reminiscing on dan and phil's life story together always makes me feel insane because it sounds like the plot of a fanfic: two freakishly tall awkward british gays with matching emo haircuts. dan starts out as a fan of phil, phil encourages him to make his own videos after they start talking online. dan only started trying to get phil's attention online on his 18th birthday and within months they meet up irl, and the Q&A video they make together the first time they meet blows up. within a little over a year they are practically living together, then they are accidentally outed because of a freak YouTube glitch as well as fans discovering old posts. nevertheless they become pioneers in what YouTubers can do outside the platform itself - Radio Hosts/Celebrity Interviews/Touring Stage Shows/Books/Party Games/Disney Cameos. they eventually come out via a dan video essay with 12 million views. later they move in to their third place together, a luxury home they bought and designed with all the money they made over the years. then when Dan goes on a solo tour in 2022 they reveal they that they had never spent more than two weeks apart since 2009. And don't even get me started on the joint gaming channel or the cat whiskers...

BUT the wildest part, that knocks me out every time I remember, is how phil, who allegedly has psychic abilities passed on from his grandmother, used tarot cards in a video to predict that he would meet someone with personality traits that exactly match dan's, about three months before they ever began talking online. like. how is that a real sentence I just typed. do we live in a simulation.