Minecraft YouTuber Dream SMP Flag Spotted At Anti-Vax Rally

Photo: Peter Summers / Stringer (Getty Images)

Today in London, a large rally was held as part of a series of global rallies against masks, vaccine passports and lockdowns. And for some reason, someone at Saturday’s event was spotted waving a flag connected to a popular Minecraft RPG server.

The appearance of the flag, which was proudly waved in a viral video, then sparked a trending topic on Twitter around “L’manbourg”. Funny thing: The Manburg is a fake in-game nation that started on the popular Dream SMP Minecraft server. Whoops !

Dream is a very popular Minecraft speedrunner with over 24 million subscribers on the platform. It’s not just that he’s a big YouTuber who is now pretty much the face of video games on the platform. Part of what makes it so remarkable is that its subscriber base has exploded exponentially over the course of about a year. Known for his “Minecraft Manhunt” videos which garner tens of millions of views, he is often seen trying to beat the game as quickly as possible while other players attempt to kill him.

Dream, along with other popular Minecraft content creators and streamers, is part of a big role-playing game server named SMP dream. He owns the server and helps maintain it, helping fans through various user-created scenarios. This server is filled with many characters, alliances, and factions that make up what is basically a fictional society. One of these factions is called L’manburg. Here’s how the Dream SMP wiki describes it:

The Manburg, was an independent nation-state in the SMP dream. She declared her independence from the Big Dream SMP on July 29, 2020 and gained independence after Dream Team SMP vs. L’Manberg War on August 2, 2020. It was reformed into Manberg on September 22, 2020, but was restored on November 16, 2020. It was destroyed and permanently dissolved on January 6, 2021.

According to the wiki, this was one of the few factions / nations on the server to have its own flag and national anthem. Although he no longer exists, fans still care enough to have made him physically real. This brings us to the person seen waving around a flag for this bogus country at a rally that, ironically, focuses on bogus and misinformation about vaccines.

How does something like this happen? It is possible that the person seen with the L’manburg flag at the rally was a troll, there just to play a joke or make the people at the rally look stupid. But it is also possible that it was an accident.

A quick Internet search for “Freedom Flag” indeed brings the flag of Manchester to the very top of the results page. The result represents[["Commerce","kotaku – Someone Brought A Dream SMP <i>Minecraft</i> Flag To An Anti-Vax Rally","B08RYFGMLP"]]”href =” https://www.amazon.com/SHELLBOBO-Lmanburg-Dream-Lmanberg-Freedom/dp/B08RYFGMLP?ascsubtag=6a705688d39f984ec553d37f8c9cf4b36eb2b17a&tag= “asinak R blankYank targetGzn17a&tag=-20” 20 “blankYank-dataFamz =” -ama -amazontag = “kotakuamzn-20” data-amazonsubtag = “[t|link[p|1847356377[a|B08RYFGMLP[au|1197143478[b|kotaku[lt|text”>an Amazon page for the flag up for sale. This listing doesn’t mention Minecraft or video games anywhere in the top section. It also only costs $9, with free Prime shipping. What a deal!

Screenshot: Amazon / Kotaku

That was the theory launched on Twitter by former (?) Kotaku reporter Nathan Grayson.

There is a true flag of freedom that is not about a video game. It was created by a man in Virginia in 2001, after the September 11 attacks in the United States. This flag of freedom is believed to be a symbol that honors and remembers the many victims of this tragic terrorist attack. It is possible that the person waving this Minecraft flag intended to purchase this darker and symbolic flag.

All of these details, plus the fact that the flag was waved with a Trump flag, meant that it quickly went viral. While video game flags or emblems are regularly spotted at things like demonstrations, there is usually a clear link between the two. Perhaps, for example, the video game represents a value similar to the event. But in this case, there are only theories.

Some note that the the person holding the flag appeared to be an older person nobody, which can easily fuel the narrative that everything was an accident. But age doesn’t stop you from playing Minecraft, of course. We are in 2021. Anything is really possible.

Kotaku contacted YouTuber Wilbur’s Soot, the creator of the L’manbourg flag and a general history nerd. At one point, he wrote a surprisingly detailed explanation behind the design and meaning of the flag of L’manbourg on Reddit back in December 2020.

As for Dream, he is infamous ended up in hot water in June after a group of moderators and speedrun personalities came together to post a long article, complete with complex numbers and math, explaining why Dream was likely to cheat to win Minecraft records. While he initially denied it – and even hired a mathematician to refute the claims – he then admitted the truth. Despite this controversy, however, his videos and channel are still hugely popular.

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