,â Youtube.com, 26 April 2025, 33:47, 100 Days Hidden in a Minecraft Chunk Base
Spokeishere, â100 Days TRAPPED in a Minecraft Void BaseâŠâ Youtube.com, 28 May 2025, 49:41, 100 Days TRAPPED in a Minecraft Void Base....Â
TommyInnit, âThe Minecraft Lore Competition,â Youtube.com, 12 December 2024, 28:44, The Minecraft Lore Competition.
Wifies, âFinding A Player Who Doesnât Exist,â Youtube.com, 9 March 2025, 32:33, Finding A Player Who Doesn't Exist.Â
Wato1876, âI Spent 100 Days in Minecraftâs End Barrens,â Youtube.com, 30 November 2024, 2:34:40, I Spent 100 Days in Minecraftâs End Barrens.Â
 @Wato1876. âI donât want to keep viewer retention, I want to keep your curiosity. Why? If you are curious, youâll want to watch it through, if I just have your attention, I only keep it as long as I give you more and more. End Barrens was not for attention, it was for curiosity.â Twitter, 24 Mar. 2025, 6:26 p.m., https://x.com/Wato1876/status/1904314434220110048.
Crossing a Boundary: Minecraft Youtube as Real Person Fiction
Most fans of Minecraft Youtube disagree with categorizing MCYT as RPFâso much so that in early 2022 the AO3 changed the fandom's tags, removing references to RPF in most instances of fandom, relationship, and character tags. However, the line between RPF and FPF in MCYT fandom is blurry.
This essay is an analysis of the relationship between MCYT and RPF.
Additional Tags: Meta, Real Person Fiction, Minecraft Youtube, MCYT Metazine, Works Cited
You can now read my essay for @mcytmetazine on AO3! Check it out! Leave a comment! Tell your friends!
under the cut for length; discusses lifesteal, the life series, and the dream smp, including discussion of canonical abuse and suicide. i want to say if i were doing it now i'd ramble more about both reality tv and historiography but in fact i had a word count limit and already had to cut a bunch of stuff lol. enjoy!
Introduction
The process of making an edited video from raw footage is one that, tautologically, requires the removal or addition of some material. While streams and VODs often exist, preserving something closer to an âuneditedâ story of what happened, they are also extremely long: Quackity SMP (QSMP), for instance, produced just over 400 daysâ worth of VODs on an SMP that lasted just over 400 days. The only way to not miss anything while it was going would be to not sleep for over a year, and even then, things relevant to the QSMP would sometimes happen offstream or on non-Minecraft streams. While many fans of streamed SMPs compromise by watching only a small number of POVs, or by relying on liveblogs and update accounts, edited videos remain the most popular way of consuming MCYT.
Yet editing (or summarizing, or liveblogging) is not a neutral act: it changes the story and the viewersâ perception of the story. In translation studies, much has been written of the way in which a âgoodâ translator is expected to be âinvisibleâ, to create the illusion to the reader that they are reading the original story. But it is, always, an illusion. From the editorsâ preface to The Translatorsâ Invisibility:
All rewritings, whatever their intention, reflect a certain ideology and a poetics and as such manipulate literature to function in a given society in a given way. Rewriting is manipulation, undertaken in the service of power, and in its positive aspect can help in the evolution of a literature and a society. Rewritings can introduce new concepts, new genres, new devices, and the history of translation is the history also of literary innovation, of the shaping power of one culture upon another. But rewriting can also repress innovation, distort and contain, and in an age of ever increasing manipulation of all kinds, the study of the manipulative processes of literature as exemplified in translation can help us toward a greater awareness of the world in which we live.
In this essay, I explore the ways that edited videos can change the text and the perception of the text, through the lens of three servers: Lifesteal, the Life Series, and the Dream SMP.
Lifesteal SMP & Narrativization
In âDe/Contextualizing Information: The Digitization of Video Editing Practices at the BBCâ, the authors discuss the process of editing âraw footage [...] which can be arranged in innumerable ways and edited into an infinite variety of video narratives.â The same raw footage, when arranged and edited by different people, can be used to create drastically different narratives.
In Season Four of the Lifesteal SMP, Vitalasy and Baconwaffles both made videos with sections from the same VOD. Baconâs video focuses on his doubts over the meeting Vitalasyâs calling; he includes Zam before the meeting, saying âIâm convinced this is how we dieâ, and then he emphasizes the ways in which the meetingâs a lie by including a conversation with Spoke afterwardsâÂ
BACONWAFFLES: So youâre saying youâre done with exploits too, Spoke?
SPOKE: Yeah, bruh!
Spoke is known on Lifesteal as a liar, and this is a particularly blatant lie in context; surprising no one, he does not stop using exploits after this. Just a couple weeks later, he obtains operator permissions, and shortly after that he successfully ends the server with exploits. From Baconâs POV, this video tells the story of Vitalasy and Spoke lying for unclear purposes. In a previous video by Baconwaffles, and not mentioned in any of Vitalasyâs videos, Baconâs team discusses Vitalasyâs use of exploits to spawnkill Baconâs teammate.
What Bacon doesnât include, and what is possibly the most impactful part of the VOD, is that after the meeting, Vitalasy kills himself. Vitalasy killing himself, after being unfairly judged by the entire server, is the emotional climax of Vitalasyâs video; when Vitalasy uses footage from Baconâs VOD, he includes this exchange:
PRINCEZAM: Are we just letting Vitalasy kill himself? Okay. Alright.
BACONWAFFLES: Yeah, âcause heâs just doing it for attention, dude.
This is, of course, not in Baconâs video.Â
Neither of them are lying, exactly, not in the way that some MCYTs (including Lifestealers) lieâthis isnât dubbed over or even summarized particularly inaccurately. These are both real clips from the VOD. Theyâre both accurately representing how they experienced it at the time, rather than giving post-hoc justification: Vitalasy and Spoke were knowingly lying when they said that there would be no more exploits on Lifesteal Season Four; Bacon did villainize Vitalasy and then dismiss his very real pain as attention-seeking. But theyâre not totally honest, either: both portray themselves in the most sympathetic possible light, and their enemies in the least sympathetic, while cutting out anythingâno matter how importantâthat might undercut that narrative. Yet, in doing so, the videos do a good job at showing what it felt like to be Bacon or Vitalasy. Most people have a sympathetic narrative for their own actions. Most people remember the ways in which they were hurt more than the ways they hurt others. Bacon and Vitalasyâs videos serve as records of how they tell the story of what happened, or perhaps even how they remember what happenedâsomething thatâs characterizing and insightful in its own right, especially as the struggle over the narrative and the ways that people fail to understand each other become more and more central to the story of Lifesteal Season 4.Â
And there is another aspect to this: the relative popularity of edited videos compared to VODs. The edited videos of the meeting have 87K views and 193K views; the VODs have 912 and 324 views respectively. The vast majority of viewers wonât know that anything has been left out. They only know the story that was told to them.Â
Returning to âDe/Contextualizing Informationâ, the authors discuss the concept of double contingency: when creating for a mass audience, the interaction goes only one way, and it spans many contexts. Videos are often decontextualized in order to craft a message that can be better recontextualized by many different viewers across many different contexts. Editing becomes a way to communicate a narrative across this divide. The ways the videos may be perceived as inaccurate by stream viewers highlights a deeper truth: there is no way to create a narrative for others without losing something in the process.Â
The Life Series & Canon
Unlike streamed SMPs, the Life Series has no VODs. You cannot compare an individualâs narrative to what âactually happenedâ in a more unedited format; the best you can do is compare across different perspectives and try to stitch together your own guesses of what happened. As an example, Lizzie (LDShadowLady) is known to lie in her videos to the point of dubbing over what was actually said in real time. This is a trait shared by Roshambo in Lifestealâbut while you can compare Roshamboâs dubbed-over version to the Pangi stream that played out live on Twitch, you canât do the same with Lizzieâs episodes. If Lizzieâs POV of a conversation directly contradicts someone elseâs POV of the same, thereâs an easy guess to be madeâbut you canât know.Â
The fact that the creators are known to roll back and rerecord in order to create a better story adds to this. In Lifesteal, fandom often considers âcanonâ to be what âactually happenedâ, which can be determined via streams or detective work. But in the Life Series and unlike Lifesteal, this is usually fundamentally unknowable, and may not even be the thing the fans care about in comparison to the âcanonâ of videos: in the recordings for 3rd Life, Scar had at least two deaths that were cutâone to a magma block which was rolled back due to technical issues and one which was a kill by Martyn that was rolled back in order to give everyone a better episodeâbut neither is broadly considered canon to 3rd Life even by people who know about them. This is particularly relevant because, like Lifesteal, creators narrativize: a different perspective may show sides to a character that arenât necessarily highlighted in their own perspective, or two perspectives may contradict entirely. Each perspective of the life series is told by its own unreliable narrator, each with their own motivations, and something not cut from the series as a whole may still be cut from individual perspectives. As an example of two different possible motivations: Scarâs edited videos, both in the Life Series and in Hermitcraft, are consistently motivated by making a polished video that tells a coherent story, even if that means leaving things he did out. A good example of this is comparing his fifth episode of Last Life with Ethoâs. Others can be read as more straightforwardly âin characterâ: in Grianâs Double Life series, Grian edits out both a statement of âIâm going to kill everyoneâ (found in Martynâs POV) and a conversation he has with Scar about his willingness to kill on Scarâs behalf (found in Scarâs POV), something that speaks to his willingness to admit to those tendencies within the game. Yet while Scarâs motivations might be seen as more âout of characterâ than Grianâs, this view simplifies the way MCYT functions as a medium; within this context, where editing choices may be seen as characterizing, Scarâs desire to tell an appealing story can itself be read as a character trait. Or a fan might reject this view of editing entirely and accept each POV as âcanonâ for their respective âcharactersâ. When analyzing MCYT, the extent to which editing should be seen as diegetic remains an open question.
[Of note: since starting this essay, @lorefulgood on tumblr has started a series, selective editing, that compares transcripts of different life series moments in order to compare what people keep or get rid of in their episodes, and to explore how this characterizes them; it is in many ways extremely similar to the comparisons made in this section and the prior one, and it is absolutely the sort of thing I hope to see more of in MCYT fandom. One of my friends compared it to historiography and specifically to Plutarchâs Parallel Lives (after having made the same comparison regarding my engagement with Lifesteal a few months prior). If you like this essay, check it out!]
Dream SMP & the YouTube Algorithm
It is a well-known fact (and common joke) that the pursuit of the algorithm shapes all YouTube videos made by serious YouTubers. You can see this very easily if you look at the lengths of videos put out over time; in the past, the algorithm favored very short videos, and when it changed to favoring movie-length videos, YouTubers changed as well. (The average video length of a Lifesteal video in s2 was 12 minutes, with the longest being 38 minutes; in s6, the average is 30 minutes and the longest is over three hours.) Of course, despite all attempts to understand it and appeal to it, from changing video length to changing thumbnails, the algorithm is also a closely-guarded secret. The dark side of this is that this is not only true of what the algorithm promotes: itâs also true of what the algorithm takes down or hides. MCYT archivists will sometimes be hit by mysterious hate speech strikes which YouTube refuses to explain and which are not obvious from the content of the VOD. Artistic merit is sometimes enough to get a video age-restricted or demonetized rather than taken down altogetherâbut not always, and if one relies on a large number of views for onesâs primary income, those are still outcomes to avoid at any cost.
The Dream SMP is known for, among other things, its portrayals of abuse and suicide. But, as far as I can tell, suicide has only been openly named and discussed during serious âloreâ twice: both during Wilburâs finale arc, which was labeled on Twitch as âfor mature audiences onlyâ (notably, c!Wilburâs previous and successful suicide was not labeled as such, nor was c!Tommyâs previous suicide attempt). When suicide is brought up on stream once by Tubbo, Sam immediately asks if itâs allowed, referencing Twitch TOS. As far as I know, TommyInnitâs exile arc, a major story arc centered around an abusive relationship, is never directly referred to as âabuseâ in canon, either in VODs or the edited YouTube videos. Itâs just talked about as âbadâ, discussed in terms that canât be easily flagged by an autotranscription. But this is even more extreme on their edited YouTube videos, which are widely agreed to both be more strict with content moderation and to make more money than Twitch. If you watch Tommyâs edited, mainchannel YouTube videos of exile arc, it skips from an edit of his VOD from December 14 directly to December 16. In between those days, on December 15, c!Tommy attempted suicide. Despite being the climax and ending of exile arc, that is left out entirely on his mainchannel, edited videos. Or compare two thumbnails he made covering events that happened on December 4:
[ID: a TommyVODs video titled âTommyInnit Is Exiled From The Dream SMPâŠâ with 2.2M views. The thumbnail is a piece of fanart of c!Dream smiling menacingly at an unhappy-looking c!Tommy.]
[ID: a TommyInnit video titled âSo Dream EXILED Meâ with 8.4M views. The thumbnail is a picture of cc!Tommy laughing over a screenshot of Dreamâs minecraft avatar turned away and shifting without wearing in-game pants, in order to give the impression of showing his butt.]
The one on his VODs channel is clearly higher-effort: itâs custom art, likely an expensive commission, that does a good job accurately portraying the content. The mainchannel thumbnail, on the other hand, is a very standard YouTube clickbait video: it has an exaggerated face, unnecessary capslock in the title, and a popular YouTuber namedropped and making a funny pose. Nor do the differences end there: if you watch Tommyâs edited videos of exile arc, they tell a very different story than the VODs do. They include some of c!Dreamâs abuse and c!Tommyâs suicidality, but the overwhelming focus is on jokes and funny moments.
You can see the forces pushing Dream SMP members away from more serious content in their edited YouTube videos in more subtle ways. Quackity has one video that he made from his time playing c!Quackity during the Manburg-Pogtopia arcâan arc and character combination that, once again, many fans consider to be a depiction of an abusive relationship, and certainly a story where any summary would have to discuss topics like gay relationships and suicide in order to be honest. The video, of course, is not about any of that; itâs a one-off stream, disconnected from the larger plot, in which Quackity tried to make BadBoyHalo swear.Â
Is it possible that Quackity or Tommy or other Dream SMP members could have made mainchannel videos of their more serious topics without direct censorship? Yes. The VODs have been up, untouched, some with millions of views, for four years. Since 2020, both of them have moved more and more towards discussing serious topics on their mainchannels. Itâs also possible that the choice of which streams to edit was done primarily so that YouTube viewers who werenât familiar with the broader Dream SMP plot could watch standalone videos and laugh without context. Maybe those sorts of funny one-off videos, even in a vacuum, would do better and thereby make more money than more serious and narrative-driven videos. But, in the YouTube environment described here, and the constant pressure to please the algorithm in order to keep your career, itâs impossible to say confidently thatâs the only reason for the divide between what was streamed on Twitch and what was published on YouTube.Â
When a YouTube video is edited to be different than a Twitch stream, itâs worth asking why. Sometimes that answer will give an interesting insight to the story being told and characterize the person telling it. But other times, the answer is less about the story itself and more about the society itâs embedded in. C!Tommy may be desperate for people to understand the horror that he experiencedâbut CC!Tommy needs to make money, on a platform where honest discussion of suicide and abuse can jeopardize that. His video editing doesnât match his character, even in what is hidden: it contradicts it, and can only be understood by looking past the video to the society that created it.
Conclusion
Edited videos have major benefits over VODs or unedited recordings. Most obviously, they are (usually) shorter. They are easily accessible, without requiring knowledge of fan archives or the availability to show up whenever a creator goes live. Theyâre more dense, without including time spent mining in silence or more âOOCâ hanging out with chat. They tell a story deliberately, with musical cues, editing, and voiceover in order to present a clear and legible narrative. As a result, most viewers (especially more casual viewers) will watch MCYT through edited videos. Yet almost all of these improvements are also changes to how a viewer will understand the story. The size of these changes and the motives behind them can vary between creators and servers, but they will always exist, and if you are a more dedicated fan of MCYT itâs worth thinking seriously about these changes. Looking at what your favorite creator leaves in and what they cut from their videos may give you a new perspective on their character, on what you consider to be canon to their series, or even on society as a whole.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Minecraft roleplay is an under-studied medium in academia. This essay, as a part of the MCYT Metazine, looks into the presence (or lackthereof) of Minecraft YouTube, and, in particular, Minecraft roleplay, in professionally-published academic papers.
hey!! now that the weekâs up, iâve posted my piece from the @mcytmetazine officially on ao3! if you want to read all about the presence of mcrp in academia, check it out!! spoilers: there isnât a lot, but what there is is pretty damn cool
[Meta] Keeping Things Platonic: in Conversation with DSMP Authors
If you search the entire Dream SMP tag today, 8 of the top relationships are â&â, with the first 6 tags being platonic and the 7th being no romantic relationships. Entire events with thousands of works posted have taken place with an incredibly high proportion of works being Gen. At the time of writing there are 1,393 works that are tagged with MCYT Fic Fight (Archive of Our Own, 2025), a popular writing event based on Art Fight where teams âattackâ other participants by writing fics for their prompts, and 1,111 of them are categorized as Gen. Thatâs 80% platonic. An analysis of a similarly large fandom with teenage protagonists and a young fanbaseâćăźăăŒăăŒăąă«ăăăą | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga)âshows 75,978 of 365,212 works are tagged Gen, or 21% of the whole fandom. Dream SMPâs 44,152 Gen works out of 89,155 is sitting at a cool 50% of the entire fandom.
Why was the fandom so focused on platonic relationships, and how did that impact the fandom space? I spoke to a number of writers about their experiences in the Dream SMP fandom and the romantic/platonic divide.
Status: 14/14 chapters, updated 29 November, 16,198 words
And it's time, I get to post my piece from @mcytmetazine! This was a doozy of a task that I had so much fun withâI interviewed 13 writers and had a wonderful time pulling their words together into a (hopefully) cohesive whole. Let's talk about platonic and romantic tropes in this fandom!
The first chapter of this piece is my zine piece, at about 2.5k words, and the rest is the body of the interviews people generously had with me! Thank you so much to the authors who spoke with me:Â chryzzalism, Beans_McGee, Odaigahara, bonesandthebees, sircantus, Anarchy_and_Piglins, Floristkills, Anchestor, Honeyblock, Catinthevoid, Katricia, Mackdizzy, and Wanderbird. While I wasn't able to include all the interesting points everyone brought up (the zine had a maximum word count limit, alas), I had a wonderful time speaking to everyone and really appreciate the time and care people brought to this topic.
In the final interview of this series, we sit down with Lee, one of the talented artists in this zine (with answers performed by voice actor Jae). Check it out to hear about her artistic process and the reasoning behind some of her design decisions in this piece!
In this interview, we talk to analyst Frostbyte Freeman about his piece concerning Whitepine as analysed through the Langerian lens. Tune in to hear about his approach to this piece and some further discussion surrounding its topics!
In this video, Fallguy sits down with artist AvivaKitty to talk about eir piece, which accompanies Eagle's essay on Hermitcraft Season 8 and
Interview #16 - AvivaKitty
Today's second interview features artist AvivaKitty, who created a piece around the concept of Hermitcraft and Empires' different apocalypses. Tune in to hear about her process and design choices for this zine!
In today's first interview, we sit down with analyst Eagle to discuss their piece on the contrasting apocalyptic endings of Hermitcraft SMP Season 8 and Empires SMP Season 1. Check it out for some insight on this piece and its background!
In the second interview of the day, we sit down and chat with Zephyr, one of our fantastic artists (with answers read out by our VA, Jae). Check it out to hear about his piece for this zine and the approach he took to creating it!
In our first interview today, we sit down with one of our wonderful analysts, Woosh. Tune in to hear about their piece on Evbo's role as a passive protagonist in the Parkour Civilisation series!
