On New Year’s Eve 2025, this viral thread from PopBase popped up on everyone’s feeds, and it had Americans glued to their phones. They were dishing out a recap of the year’s wild pop culture moments, mixing in some legit headlines with totally fake ones for laughs. One of them poked fun at YouTubers Dan Howell and Phil Lester, claiming they’d finally spilled the beans on their 16-year romance. It racked up over 7,500 likes in no time, spreading like wildfire and hitting that sweet spot of nostalgia for fans who’d been shipping them forever.
A tweet from X.
Dan, who’s 34 (born in ’91), and Phil, 38 (born in ’87), are these British dudes who kicked off their online thing back in 2009. Dan was originally just a fan of Phil’s videos on his channel AmazingPhil, but they hit it off and started collabing. As “Dan and Phil,” they blew up with gaming stuff, funny skits, and even a gig hosting on BBC Radio 1. Their main joint channel, now just called Dan and Phil, has like 3 million subs, and their gaming one is right up there too.
But yeah, that PopBase post was all satire just part of a goofy thread that tossed in real tea like Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce rumors alongside bonkers fake news, like some political hit job. They threw in this chill photo of the two on a bed, which totally echoed their old-school collab vibes from way back. It got fans chuckling because it played on all the old rumors, but it wasn’t breaking any actual news. The real deal had dropped months before, so this was more like a fun nod.
Flashback to October 13, 2025: Dan and Phil dropped this 46-minute vid called “Are Dan and Phil in a Relationship?” on their channel. It starts with Dan straight-up asking, and Phil’s like, “Yes.” They dive into how they met online in ’09, fell head over heels super quick, and have been living together since about 2011. Dan put it like,
“We fell into it hard and fast in 2009 and here we are almost 16 years later.”
They’d each come out as gay in their own videos back in 2019 without getting into the relationship stuff, but by 2025, with fans being way more chill, they decided to go for it. A week later, on October 20, they started a podcast called HARD LAUNCH, spilling all sorts of stories they’d kept under wraps.
The whole “Phan” fandom y’know, smashing their names together had been buzzing about this for ages, and sometimes it got way too intense, stressing them out big time. In the video, they talk about this “apocalyptic constant stress” from parasocial vibes, where fans get too wrapped up and forget boundaries. Over here in the U.S., it hit home with all the chats about LGBTQ+ rep and how creators deserve their privacy, especially with anti-LGBTQ+ stuff ramping up. Outlets like USA Today picked it up as this feel-good story of queer love thriving online for years. Some writer in The Guardian nailed it, saying it’s a prime example of creators taking back control after all the pressure.
In the end, it wrapped up one of the internet’s longest-running mysteries, flipping the script from gossip to straight-up celebration for fans on both sides of the pond.
