A major rally was held in London today as part of a series of global gatherings against masks, vaccine passports and bans. And for some reason, a person was seen at the event on Saturday waving a flag with a popular Minecraft RPG server.
The appearance of the flag, which was proudly waved around in a viral video, then created a Twitter trending topic around “L’manburg”. Funny thing: L’manburg is a fake in-game nation that started with the popular Dream SMP Minecraft Server. Oops!
Dream is a mega-popular Minecraft speedrunner with over 24 million subscribers on the platform. Not only is he a big YouTuber who’s pretty much the face of video games on the platform now. Part of what makes it so remarkable is that its subscriber base has exploded exponentially over the course of about a year. Known for his “Minecraft Manhunt” videos, which garnered tens of millions of views, he is often spotted trying to beat the game as fast as possible while other players try to kill him.
Dream, along with other popular ones Minecraft Content creator and streamer, is part of a large RPG server called Dream SMP. He owns the server and helps with maintenance by guiding fans through various user-created storylines. This server is filled with numerous characters, alliances, and factions that basically make up a fictional society. One of these factions is called L’manburg. This is how the Dream SMP Wiki describes it:
L’Manburg, was an independent nation-state in the Dream SMP. It declared its independence from the Bigger dream SMP on July 29, 2020 and gained its independence after Dream Team SMP vs. L’Manberg War on August 2, 2020. It was reformed as Manberg on September 22, 2020, but was restored on November 16, 2020. It was destroyed and finally disbanded on January 6, 2021.
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According to the wiki, this was one of the few factions / nations on the server that had their own flag and national anthem. Even though it no longer exists, fans still care enough about it to make it physically real. This brings us to the person waving a flag for this fake country at a rally that ironically focuses on fake and false disinformation about vaccines.
How does that happen? It is possible that the person who was seen holding the L’manburg flag at the rally was a troll simply to make a joke or to make people appear stupid at the rally. But it is also possible that it was an accident.
A quick internet search for “Freedom Flag” actually brings the L’manburg flag to the top of the results page. The result shows an Amazon page for the flag up for sale. This listing doesn’t mention Minecraft or video games anywhere in the top section. It also only costs $9, with free Prime shipping. What a deal!
That was the theory that was spread on Twitter from earlier (😢) Kotaku Reporter Nathan Grayson.
There is an actual flag of freedom that is not related to a video game. It was created in 2001 by a man in Virginia, after the 9/11 attacks in the United States. This freedom flag is intended to be a symbol that honors and reminds the many victims of this tragic terrorist attack. It is possible for the person to wave it Minecraft
All of these details, along with the fact that the flag was waved with a Trump flag, meant that it was went viral quickly. During video game flags or emblems routinely spotted at things like protests, there is usually a clear connection between the two. For example, maybe the video game thing has a similar value to the event. But in this case there are only theories.
Some note that the The person holding the flag appeared to be older Person who can easily flow into the narrative that the whole thing was an accident. But age doesn’t stop you from playing Minecraft, Naturally. It’s 2021. Everything is really possible.
Kotaku reached out to YouTubers Wilbur soot, the creator of the L’manburg flag and a general history nerd. At one point, he wrote down a surprisingly detailed explanation of the design and meaning of the L’manburg flag Reddit back in December 2020.
As for Dream, he’s notorious found herself in hot water in June after a group of speed running moderators and personalities came together to publish a long article of numbers and complex math on why Dream likely cheated to win some Minecraft Records. While he initially denied this – and even hired a mathematician to refute the allegations – he later admitted the truth. However, despite this controversy, his videos and channel are still hugely popular.
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