The Problem With Glow Squid: How One Minecraft YouTuber Rigged The Mob Vote

Last weekend, what many considered to be the most important election of the year took place — the October Minecraft mob vote. For those who aren’t familiar, the Minecraft dev team occasionally holds a public vote to decide which new mob they should add to the game.

This time around, voters had three options to choose from. There was the "Iceologer," an aggressive mob that would be found at the tops of mountains. There was the "Moobloom," a yellow cow with buttercups growing from its back. And finally, there was the "Glow Squid," which is exactly what it sounds like — a glowing squid.

This might not sound like a big deal, but to many Minecraft fans, it was everything. The outcome of this election would change the game no matter which mob won, and no matter how small that change, players understandably want the best for their go-to game. October’s mob election was a heated one, to say the least, and tensions were high the whole week leading up to the vote starting from the very first day. Let's take a look at what all went down here.

Before The Vote

In late September, the mob vote was announced and launched online. Right away, Minecraft players started taking sides in a familiar way. They made fan art and memes to show their support for their favorite mob, took part in heated arguments on any platform they could, and even started making attack memes showing their hatred for the other potential mobs.

Some of these posts resembled political ads, even making direct references to the current presidential election. Without a doubt, some of the heat that’s built up over the presidential election transferred over to the mob vote. These memes can be found scattered across Minecraft meme pages on Instagram, and Reddit, such as /r/Minecraft and /r/minecraftmemes.

Tragically, unlike a presidential election, there was no polling before the vote, so it’s hard to say who was in the lead beforehand. There seemed to be a lot of support for almost every mob, with Moobloom perhaps getting the most love at a glance based on just how much fan art came out about it and the fact that some fans had already fallen in love with it thanks to its initial appearance in Minecraft Earth.

Iceologer seemed to get the least love but perhaps had the most outspoken supporters. Iceologer fans touted their mob as the best, as it arguably changes the game the most, giving players a whole new enemy to deal with unlike any existing types. However, many against the Iceologer touted the annoyance of the mob as a major negative. The mountain biomes are already hard to maneuver around without a mob throwing ice at you. Many players just didn’t want to deal with that kind of stress. Meanwhile, Glow Squid detractors bashed it as a simple reskin, and Moobloom detractors saw it as an overall pointless addition.

Whatever side of the election you fell on, it was gearing up to be a tight battle. Minecraft fans were excited to see what the results would be — to see if all that political posturing and meme-making would win their mob the vote. Then, the unthinkable happened. On the day of the election, YouTuber Dream – one of the most influential Minecraft streamers of all time with over 10 million subscribers – tweeted out his support for the Glow Squid. The Minecraft community panicked, and the mob vote was over before it even began.

Dream "Rigs" The Mob Vote

Dream’s tweet was met with heavy criticism, the comments full of angry Minecraft fans claiming he had just rigged the whole election. A large majority seemed to be Moobloom fans and began sharing Moobloom images in the comment section, blasting Dream for taking away their favorite mob while trying to sway the vote back in their favor. Unfortunately, it’s hard to fight back against a man with 10 million-plus followers behind him. Dream’s fans got to work securing Glow Squid’s win with little effort.

That night, the results of the vote came in, and Glow Squid was indeed the winner. Minecraft fans doubled down on their criticism of Dream, harassing him on his social media pages and creating videos describing how he "rigged the election," one of which gained over 95,000 views (shown below).

That same night, as if to rub salt in the wound, Dream tweeted out, “Yes, the rumors are true. Herobrine paid me to rig the Minecraft Live election. and id do it again.” The sentiment was not appreciated, whether sarcastic or not, but what could anyone really do about it? Dream is a man with great influence in the Minecraft scene, but his great responsibility was nowhere to be found.

The Aftermath

Following what Minecraft fans now view as a rigged election, online Minecraft communities filled up with memes showing hatred for both the Glow Squid and Dream. Some demanded a new vote, others wanted Dream to apologize, but most were simply disappointed. Seeing such a tight election thrown off by one Minecraft streamer with a massive following is a sad thing, and made the community feel like they were robbed. Unfortunately, there are no rules against influencing a mob vote.

As it stands, the October mob vote will go down as an interesting and somewhat tragic look into how easy it is to sway a vote with a lot of followers and influence. We’ll never know what the results of the election would have been without Dream’s sway. Maybe the Glow Squid still would have won, or maybe it would have lost miserably, but one thing is for sure: Moobloom and Iceologer fans will not forget this.

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