#2012 phan

[thisdayindnphistory]

This Day in Dan & Phil History - June 25

2009 - dan shooting his shot

2012 - the boys go to the grand canyon while on their vegas holiday for Dan’s 21st 🥹

@danielhowell: well this canyon is rather grand.

2013 - dan's liveshow 💀

2014 - suitcase haul

2017 - stunning king

[babygirlphil]

I think we should go in the complete opposite direction and adamantly insist that their relationship is platonic until they hard launch out of spite and annoyance

[phanbear]

my therapist said its good for me to put myself out there and seek community so here I am :’)! even if I don’t find any friends on here I am using this as my social anxiety exposure therapy and learning to embrace my cringe. i’ve been a longtime lurker in the phandom and have always had a fear of posting on social media and generally being perceived, but have found such a kind and welcoming community even from my distance that I thought it might finally be time to start a blog where I actually post things , and maybe find connection along the way. so hi to anyone who took the time to read this!

[dnphan]

idk but the fact that dan and phil stayed together throughout all the internalized and externalized homophobia may be proof that soulmates exist. idk tho. correct me if i'm wrong.

[lavender-phannie]

poll for fun and cause im curious!

I MEANT TO WRITE 2012 OR EARLIER BUT I CANT EDIT THE POLL

anyway i couldnt fit all the years in so if you started watching before 2012 then leave the year in the tags :)

(if you became a fan and then took a break and then came back then choose the year you originally became a fan)

[amid-fandoms]

i feel like the people who are back in the phandom right now, no matter when they first joined, are the ones that will stick to dan and phil for life. there is something so comforting in coming back to a safe space like that, one that kept you going in previous years or saved you from yourself on many occasions, and somehow doubling down on it a second time, with their little 'we came back for you guys!' in reply to us coping once again because of them, is wonderful. it's not quite therapy and it's not quite a family, but it's close and it's a community that is literally driven primarily by love. everything else comes second

[blossoms-phan]

On a cute little date omggggg

yeah ;-; they’re adorable… or whatever… the parallel of this with the breakfast pholiday pic and others over the years makes me a little sick like. what do you mean they’ve shared countless meals like this over the years and still have little dates like this while on tour… chained together in life work and fun…

[2009phan]

no but seriously imagine it: dan proposes to phil at the devan wedding

[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.

[evermorepeyton]

Lol people were like this before their coming out finding all sorts of alternative explaination to very obvious homosexuals things

well yes but also they were closeted at the time and there had been instances of straight up denial from them so i get it i guess? but now it’s just insane they’re out and they’re too obvious for there to be any doubt at this point

[humanpeoples]

Found a gem

[afditlodap]

ayup lads has anyone made a timeline of dnp on bbc radio 1? just cause id like to see it all laid out, they did a lot of guest things before they actually got hired for their show!! and they started the actual show a lot later after moving to london than i had thought

[cactuslester]

“Don’t you get tired of over qualifying your words for random people on the internet” YES GOD SAY IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(context)

thank you anon! like i really feel this so hard because like i know we often can't help caring what other people think and can't help feeling like we need to overexplain ourselves for a myriad of reasons, some of them being that social media culture has bred such an environment of like constantly performing and being scrutinized and scrutinizing others to see who is saying exactly the right thing in exactly the right way, and it's like, of course it's always important to be aware and thoughtful about what we say and how we conduct ourselves, but really sometime the black and white mentality goes too far, and learning how to distance yourself and care less about what others think is honestly so vital to enjoying your internet experience and feeling free

and when it comes to the phandom and talking about dnp's relationship specifically, i think a lot of people (mostly outside of tumblr, i feel like most of us here Get It) are still stuck deep in that ~2012-2016 mindset. and like i get that era did a number on a lot of us, but dnp themselves have moved on, and we're allowed to move on too. like so many people on here have already said, it's perfectly natural to think dnp are in a relationship because, lbrh, they've made it pretty much as clear as they can make it without outright saying it. dnp are very aware of how we as a fandom operate and think and know that right now, they're existing in a space where they can be just short of being explicit about their relationship, such that those who actively keep up with their content Know What's Up, but it's not enough for any tabloid site to pick up and run an article on and get the public spotlight trained on them again. given that, i think it's fair for us to pick up what they put down, and anyone in the year 2024 jumping down people's throats for saying they're together just looks silly, and it's time that everyone who still cares about what those people say to just stop caring

[bestagons]

I love how Phil is using his Master's degree in video post-production to hire other people to do the post-production on his videos.

[locamotivednp]

I know I sound like a 2012 tumblrina everytime I say it but I wanna live in London 😔 I wanna go to dan and phil events 😔

[saturnisfallingdown]

what’s going on with dan and phil? did one of them just cone out?? i thought they were already gay?

HI NORA LMAOOOOOO . YEAH THIS MUST BE REALLY FUNNY FROM THE OUTSIDE ... but they are in fact already out and have been since 2019!!

the modern day context of what got them on the trending page of every social media at once is:

dan released a proshoot of his stand-up special (very good btw !!!) on youtube and it resulted in this exchange on twitter

[ID: A screenshot of Twitter, showing a tweet from Daniel Howell (@/danielhowell), linking to the We're All Doomed! Full comedy special, and saying "presenting my live theatrical comedy show that asks - when the world is this bad, should we all just give up and die? enjoy/sorry/thank you🧡". Phil Lester (@/AmazingPhil) quote retweets the post, reading "every time i see this it makes me laugh and cry at the same time until i’m a shaking mess on the floor. great show thanks danny!!". A reply from Daniel Howell reads "🧡". End ID]

fans went bananas because thats far more public sincerity than is normal from either of them. this led to your normal combo of "awe they support each other's creative projects so much 🧡" and "PHAN IS REAL ??" posting. this all exploded about 1000x over when this morning dan posted a screenshot of the whole interaction to his youtube community page just saying

[ID: A Youtube Community post from Daniel Howell, reading "gay" with a video link and attached screenshot of the previous twitter interaction. End ID]