Photo: Dan and Phil/YouTube
Picture this: it’s 2013, you’re locked into the family computer watching two British guys make silly faces on YouTube. You have a full face of King Kylie make-up on, and life is… It’s not great because you’re most likely in high school, but at least there’s the internet. Now, picture being a full-grown adult in the modern age, paying taxes and such, who can live in a world where YouTubers Dan Howell and Phil Lester confirm their decades-long rumored relationship after years of clickbaiting. Finally, we are free! The duo, who began their careers on YouTube in 2009 and 2006, directly address “Phan,” the ship given to them by fans who wanted them to be in a relationship, in a new video, giving them what they wanted just a decade later. “We fell into it hard and fast in 2009, and here we are almost 16 years later,” Howell shared, alongside their announcement of their official joint channel not centered on gaming.
Throughout their time on YouTube, a portion of their fanbase heavily speculated that the two were secretly dating to the point of invading their privacy. “This became so big, we could not ignore it,” Howell explained, with examples of “Phan proof” video compilations and comments sections being flooded. Howell basically Streisand effected the rumors even more by DMing Phan shippers to tell them to stop, only for his protest to be circulated even more, making shippers even more rabid. Lester laid it all out on a whiteboard with their biggest conspiracy moments, like the Valentine’s Day video (a glitched unprivated video that Lester made for Howell early in the relationship) or observations from past videos. “It’s a fucking hickey!!” Lester screams as he flashes back to an old video where it looks like he has one on his neck. Lester and Howell both didn’t want their relationship to be public for several reasons, like their fears that the viewers only cared about them dating over the content of their videos, and what might happen if they ever broke up. More importantly for Howell, he was not publicly out and felt huge anxiety if he ever shared his sexuality. Both Lester and Howell came out separately in videos in 2019, but did not confirm a relationship at the time. But they did buy a house together, so most fans put together the pieces, in a more normal way this time.
Just because Dan and Phil are fully out in the open with their relationship, doesn’t mean they want fans to reignite their cursed Tumblr pages. Howell concludes, “There’s still going to be boundaries.”
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