Daniel Middleton

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Daniel Middleton (born November 8, 1991) is an English personality and professional gamer who goes by the handle The Diamond Minecart or DanTDM. His online video channels have covered video games, especially Minecraft. As of August 2017, he has over 10 billion views and 16 million subscribers. He has been listed as among the top 25 YouTube channels in the United Kingdom. In 2014, Business Insider estimated Middleton's annual income was between $213,000 and $2.15 million. In July 2015, his channel was listed as one of the most popular YouTubers in the world by viewership, gaining nearly 400 million views in that month alone. He has earned several Kids' Choice Awards as well as set Guinness World Records for his gaming and presenting.

BIOGRAPHY

Dan was born on November 8th, 1991 in Aldershot, England, United Kingdom as the oldest of two siblings. His parents divorced when he was a child. He attended The University of Northampton and started a channel in 2010 dedicated to the Pokemon while in he's in university, which he called himself PokemanDanLv45.

In 2012, Dan created a YouTube channel named The Diamond Minecart, a gaming channel whose audience consists of mostly children aged from 5-10. Due to an increasing amount of fake channels by the same name of his, Dan changed his channel name to TheDiamondMinecart//DanTDM. But on December 12, 2016, he decided to change his channel name again to just DanTDM. He then said that he thinks the new name was better than the older one because it was "awfully long". He produces videos out of his home studio in Wellingborough. In an interview with The Big Issue, Dan describes his process in making videos: he gets up around 9:00 AM and starts working on a video an hour later. He checks for Minecraft updates, edits the videos in the afternoon, and uploads the finished product at 8:30 PM, after which he checks for comments. He said "There isn't another game where free content comes out everyday made by fans, some of it is mind blowing". On weekends, he prepares videos in advance. In addition to Let's Play videos, he also makes mini movies that involves original characters.

Dan has uploaded a total of more than 2,500 videos and is still increasing daily. He is known for his daily reviews as well as several Let's Play series including The Diamond Dimensions, a modpack put together by Dan himself as well as Minecraft Xbox One, where he attempted to build a giant kingdom in survival, Crazy Craft, started by Thinknoodles (Justin) and played by Thnxcya (James), Dan and Thinknoodles, which is the newest collab series since Pixelmon, etc. He also makes vlogs, that he uploads occasionally on his second channel, MoreTDM (which is now inactive.) He also does videos featuring his pesky villager friend Dr. Trayaurus, which Trayaurus is shown doing his pesky tasks (ie. sending Dan to prehistoric ages, shrinking Dan to a small size and making him go inside to inspect a chicken). He started a Mini Challenge series where he and Dr. Trayaurus competed against each other in "Dr. Trayaurus' Challenge Colosseum". He also started Custom Mod Adventures, where Dan uses the mod and makes a story out of it. Dan is married to Jemma Middleton and they used to do videos together (e.g Husband vs. Wife Survival and Husband vs. Wife mini-games). Dan and Jemma also own three pugs, Ellie, Darcie and Peggy. So far, it's only known that Ellie is two years old and Darcie is one year old. Peggy's age is unknown but it is believed she is around 5 or 6. Dan has also fostered multiple pugs until they gained owners.

He is a regular guest at Insomnia gaming festival, where he appeared on the big stages in editions 49, 52 and 53. Dan won two Kid's Choice Awards in 2015 and 2016 and most likely for 2017 for the UK Tipster Award and also won an Bonca Award for the British Gamer Award, and also was an award presenter the Bafta Game Awards 2015, and he also holds a world record in Rocket League for scoring the most goals in 'rookie' mode on 2v2 multiplayer and a world record for the most views for a dedicated Minecraft video channel. He was featured twice on CBBC's Technobabble where he commented on several video games, and once on ITV's Lorraine. Dan also broke his hand on September 28, 2015. On November 3, 2016, he announced that we will voice the character "Cy" in the new Netflix exclusive series, Skylanders Academy. His character will also become a playable one in the new game, Skylanders Imaginators.

He released a graphic novel called: Trayaurus and the Enchanted Crystal on October 6, 2016. The graphic novel features characters from his channel including Grim the skeleton dog, Dr. Trayaurus, evil lab boss Denton and sidekick Fin. His book made it up to 2nd in bestseller in the US charts and made it up to 1st for several weeks in the UK charts. He was a featured guest at the Cheltenham Literature Festival and has planned a book tour that included parts in the UK and a visit to New York City.

In 2017, Dan had gone to another tour to the United States for 21 venues. He also has a YouTube Red Series known as DanTDM Creates a Big Scene. DanTDM Creates a Big Scene follows DanTDM and his group of animated friends as they battle to keep their live show on the road. Each episode catches their behind-the-scenes exploits as they learn skills, overcome challenges and face impossible odds. Along the way, they find that putting on an epic show isn't as easy as it looks.

PERSONAL LIFE

In June 2013, when his channel exceeded 100,000 subscribers, he posted a video showing his real life self for the first time, thanking the fans and announcing plans to create video blogs about his real life. The channel was called MoreTDM, in which he posts videos about his daily "Non-Minecraft" life.

Dan married his girlfriend Jemma on March 17, 2013, who also plays Minecraft. When the channel exceeded one million subscribers on December 10 2013, Dan uploaded a Draw My Life video, explaining many personal things about himself.

HAIR

Dan is most notable because of his hair which most people define it as "crazy". Dan continuously likes to dye his hair a number of colours, some of these colours include Blonde, Turquoise, Light Blue and Pink. Dan has mentioned that "when I was younger I dyed my hair like every colour of the rainbow."

BROWN

The brown hair is the hair which he was born with. In his earlier videos you can see Dan with this hair.

BROWN to BLONDE

The first hair colour change was when's Dan dyed his hair blonde on December 9th 2015, he dyed his hair blonde so that he could get the desired blue hair he wanted. After dying his hair blonde, he said that he liked the hair blonde but this colour only lasted a day as he had to put blue dye over it to make it blue.

BLONDE to TURQUOISE

The next hair colour took place a day after he dyed his hair to blonde on December 10th 2015. Dan meant to dye his hair blue but it turned turquoise instead.

TURQUOISE to LIGHT BLUE

Dan dyed his hair light blue on December 18th 2015. This time, to ensure blue and not turquoise, Dan mixed purple and blue dye together.

LIGHT BLUE to DARK BLUE

This hair colour change was the first and only time that Dan went to a salon to get his hair dyed instead of doing it himself. This hair colour change took place on March 2nd 2016. During this time, Dan also changed his hair style to more of a brushed over look.

DARK BLUE to NAVY BLUE

This hair change took place on March 16, 2017 but Dan uploaded the video on the hair 3 days later on Match 19, 2017. In the video he talks about how horrible and messed up his hair is, so he says that he is gonna get his hair fix in 45 minutes. So in within those 45 minutes Dan uses Photoshop to see what he kind of hair he could put and see if he can pull it off. After his hair appontment, he came back with hair which was dyed navy blue and he now goes for a new hair style where he swooshes his hair up more.

NAVY BLUE to PURPLE

Dan posted a like goal on Twitter saying that if he hit the goal of 3,000 likes he would mix pink dye with blue dye and dye his hair whatever colour he made. To his surprise, he hit the like goal and 15 minutes later his hair was purple! This change took place on July 29th 2017.

PURPLE to BLONDE

On August 26, 2017 Dan uploaded a video stating that he wanted to re-dye his hair pink and blue as last time he didn't achieve what he was going for. This time he dyed his hair blonde by a professional and then tried to dye his hair pink and blue on his own.

BLONDE to PINK and BLUE

On August 26, 2017 he uploaded a video where he dyed his hair blonde by a professional. After his hair was dyed blonde, he dyed his hair pink and blue again just as he did on July 29 2017, but as this time he dyed his hair blonde before putting the pink and blue on. Then, he finally achieved the look he was going for.

TATTOOS

Even though Dan has a young fan base of kids who consideres Dan as a good role model to them, this doesn't stop him from leading his life in whatever direction he wants to and getting tattoos. As of now he has a total of 8 known tattoos. According to Dan he think tattoos are a form of art and aren't for everyone, but he personally loves them.

ENDERMAN TATTOO

This tattoo took about 4.5 hours to do. This minecraft tattoo consists of a Minecraft Enderman holding a red Play Button. The tattoo is made in a water colour style. Dan uploaded the video about the tattoo on his second channel MoreTDM on September 7th, 2015.

WITHER SKELETON and GHAST TATTOO

Dan did not make a video about the tattoo but he made a tweet about the tattoo on May 30, 2017. This tattoo is an extension to the his previous tattoo. Along side the Enderman now there is a Ghast and a Wither Skeleton holding a diamond in a background which looks like the Nether.

FLOWER OF LIFE TATTOO (SEMPITERNAL - BRING ME THE HORIZON ALBUM FLOWER DESIGN)

On December 6th, 2016 Dan made a tweet showcasing another extension to his Minecraft tattoos. This tattoo consists of a flower design which the band Bring Me The Horizon used on their fourth studio album Sempiternal. He most likely made the tattoo because Bring Me The Horizon is one of his favourite band. The day after on December 7th, 2016 he uploaded the video on the tattoo.

D.E.P TATTOO

Dan go this tattoo at a place called Authentink Studion while he was at Sydney by a women named Sarah. He tweeted about it on January 21, 2017. On the same day, he uploaded the video about the tattoo. The tattoo consists of a pug with a hat which says D.E.P, which is the initials of his 3 pugs, Darcie, Ellie and Peggy.

SPACE TATTOO

On April 19, 2017, Dan made tweet showcasing a tattoo next to his D.E.P pug tattoo. This tattoo consists of a UFO, a couple of stars and a crescent moon. Dan did not upload a video on this tattoo but he rather tweeted about it on Twitter. The tattoo was done for Dan by a man named Chris who was working at the KingsAveTattoo in New York City.

SKELETON TATTOO

Most of Dan's fans don't know that Dan have this tattoo. This tattoo was not revealed in a video on YouTube or from a tweet on Twitter, and if you try searching about this on Google, this would also be almost impossible to find as you have to scroll countless amounts of pages to find this. But if you scroll on Instagram for a bit, you will stumble upon a Instagram video which Dan uploaded on June 4, 2017 showcasing what seems to be a skeleton with a crown.

DOGS

Dan has gotten many dogs. These are a few notable ones.

Grim: A skeleton dog in his Mod Showcases.

Casper: A dog that was almost turned into food by Boris in Xbox.

Minor Dogs named Oliver and Olivia: Dan's other dogs in Xbox.

Hunter and Lexi: His dogs from Minecraft PE.

Dog: Name of Dan's dog in his modded survival. Sadly died since Dan didn't have time to heal him.

Unnamed dog: This dog is from his Diamond Dimension series he used in the Twilight forest to explore a labyrinth. Dan sadly killed him by accident while trying to kill another mob.

Widget: Dan's dog in whitelisted pixel core server (an ended series) which he got as reward. Darcie and Ellie: His dogs in real life, otherwise known as "the pugs".

Hugo. A pug Dan and Jemma had fostered until he got an owner.

Dennis: A dog Dan has in the Diamond Dimensions modpack survival Let's Play.

Peggy: A third pug Dan and Jemma found wandering in the snow and rescued it. Jemma replied to a fan on Twitter when they asked what the pug's name was and she replied, 'Her name is Peggy.' Peggy also has a condition called syringomyelia, where her skull is too small and fluids press on her spine.

BOOKS

In mid 2016, Dan released a fully fledged graphic novel titled Trayaurus And The Enchanted Crystal. It hit No.1 in book charts in the USA and UK. It was also the New York Times' book of the month for July that year. He also went on a book signing tour. In December that year, Dan also released a book-based 2017 diary.