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| “ | What is up DramaAlert nation, I'm your host Killer Keemstar, leeeet's get right into the news! | ” |
―Keemstar's Intro | ||
Daniel Michael Keem (born: March 8, 1982),[1] better known online as Keemstar (formerly DJ Keemstar), is an American YouTuber and online news reporter best known for his DramaAlert channel.
He is also known as one of the founding members and hosts of the Baited Podcast. He is the founder of Minecraft Monday, a popular Minecraft competition comprising of many large creators, and Friday Fortnite, which is a popular Fortnite competition consisting of large Fortnite content creators. Friday Fortnite was introduced in May 2018, but was shut down quickly. The tournament did come back in 2019, but for only a brief period.
History
YouTube career
Daniel has possibly the most terminated accounts consisting of over a dozen terminated YouTube accounts, multiple Xbox Live gamer-tags banned, a suspended Twitter account, and as well as more accounts on various other websites.
In January 2009, Daniel got his start on his YouTube, after he was trolling while playing Halo 3. Fellow YouTuber DERANKER would upload his game session, which showed Daniel talking trash to other players (in which Daniel was doing so as a result of drinking hours prior). He was unaware of this until he received various messages about the video, learning it was on YouTube. The people who uploaded the video eventually contacted Daniel, asking him to be a part of their group channel called F.@.G. (The Federation of Asshole Gamers) to make Halo trolling videos.
Daniel received a Machinima contract offer months later to upload to their channel and become a director. His first upload to the channel gained him a lot of subs in one day to KeemStarNation and coincided with the birth of his daughter Mia and the death of Michael Jackson.
After Daniel got his channel's terminated due to the partnership controversy, he created a new channel HappyGriefday. In 2012, Daniel was given the Youtube channel TeamNoble which was a channel previously ran by Marko.[2]
In October 2012 he began using the XDJKEEMSTAR account, this channel would last until January 10, 2013, when it was terminated.
He created another YouTube channel, KillerKEEMSTAR where he briefly returned to trolling. That channel was then terminated in early 2014. In 2013 he also created another YouTube news channel, TheDramaAlert which also got terminated in early 2014. Daniel then created his fifth YouTube channel, FreeDramaAlert, which got terminated sometime in June 2014, leading to the creation of the NewDramaAlert channel which has remained since. It is unknown why the last two channels got terminated but it's possibly due to allegations related to his "toxicity" in the gaming community which eventually died down.
F.@.G.
F.@.G. (The Federation of Asshole Gamers) began in 2009. They uploaded their videos on a channel called HaloFuntage owned by 2Bucks. Daniel played multiple characters such as Sparkles the Gay Rapper and a Redneck.
In April 2009, Daniel and F@G broke the internet and the clan scene when he declared war on clan scene founding community KSI. The video was a call to arms, rallying Xbox Live to unite with his F@G to exterminate gaming clan KSI from the internet. Daniel got into a war with a UK trash-talker MarshyD13 and later F@G battled the group lead by him the Abuse Team. In 2010 there channel was terminated. The following month they made HALOAHOLES. To promote the new channel YouTubers helped out and upload F@G videos to their channels telling them to subscribe. 2Bucks uploaded a video Eternal Legacy months later which was basically his goodbye as he left the group. Their video How i did your sister went viral and hit 1 million views. The Xbox Live enforcement team started hampering down on Daniel banning his consoles.
By 2011 their content had slowed down ROBOT had gone back to military service and DERANKER was in between careers while Daniel was the only one left active. In September, their channel was terminated in occasion for selling partnerships. They made a brief reunion in 2012 following the release of Halo 4.
DramaAlert
DramaAlert was created when Daniel saw YouTubers fighting on Twitter in late 2012 and noticed the ridiculous popularity of videos discussing such topics. A earlier form was TMZxboxLIVE. This was featured on XDJKeemstar at first, where he would give his personal opinion on it, then later moved DramaAlert to a main account where he had the role as a news commentator and was passed on to many channels after each termination.
He would “Shoutcast“ it with the hashtag #DramaAlert, which people seemed to enjoy. One day he made a video about drama, which made the idea take off. Daniel created the first DramaAlert channel, DramaAlertNation, Early DramaAlert videos mainly focused on Call of Duty information and the channel was falsely terminated on January 10, 2013. Later in 2013, he created a another YouTube news channel, TheDramaAlert which also got falsely terminated in early 2014. Daniel then created his fifth YouTube channel, FreeDramaAlert, which got falsely terminated by Spam404 sometime in June 2014, leading to the creation of the NewDramaAlert channel later that month which was owned and operated solely by Dan's manager, Ryan Thomson.
On July 2, 2016, the ratings on DramaAlert were disabled but are now enabled once again. Because of his history of posting controversial content, including trolling videos, Daniel, despite being the creator and host of DramaAlert, did not have access to the YouTube channel and was permanently banned from operating a YouTube account until August 2016 when he realized his ban was lifted.
According to Daniel, the videos were being uploaded by Ryan Thomson, iPlayPRODIGY, Dan's personal manager who solely 'owned, accessed, and possessed' the YouTube channel in the interim of Dan's ban to keep it compliant with YouTube's Terms of Service and Community Guidelines.
In May 2020, YouTuber Ethan Klein released a video exposé about Keem, with one of his claims being that he exploited Etika, who later died by suicide. This resulted in G Fuel ending their sponsorship with Keem.[3]
On October 26, 2021, Daniel announced that he will be stepping down as the host of DramaAlert in March 2022, coinciding with his 40th birthday. His replacement has yet to be announced.[4]
Podcasts
BadKidCast
In 2012, Daniel founded the "Bad Kid Show" podcast with YouTuber ONLYUSEmeBLADE. The show started in the summer as audio podcasts and then Blade going to Daniel's respective city being Buffalo Ny to shoot a music video shot by cameraman Scott Kinmartin; Daniel's high school friend when the idea came to turn in into a video show.
The day Scott had moved to Buffalo in August 2012 the BadKidShow got terminated. In the late Summer they flew to Seattle to collect Blade and drove cross-country to New York and to start doing episodes together in person. Unable to get through to YouTube, They made a new channel called the BadKidPodcast in September 2012 which had most of the IRL episodes. In January 2013 the channel was terminated.
Weeks later Scott left due to infighting with Daniel, without a cameraman the show resumed as a podcast again. They created the BadKidCast channel in early 2013. By early 2014 however due to Daniel's issues with ban evasion the show got taken down again. Some content can be found online. They continued the show on various audio platforms until calling it quits in late 2014. Blade ended up meeting a relationship partner who was either a fiancé or girlfriend through Daniel.
Blade and Daniel remained friends but the end of the show saw Blade's channel growth slowly stagnate. By September 2014 Blade got the idea to do drunk streams. Daniel finally got a sustainable Drama Alert channel but eventually backed off, often mentioning Blade. They remained friends throughout early 2015 and often did videos together but by mid 2015 Blade's drunk streaming got to a strange level involving racial slurs, collapsing, twerking, angering his partner, and getting her to break up.
Throughout the summer Blade was moving to different areas with Daniel trying to convince him to stay or move back to Buffalo. By September 2015 Blade got into a big scenario with a girl who he sort of had as a "rebound" from his last ex and had an embarrassing stream (read more here on the page). After a funny video about Blade being drunk saving a girl from getting roofied by drinking a ton of drinks in the bar after seeing guys put things in some (which was seen by many as Blade just drinking a ton not caring about anything) due to Blade going live crying with a drink that was roofied, not taking full effect due to Blade being around 250lbs at the time.
After that however Blade was talking about moving and quitting drinking but overall just didn't work with Daniel. They still met occasionally and Daniel mentioned Blade at random times (blade was brought up in 2016 with Leafy exposing the Ice cream kid face video.[5]) Eventually when Blade threw a dog Daniel "disowned him" which he revealed in late August 2019 after Blade was exposed for alleged rape.
Ever since while they may call Daniel and Blade have grown more distant and angry with each other and may be close to completely cut off. It was also suspected by many YouTubers like ELPRESADOR that Daniel got Blade to Buffalo and once Blade's popularity started to fall off in 2013 Daniel slowly distanced himself from Blade and once Blade became problematic in mid 2015 (with Daniel surpassing him in subscribers in late September of that year) Daniel almost entirely cut him off, eventually throwing him away. [6]
However Daniel did mention in many videos and tweets that he helped Blade many times but failed. [7]
#Triggered
Daniel was a co-host of the Triggered Podcast from 2015 to 2016 with YouTubers FREEDO, TheShwantz27 and Eddy The Chump.
Baited!
Daniel was the founder and co-host of the "Baited! Podcast" from 2016 to 2019. The podcast was also co-hosted by Colossal is Crazy and Tommy C. The podcast covered mostly YouTube drama/news and current events going on in the YouTube community. The podcast became very popular early on with reaching the top 20 on the iTunes charts, even beating out "The Joe Rogan Experience" at one point. The podcast also had popular YouTube guests such as H3h3Productions, LeafyIsHere, Zoie Burgher, FaZe Banks, Adam22, and Boogie2988. The podcast later added on comedian Andy Milonakis and YouTuber/Twitch streamer Anything4views after Colossal and Tommy C parted ways from the podcast after disagreements over wages. In June 2017, Colossal returned to the podcast permanently. In late 2018, Anything4views later left the podcast to pursue his own podcast "Cold Ones". On July 7th, 2019, The podcast made its final episode with special guest Tommy C, where they discussed the drama surrounding YouTuber ImAllexx.
On March 18, 2020, Daniel announced that "Baited!" has ended and it was replaced by "Mom's Basement".
Baited timeline
Mom's Basement
On March 16th, 2020, Daniel started a new podcast called "Mom's Basement" with co-hosts FaZe Banks and Colossal is Crazy. The podcasts uploads every Wednesday to Spotify and covers YouTube news/drama. The podcasts has had guests such as MrBeast, Jeffreestar, KSI, and many others. The show finished in 2022.
Thrust Nation
Daniel was a founding member in several incarnations of Thrust Nation, a gaming organization he led alongside Mala, a former FaZe member. The first channel being ClanThrust later on TheClanThrust. NY Thrust competed at MLG in 2013. A decision was made that summer when Daniel announced that Thrust would be a knife only clan. This decision was shortly reversed. though Thrust repeatedly came to an end one way or another. Other Thrust members included MatMicMar, Noisy Butters, Hollow, and Mtn.
Games
In 2011, with the popularity of Minecraft exploding, Daniel started a server ran by Dylan and community channel MinecraftStars. Later Daniel was send a video of a game that looked like a replica of Minecraft and was FortressCraft which was available on Xbox Live and Minecraft (wasn't at the time) the channel was FortCraft. Daniel then contacted the developer and asked him if he could promote the game. The developer agreed and Daniel promoted it and took part ownership of the game and FortressCraft went on to sell over 2 million copies.
In February 2013, Daniel started a game BadTripGame which was only in Beta mode when Daniel's developer stopped working on it.
In 2013, Daniel owned another game called Ampu-Tea with YouTubers such as PewDiePie and Yogscast covering and playing it.
Networks
In 2011, Daniel was contacted by somebody who wanted to start a network with him. It was called TheKeemstarNetwork. Users had to give a $50 dollar fee to make sure they wouldn't upload offensive videos. Maker Studios who was partnered with HALOAHOLES said that he was in violation of YouTube's Terms of Service for selling partnerships and that they were un-partnering with his channel. According to Daniel he then contacted his partner and asked him about this, he said that he "had looked into it" and that they would be fine. The next day Daniel's channels were terminated. Daniel says he tried to refund the people but couldn't since his partner had control of the PayPal. It later turned out that the network was allegedly purchased off of hack forums.
In 2014, Daniel created another network named ThatJuiceNetwork.
Controversies
 |
Trigger Warning! |
| This section/page has content/or references to content that people may find unsettling/triggering or disturbing, read at your own risk. This page/section has references to: Revenge doxxing, harassment, manipulation, abuse, swatting, and mentions of suicide and pedophilia |
Feud with Harley Morenstein
On March 29 2023, Keemstar posted a video on Twitter asking Harley Morenstein from Epic Meal Time about putting FroggyFreshRap back on Creator Clash 2 card to help support the charities.[8] Harley would respond to Keem about the Froggy Fresh situation, calming that Keem told Harley that Froggy Fresh is going to sign with Happy Punch and fight on the card of Misfits.[9] Which Keem called Harley a liar and said that would it be cool if Froggy Fresh would be able to fight on the Creator Clash 2 card.[10] Harley later responded asking what event is Froggy Fresh going to fight on and to stop bullsh*ting the fans.[11] Keem responded saying that they should bet $50,000,00 to if Keem can get Froggy Fresh on an event this year.[12] Harley would tell Keem to contact Froggy Fresh to apologize to IDubbbz and Anisa.[13]
Fousey & Keemstar Feud
In August 2023, FOUSEY appeared as a guest on Bradley Martyn's podcast Raw Talk. Fousey seemingly made comments about Keemstar, as well as explaining why he parted ways with Happy Punch Promotions, which they co-founded in August 2021.[14] Daniel posted a four-minute Twitter video earlier today, claiming that "his truth" was the "reality." He brought up Fousey's most recent controversy, in which he was accused of taking advantage of a drunk woman at an airport.[15] Approximately half an hour later, Fousey took to Twitter to respond to Keemstar's sentiments. He claimed that Keemstar made him want to commit self-harm and that he was friends with Keemstar because he was "terrified" of him.[16]
The drama also included Deen TheGreat, who was was dropped by Happy Punch Promotions after allegedly signing with G7 Promotions.[17]
The Underage Sex Scandal
In the Summer of 2018 on July 4th, the local Police Department's Sexually Exploited Child Unit began a criminal investigation on Keem. The same day, his best friend's wife told police that she believed Keem had molested her son. On July 6th, a search warrant was issued, allowing police to search Keem's filthy, rat infested hovel. Police questioned 30 children who were friends of Keem and in his "clan", with all verifying that Keem was indeed a child molester. A police officer involved in the investigation told the media that plenty of evidence (medical, photographic and video) could be found, supporting criminal filing. The same day, the allegations were made public. He is currently now awaiting trial.
Termination
While Daniel has been terminated many times over the years, a hacker known as "Lizard Squad" hacked YouTube on November 23, 2017, terminating Daniel's channel for about 30 minutes. It was Daniel's biggest [account] termination out of every other channel he had. This Lizard Squad was revealed as fans using the original Lizard Squads name and as such renamed their Twitter to Alien Paradox Unit. People thought this would be the end of YouTube until it was found that a hacker (APU) hacked YouTube, and terminated multiple big channels, such as iDubbbzTV, Papa Jake, Styxhexenhammer666, Team Coco, Repzion, including Daniel. Daniel has made a video addressing the situation.
Criticism
On April, 2024, DramaAlert posted statements across all platforms claiming that he had died from a pulmonary embolism. However, from his later post, fans came to know, that was a April fool prank.[18]
Daniel is facing criticism for the prank. Comments under his DramaAlert posts express disapproval, with netizens stating that the prank was not amusing.
Although some dedicated fans were relieved to learn of David Keem's survival, many of them questioned why he would pull such a stunt.[19]
Subscriber milestones
Note: The following dates are according to Social Blade. Dates may vary by one or two days due to differences in time zones.
- 1 million subscribers: February 10, 2016.
- 2 million subscribers: July 10, 2017.
- 3 million subscribers: October 10, 2017.
- 4 million subscribers: July 18, 2018.
- 5 million subscribers: May 14, 2019
Quotes
- "Our first story is coming from..."
- "Roll it"
- "Also in the news..."
- "And now for our final story..."
- "I'm fast as fuck, boy!"
- "Why am I still getting hate?"
- "Stop DMing me"
- "Now guys if you're new here and wanna stay up to date on all the news goin' on in the community, make sure you subscribe with those notifications on cuz as soon as I get the scoop, I'm gonna keep you in the loop, DramaAlert nation now with over [insert sub count] subscribers"
- "Now I DMed Mike"
- "And apparently"
- "Woohoo, we have diamonds... we have diamonds... we have diamonds... we have diamonds... we have diamonds, we fucking did it we beat the game"
- "Why is everyone saying stop, what do you mean stop, look at all... where the fucks the diamonds... WHAT, you need an iron pickaxe"
- "Are you guys trolling, guys I don't actually know how to play this game"
- "Now the man was at this service and a grenade went off and he lost his fucking leg"
- "Would you pick on him for losing his leg"
- "Help... Someone's shooting shit at me... I'm building a wall... no, no, oh god... they're killing me... this is bullshit, this game is a scam"
- "Alright, I gotta set the record straight, something is really pissing me off, Notch took another game and ripped it off and made Minecraft, alright... alright, if we're gonna call stuff a ripoff, let's call it what it is, Notch took another game, ripped it off, created Minecraft
- "Now guys we did an interview, and..."
- "Now last night here on DramaAlert, we..."
- "And, speaking about..."
Trivia
- Daniel has a daughter named Mia.
- As a child, Daniel's parents owned a pony named Thunder.
- Daniel is of Italian, German, Dutch, and Armenian descent.[20]
- He suffers from dyslexia.[21]
- Although Daniel was banned from owning any channels (with his previous ones being terminated), he confirmed in a podcast with h3h3productions that he does own DramaAlert now and is allowed to.
- He was a part of the FaZe Clan.
- On Baited episode #30, Daniel states that he has a treasure map to some Nazi gold buried somewhere in Russia and that one day he's going to go out there with a metal detector to find it.
- On an episode of DramaAlert, He said that Its JoJo Siwa had sent his daughter a Christmas video, as he praised her happily, saying she was his daughter's role model.
- His first big subscriber amount was when he reached 100,000 subscribers in July 2011. He recalls it being a huge amount due to only a few YouTubers being around or over 1,000,000.
- He was nominated for a Shorty Award for Best Web Series in 2014.[22]
- The soundtrack at the beginning of some of the videos with the music theme that sounds like a generic news story is "Broadcast News Long" from iMovie and seen on the channel iMusic.
- Daniel endorsed and supported Donald J Trump for president in the 2016 and 2020 United States Presidential elections.
- Daniel is often associated with garden gnomes.
References
- ↑ https://www.tiktok.com/@overtflow/video/7072997069312609582
- ↑ https://dotesports.com/streaming/news/keemstar-announces-youtube-retirement
- ↑ https://www.businessinsider.com/g-fuel-ends-keemstar-sponsorship-h3h3-ethan-klein-etika-2020-5
- ↑ Retired
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LthmAXmpSJI
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_VfL3xl_qg
- ↑ https://twitter.com/keemstar/status/1163650308314148864
- ↑ https://twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/1641142923382095873
- ↑ https://twitter.com/HarleyPlays/status/1641178064041177089
- ↑ https://twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/1641181840592584712
- ↑ https://twitter.com/HarleyPlays/status/1641187578920435718
- ↑ https://twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/1641189132679405570
- ↑ https://twitter.com/HarleyPlays/status/1641192033392943104
- ↑ Fousey Exposes Jake Paul & Happy Punch, Speaks on $15 Million Dollar Deal & Adin Ross Is Gay?
- ↑ https://twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/1689743462101352448
- ↑ https://twitter.com/fousey/status/1689750776267395072
- ↑ https://twitter.com/HappyPunchPromo/status/1691670230496378948
- ↑ https://tribune.com.pk/story/2461378/youtuber-keemstar-called-out-for-april-fools-death-prank
- ↑ https://www.timesnownews.com/world/us/us-buzz/keemstar-dead-drama-alert-announces-youtuber-has-passed-away-to-pulmonary-embolism-article-108952566
- ↑ https://twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/1168190144131870720
- ↑ https://twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/1027050992876118016
- ↑ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/shorty-awards-2014-nominees-682714/
