On the 13th of October 2025, a mere two days before I turned 20, a friend sent me a link as I lay in bed doom scrolling my brain away. The link took me to the video that would send those who live on the internet reeling.
In the video titled ‘Are Dan and Phil in a Relationship? The Truth’, the internet icons officially confirmed their sixteen-year long romantic relationship to the public. The video also involved discussion of reasons for keeping their relationship private, and dealing with constant speculation since beginning their careers on Youtube in the late 2000s.
My friend texted: ‘Phork found in kitchen’.
I let out a small chuckle (exhale through the nose, the epitome of laughter), because, well – I agreed. To I’m sure a few people’s disappointment I was not surprised at the confirmation. I had quietly assumed to myself, since both Dan and Phil’s individual coming out videos in 2019, that two queer men who barely went outside and liked each other’s company more, who on video referred to each other as ‘more than friends’ and ‘soulmates’, were perhaps, perhaps(!), in a relationship, and just didn’t want to tell people outright.
Context is the gift that forever keeps giving! For those who can see it.
Scrolling the internet after watching the 45-minute video was… an interesting experience. For once in my life, defined and in many ways dedicated to fandom culture, I found myself detached from the initial excitement flooding online. And this is not to say I am not endlessly supportive of the two’s decision to finally let their fans, and the public, know something that's been the subject of generational speculation. I am not heartless; I too found myself smiling with warmth at discussions about how beautiful it is that two people who could have been so easily torn apart by years of internet pressure continued to choose each other. Even the meme that quickly spawned from the excitement, taking a picture from any time since the two originally starting posting in 2009 to now with the caption ‘they were in love here’, was a heartfelt reaction to the parasocial relationship phans have had with Dan and Phil since the beginning.
Dan Howell and Phil Lester, courtesy of Junkee
However, my devil’s advocate reaction quickly kicked in like a knee jerk.
Like I mentioned, I did not share the same jumping for joy feeling that the rest of the phans were expressing online. It was more akin to confusion or even a slight lack of care. I am a Dan and Phil fan, that is no doubt, especially to my friends whose ears I’ve talked off about them. But I couldn’t find it in myself to be as excited as everyone else. It brought me back to a similar feeling I had around a year ago.
In early February last year, I went to go see Dan and Phil on their Terrible Influence tour in Glasgow. This was truly an indulgence for the younger me who had missed The Amazing Tour is Not on Fire in 2014, Interactive Introverts in 2018 and Dan’s solo We’re All Doomed comedy tour in 2022. Finally, at the fresh age of 19 in 2025, I could go see two people who had defined a large part of my love for the internet and my childhood.
And in a terrible shock to me, in a feat I did not think I could achieve – I realised that I felt old when waiting at the venue amongst budding fans. I was there with another friend of mine who was the same age, casually walking to the show after a quick stop at a Wetherspoons a couple blocks down. Nothing like a double vodka and coke to get you prepared to see your childhood idols. When walking to the venue, I was expecting to be in the younger demographic of the audience – Dan and Phil have joked since coming back from their hiatus that we’re all ‘old and gay now’, making reference to their (lesbian) millennial audience. You could imagine my shock then, when I was met with a gaggle of younger girls who must have been no older than 15. All donned in black spiky eyeliner, platform doc martens and hoodies, at first I felt boring in my silk purple tank top and old. But what curled inside of me the most was a feeling of massive internal cringe.
It was an ironic feeling to hold when I was myself attending the show to fulfill a need for my younger self, but it dawned on me when sitting in King’s Theatre that evening that who I was really shying away from was a mere reflection of my younger days. The younger fans were louder, more expressive, excitedly giggling to such a volume I found myself literally shrinking into my seat, painfully cringing as I waited for the show to start.
This cringe, whilst likely revealing something about my deeper psyche, does have some justification. Growing up watching Dan and Phil, I was the rare someone who never engaged in the shipping discourse, perhaps due in part to either being more interested in other fandoms or my genuine confusion as to the ethics of shipping two real life people together to such an intensity. I was more than happy to watch two men enjoy each other’s company, who were subconsciously breaking certain expectations of masculinity, playing video games and telling anecdotes. The flood of videos and posts I used to see online of the speculation about the two’s relationship always made me uncomfortable, and I never sought to engage in the fandom beyond the surface level parasocial relationship you might develop with any internet personality.
As I’ve grown up (and away) from Dan and Phil, I found myself departing from the attachments I had to them in the past – a consequence of both growing up and the disillusionment with content creators as they increasingly found themselves in scandals. My lack of engagement essentially meant I hardly interacted with anyone within the fandom itself. So when the night at the venue arrived, I finally got a glimpse back into the manifestation of stan culture, especially the cult following around Dan and Phil I had left behind.
From what I can remember of it myself, alongside watching some videos detailing the history of the fandom, there’s always been a culture of questioning the two’s relationship, from invasive speculation in person and online, to fanfics and even stalkings. Whilst most of the fandom does not condone the extreme side of fan behaviour, much of the more normalised invasive questioning always made me slightly ashamed of associating myself with the community. The obsessive nature that I did secretly harbour with Dan and Phil was, however, on full display with those young girls loudly expressing their excitement at the show.
The levels of cringe I was experiencing didn’t ultimately stop me from enjoying the show, but it did force me to reflect inwardly for a good while after the show ended. Perhaps it is time I grew up. In their relationship reveal video, Dan and Phil express to their viewers their understanding of fandom culture whilst also setting boundaries, acknowledging that a lot of their audience were young people who didn’t know how to act level-headed on the internet, and ultimately forgiving them for previous invasive behaviour. I just hoped, I remember thinking when watching the video, that people would still take into account the boundaries they set.
It may be safe to say that I have grown a little since cringing at 15-year-old girls just trying to have a good time, perhaps even ‘embracing’ the cringe. If my excitement for every new podcast episode Dan and Phil release is anything to go by, you could say I’ve grown up, just a little bit.