Content warning/Trigger warning: This page will talk about domestic abuse and doxxing. If that makes you uncomfortable, please head back.
Sometime in the summer/autumn of 2021, a different twitter account started gaining traction. It was replying to Dream's tweets, specifically like they knew more than they were letting on, or as if they were close friends. Now, parasocial fans of Dream was no new concept, and for the most part, Dream would ignore them and use their replies and likes to boost his own tweets and ego.
But this account was different. Dream paid a special attention to them, pulling them from the parasocial ranks to give them a platform of sorts. It wasn't long that the super-parasocial Dream fans realized that this one account was being treated differently.
The account was named Manatreed, someone claiming to be an up-and-coming faceless content creator focusing on making Minecraft content. The only problem was, they had no videos on their youtube channel, no TikTok, they didn't stream anything on Twitch, no content of theirs was online anywhere. Their most active account was their Twitter, which seemed awfully focused on Dream's tweets, replying to them with cryptic messages and an almost I-know-more-than-you vibe.
It was weird even for parasocial fans trying to ride the success of Dream and the DreamSMP.
And then Dream started interacting with Manatreed. Replying back in the same sort of sing-songy way, almost taunting the audience and knowing what kind of reaction he would cause.
Notably, the fandom exploded overnight, trying to figure out who this figure was. All that the public knew was that he was some sort of content creator, just with no content. All of his accounts were brand-new, too, created within 2021. There were no other linked socials or old channels, which led to people theorizing as to who the person behind Manatreed was.
The leading theory at the time was that this was somehow connected to Dream, if not Dream himself. People were timing the replies between Manatreed and Dream, pointing out that they either had to be in the same room, or have notifications on for each other in order to reply that quickly. But why would Dream have notifications on for a random twitter user who claimed to be a content creator despite no content?
He either knew this person in real life, or Manatreed was Dream himself on a different account, swapping back and forth between the two.
However, there was a small chance that this was a legit content creator who recently rebranded after Dream was made aware of him. Dream could have already agreed to invite this creator onto the Dream SMP, but the creator wanted to launch his rebrand first and start with a fresh clean slate. This whole back-and-forth thing was to simply generate hype so that it didn't look like Dream was directly creating an industry plant. Around the same time, Dream announced a "contest" to invite smaller creators to the platform, to boost them into the superstars that the Minecraft server had already made the other members. Of course Manatreed submitted an application (just replying to Dream's tweet) with a wink, futher giving evidence that he was the one who was going to "win" the contest.
This ended up being true, however, and instead of facing the public's outrage, Dream then legitimized the contest and invited Jikishi (see here).
Since the contest kind of proved that Manatreed and Dream were somewhat linked together, it only strengthened the first theory, that Manatreed was Dream. The fandom ran wild with this theory, digging more and more into trying to prove it correct or false, until Manatreed uploaded two photos.
The fandom exploded, trying to analyze everything they could from these photos. They were looking at the chin line, at the bit of skin peeking under the gloves, to what kind of clothes he was wearing, everything. Some people tacked this onto the first theory, that this whole Manatreed account was Dream's way of softlaunching a face reveal. That only added fuel to the fire.
Despite literally no evidence, this was the leading theory, and jumpstarting all of Manatreed's accounts to thousands of followers and subscribers despite literally zero content.
In late Nov 2021, Manatreed confirmed on twitter that he was in fact Dream, only to reply with a /j afterwards. Dream liked the tweet, furthering the theory and amping it up even more. Manatreed at this point was not even vying for Dream's attention, he was full-on impersonating Dream with Dream's approval. There was definitely something fishy going on. At some point, even George and Sapnap were replying to Manatreed's tweets.
Manatreed finally promised that he was going to stream. Conviniently, he was also invited to the Dream SMP, and his debute stream would be his joining the server stream.
On January 28th, 2022, Manatreed joined the DreamSMP offstream, only to cameo and show up in one of George's streams. He did not speak, and he did not do anything to prove whether or not he was actually Dream.
The Manatreed twitch account went live for the first time to at least 200,000 people. Manatreed silently joins the dsmp server and waits until both Sapnap and Dream find him to show him around. Only then does Manatreed speak for the first time, to ask Dream how to configure his twitch settings, and proving that he is not Dream at all, in fact. Manatreed is just some random guy.
However, people are very quick to pick up on literally anything that Manatreed gives them, comparing his word usage to Dream's, and how they talk to each other. The general consensus is that this is someone who knows Dream and Sapnap very well, probably in real life. Some even speculate that this could be Dream's boyfriend.
But the stream is pretty basic, just a tour of the server and a promise to play tomorrow.
But there is no way that Manatreed is Dream anymore, especially with a new photo he's posted to twitter.
With a confirmed photo of Manatreed (in hind-sight, the first set looks awfully lot like Dream starred in them), the scum of twitter was quick to find out as much as they could about his guy, especially his connection to Dream. One website known for spreading doxxed information found a link between him, a legal name, and an arrest report. Allegedly, Manatreed was arrested for domestic abuse sometime before 2020, confirmed with a leaked legal name and matching the mugshot to the second Manatreed photo.
In an instant, the rumor spread like wildfire, to the point that Manatreed himself got found out trying to defend himself on the doxxing website. He tried to defend himself on twitter to no success.
Dream made an announcement, explaining that he had been friends with Manatreed since they were very young but had fallen out of contact. When Manatreed approached him asking if he could become a content creator and play on the dsmp, Dream agreed, willing to do anything for an old friend. He didn't know that Manatreed had allegedly abused his wife and was arrested for it, only that Manatreed was down on his luck for a bit and Dream gave him a place to stay in the meantime. Dream removed Manatreed from the Dream SMP, and would never speak about him again.
Overnight, Manatreed's internet presence vanished, with one small request several months later. That he had a new family now, and he would like to be left alone.
While he technically was a Dream SMP member and did stream on the server, most did not and do not consider him a member of the Dream SMP, deleting all mention of him everywhere much like they did with Jikishi.