I love Dan and Phil, I've been watching them since I was like, in 5th grade. I remember the first Dan and Phil video I ever watched. I was on my aunt's desktop, I think, and I watched a lot of Annoying Orange and Fred and other early youtube stuff. Then I saw reccommended "How To Speak Internet" and I was obsessed with the internet and with cool forum speak and knowing stuff about the internet, so I clicked on it. It was a Dan video and he had two twins on. It was such a fun video and I ended up looking at more of Dan's channel. And that's where everything started...
I had very fraught internet access early on, around like 2012 or so. It was very spotty and inconsistent and I didn't have a lot of time with any device. It was also really slow, and youtube would take a really long time to buffer any amount of any video. So the times I was able to watch Dan and Phil were sparce but I loved watching whenever I could, and considered myself a fan, for sure. I drew them on my converse. I drew so, so much phanart. My old sketchbooks are filled with them.
When I was in eighth grade, Dan and Phil were gonna go on their first tour, named after their book, The Amazing Book Is Not On Fire. The tour was shortened to TATINOF. It was one of the very few "big presents" of my childhood to be bought tickets to go see Dan and Phil. I went to see the tour and it was absolutely AMAZING to see Dan and Phil and person, and honestly seeing Tatinof made me want to be an even bigger Dan and Phil fan. That's when the hyperfixation Really kicked in. Also they had a table where people could give them things they make and I put in a Magikarp hat that I crocheted. In hindsight I coulda thought it through more but I still think the Magikarp hat was really cool.
I got better internet and got absolutely feral about Dan and Phil as I ended my time in middle school and started high school. I made watch lists and made the concerted effort to watch absolutely every single one of their videos. I had a list, and I checked them all off.
2017 started wrapping up and they announced another tour. I asked for tickets again and they got me a ticket. I was SO hype for it. Literally beyond hype. It was the biggest thing I could possibly look forward to, cause now I was crazy about Dan and Phil and knew it for SURE. I designed Sims costumes, I was planning, saving money for merch, I was so looking forward to it.
Something really bad happened to me and I missed the show. It was so devastating, in a new, terrible, confusing part of my life to lose that. It made me not want to watch Dan and Phil anymore because it hurt too hard.
I took a break for a while. My roommate in my new school in junior year had a Dan and Phil calendar, and I loved it, but I didn't have time to watch youtube anymore, and I stopped being such a big fan.
COVID ended up hitting, though. We were all inside all the time and very early on I broke enough to go back to Dan and Phil. I wasn't, and I am not, totally hyperfixated and obsessed with the full analytic power of a 14 year old autistic girl focused on Dan and Phil. But some part of that is definitely still there. I love Dan and Phil, I consider myself a Dan and Phil historian, and they will always be comfort to me. And we've gotten new content lately!!! And Dan came out and Phil did too!!! Honestly it has turned into such a good era for the phandom. It's really a lovely time to be a phannie.
Oh, and when I got clothes this weekend there was a dress that looked JUST like Phil's bedsheet pattern. Bought it on sight.