Let’s cast our minds back to 2018. It was the 12th of May and I was sat in Edinburgh’s Usher
Hall watching Dan and Phil take their last bow. They were touring with their latest stage show
“Interactive Introverts” where they promised they’d be giving the people what they want:
swearing, cool set designs and dancing about on stage. After riding the high of the tour, they
posted a handful of videos and then they disappeared from our screens. For anyone who
somehow hasn’t heard of Dan and Phil, they are a comedy duo who used to post gaming videos
together and have their own platforms where they’d post short form content, primarily with
stories from their lives. After the hiatus began I moved on with my life. Phil still posted
occasionally but it felt as though he was a little lost without his other half and I discovered new
interests and grew up essentially. Although in retrospect it sounded like the duo couldn’t
healthily continue, it still felt like a devastating end of an era.
Around a month or two before my 20th birthday I started to grow quite existential. I was looking
at my life laid out in front of me and wondering what the future held for me. Then, on the 15th
of October I got a notification where the duo announced that the hiatus was officially over. “Dan
and Phil are back? I’m probably a little old to watch them again. I’ve just changed too much, I
might not even find them funny anymore”. They began to post regularly again but in the five
year gap of their absence something interesting happened. Their entire audience grew up and
then returned all at once: myself included.
Now that I’m officially a totally grown up and certified adult, I can’t help but feel a little
ashamed of watching Dan and Phil. They were a huge part of my teens and I’m a different
person now! Surely I should be drinking tea and buying lots of ikea furniture, not cozying up and
watching two millennials play virtual golf. When I needed a break from school I always went
straight to YouTube where I could zone out with a little community of avid fans. I used to watch
a vast variety of creators but since then so many of them have disappeared, been cancelled or
grown up themselves. Part of the issue with celebrity culture is that you can become so para
socially attached to someone without ever having met them! When we look at cases like
Chappell Roan we can see fans believing they have a right to public figures’ space and personal
information. This was somewhat the case with Dan and Phil: I remember at the time that so many people speculated on their relationship to the point that it made them both clearly uncomfortable. They couldn’t be authentic when everyone was watching their every move. I can say quite confidently that it feels like there’s more of an online community with their re-emergence and it’s openly spoken about how nuts things were back in the old days. It’s also sort of healing in a way to return to something that made me so happy in my teens and continually does to this day.
I felt the need to write this article as they announced last year that they were touring once again.
The Terrible Influence tour came to Glasgow on the 4th of February and I knew that I owed it to
myself to see them one more time. I saw so many people around the city wearing their
merchandise and it felt like a proper community had arrived. I sat down to their show with one
of my friends and promptly teared up as soon as they walked on stage. At the beginning the
show did feel a little scripted but the duo loosened up as the night continued. The real treat
came in the second half when the audience were asked to make a confession to Dan and Phil. I
mindlessly popped one into their website knowing they’d never pick it in a million years. So you
can imagine my shock when I was sat in a tiny theater seat staring in awe at the stage as they
read out my confession to a room of titillated fans. I laughed, cried and overall had an amazing
night.
The show was a thorough recollection of what has happened and what was to come next. The
pair explored the influences they had on their community and how much responsibility they
truly held for their fan base. Were they terrible influences? Of course not! I left the Kings Theatre a little crestfallen that the show was over but so happy to have experienced it. It felt truly like cyclical structure to be rediscovering something that made me so happy at 14 years old and the feeling of having grown up with them. I will always hold them both in the highest regard and will forever be grateful for the joy they’ve brought me.