Where Are They Now? This Is What Internet Legend 'Dax Flame' Has Been Up To Since His Late 2000s YouTube VlogsTube

Revisiting early Dax Flame vlogs is like taking a walk through YouTube memory lane. You see a scrawny teen adjust his webcam and record himself sitting at his computer desk in a dimly lit room, the background noise captured by his camera rising before his awkward voice cuts through the din.

Dax Flame made videos any one of us thought we could have made back in 2007, except for the fact, of course, that most of us didn't.

Dax Flame's teenage low-budget and low-effort vlogs, which he called "video diaries," befuddled viewers long before the rise of what we now know as "cringe" content. People just couldn't tell if he really was that awkward or if he was merely putting on a character for the sake of some laughs.

Still, Dax Flame stuttered and fidgeted through enough vlogs that he eventually gathered a dedicated audience, moved out of his home in Dallas, Texas and actually landed on the silver screen in some big-budget Hollywood movies, including Project X and 21 Jump Street.

If you remember seeing Dax's early videos, including the infamous "Diary 30: Superman Is Coming to School" and its follow-up "Diary 31: Humiliation," here's how the YouTube legend's life has changed over the course of a decade, and why he has chosen to return to the YouTube sphere in recent years.

Who Is Dax Flame, and How Did People First Find Out About Him Online?

"Dax Flame" or "Daxflame" was the name a teenage Madison Patrello chose to first post his vlogs on YouTube in 2007, back when most teens didn't have fancy GoPros but instead relied on low-budget webcams to record themselves.

Just looking at Dax Flame's first vlog, which he called "video diaries," can give you an idea of why people were drawn to him and why, in the years that followed, his fans launched into raucous debates about whether his personality was legit or simply an act put on for laughs.

In his first-ever YouTube video, a teenage boy wearing a collared shirt stutters, giggles and walks back on his words while trying to introduce himself. He calls himself, "Bernice Jaque the Third," and says that he prefers to be called "Dax Flame." All the while, the teen can be seen laughing awkwardly, fidgeting, blinking hard and twisting around in his seat.

It's hard not to imagine why this video was such a hit back in 2007, and a video Dax Flame posted the following month seemed to confirm why so many people were tuning in to his vlogs.

In a video titled, "Last Blog Ever," Dax Flame raged against viewers who sent him hate mail, saying that people only watch him because they think he is mentally ill, his expressions alternating between indescribable rage and the sort of frustrated and agitated tears that really peak in one's teenage years.

How Did Dax Flame Go Viral Online, And Why Were People So Drawn To Him?

Dax Flame's awkward vlogs kept coming, and by 2010, he had become the 16th most subscribed YouTuber on the platform. But the more people found out about Dax Flame, the more confused they became about whether his YouTube persona was real or just a persona.

The theory that Dax Flame was a character created by Patrello was reinforced by his sharp tonal shift from "Last Blog Ever" to the video titled "New (Girl)Friend!!"

It seemed like every new Dax Flame video was scientifically engineered to portray him as the dorkiest boy ever and make his audience both laugh and cringe at his antics.

Is Dax Flame A Character, Or Is It His Real Personality?

Fellow comedian Bo Burnham once spoke about meeting Dax Flame back in 2008, saying that he genuinely thought Dax Flame was a genius, but wasn't able to pin down what exactly it was that made him one.

In other words, many people thought Dax Flame's persona was too funny to be true. After all, for a majority of his fans, his appeal did actually lie in how he was not a cool, suave YouTuber making highly produced vlogs.

In his own words, Dax Flame was famous because people saw their own awkward youth in him — or at least, they saw the awkward kid they all knew growing up.

What didn't help Dax Flame's cause was that sometime around 2010, he took a break from making YouTube videos to move to Los Angeles and take up small roles in a slew of successful Hollywood films. In the 2012 film Project X, Dax actually retained his name "Dax," and in the 2012 21 Jump Street reboot, he played a similarly awkward nerdy persona.

Funnily enough, his on-screen personality didn't seem to deviate much from his YouTube persona. The absurdly funny 2016 meme trend Diary 30: Superman Is Coming to School and Diary 31: Humiliation didn't exactly help Dax's cause either. It seemed like every misfortune in his life was geared toward eliciting the most laughs from his audience.

What Has Dax Flame Been Up To Since His Early YouTube Days And His Brief Stint In Hollywood?

Dax Flame stopped posting videos regularly after 2012, only posting sporadic updates about his life and three books he went on to publish: 2014's I'm Just Sitting on a Fence: The Secrets of Life, and 2019's Ice Cream Man and 2021's Dax Flame’s Guide to Making Money as an Influencer.

The second of the three books was based on his time working at an Ice Cream shop in Los Angeles, a job he says he hated in a 2023 interview with Know Your Meme.

His second book, and his job as an ice cream man, also became the title for a documentary created by fellow YouTuber iDubbbz, who set out to find out, once and for all, if Dax was really "like that" or if he was just acting like the most awkward person on earth.

iDubbbz concluded that Dax Flame genuinely was a little bit "special," but that he had managed to wield his personality quirks to create a successful career, both online, offline and in print.

Things seemed to turn around for Dax after that. He took iDubbbz's help to create a YouTube game show called Smoothie Madness on which contestants compete in different health-themed challenges to win up to $100.

But Dax managed to turn this venture into a tragi-comedy as well. While being interviewed by Know Your Meme, he talked about how he was spending over $400 per episode until he landed his first brand deal and how the residual stress of working his ice cream job had made him quite depressed. That's when he turned to his latest venture — letting AI dictate his life.

In a series of events both on camera and offline, Dax said that he let ChatGPT help him find answers to the problems in his life. When he had financial issues, ChatGPT helped him apply for jobs, and when he was feeling stressed, ChatGPT told him to take a break and leave town for a while.

Pleased with the results, Dax Flame made a YouTube video about how he was really leaning into this whole AI thing and was definitely pleased with letting it control his life.

Dax has also found a new, younger audience on TikTok, a platform he says he greatly enjoys. He likes how easy it is to randomly go viral on the video-sharing app, but he isn't a big fan of how short the videos have to be.

What Does Dax Flame Do These Days, And Where Can You Find Him Online?

Dax Flame still routinely collaborates with iDubbbz and his production house MAXIMUM DAMAGE, hosting a talk show called "Hot Seat" on which he interviews various internet personalities in his quintessential style.

Dax has also gone back to making diary entry vlogs on his regular channel, many of which are very similar in tone to his work from over a decade ago.

A recent saga on his YouTube channel shows him speaking solemnly into the camera, apologizing for fibbing about why he took a six-month hiatus from YouTube. He says that while he did hire a TikToker to make it seem like he was focused on charity work in a park in L.A., that claim was entirely false and that he feels incredibly guilty for misleading his fans.

It's gaffes like these that really make you wonder if Dax is really who he presents himself as online, or if he has been wearing the world's most convincing mask just to make a few people on the internet laugh.

Whatever the case may be, it's safe to say that for many of his fans, the truth about Dax Flame is that his sincerity or lake thereof doesn't matter, as long as he keeps being his hilarious self.

For more on Dax Flame be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry here, and check out our interviews with him here and here.