Daniel Howell: ‘I would’ve been a depressed 42-year-old lawyer deeply in the closet’-Asyia Iftikhar-Entertainment – Metro

Daniel Howell wants to be on the internet in 50 years time (Picture: Dave Brown)

Fifteen years after Daniel Howell graced the internet as the socially awkward Danisnotonfire, everything has changed. But also, not much at all. 

Despite his veritable status as one of the OG YouTube creators (and infamous law school dropout) the 32-year-old social media star – who has accumulated over 20million followers across various platforms and an absurdly devoted fan base – has not run out of steam.

‘We’re in the midst of the Dan and Phil renaissance,’ YouTube influencer and satirical comedian Dan tells Metro.co.uk.

‘People who were teenagers five or 10 years ago are now full adults and going “we want more Dan and Phil”. What does that look like in the year of our Lord 2024?’ 

For Dan – who reached peak internet notoriety in the mid-2010s – his career is far from petering out but rather going in vast new directions. 

The paperback version of his Sunday Times bestselling mental health guide, You Will Get Through This Night, is hitting shelves. His two-hour comedy special We’re All Doomed has landed on YouTube after a lengthy world tour.

Dan is doing it all (Picture: Dave Brown)

Not to mention his hugely popular gaming channel with fellow YouTuber Phil Lester (formerly AmazingPhil) coming back bigger and better than ever.

‘Last year Phil was like, “I feel like it’s time to bring this [channel] back for the people. Nature’s healing, people want to reclaim their inner children, people are missing this light entertainment from their two favourite British clowns on YouTube”,’ he recalled.

His return to regular YouTube programming (something he has done on and off since 2017) has left fans shocked and delighted with videos consistently racking up between 300k to 600k views.

Dan is no stranger to taking long breaks from the internet.

In 2019, after disappearing from the public sphere, he made a shocking return with his viral 50-minute video provocatively titled Basically, I’m Gay.

It has since totted up 12m views.

The visual odyssey talked through his struggles with accepting his sexuality, the toxic internet gossip about his personal life (filled with romance rumours about Phil) and his battle with clinical depression and anxiety.

‘Before that moment I was deeply in the closet,’ Dan admitted. 

‘Everyone was wondering “what’s going on in Dan Howell’s personal life”, all these conspiracy theories and it was this weird elephant in the room that I wasn’t talking about.’

But contrary to feeling resentment for his private life becoming fodder for rampant speculation, all Dan feels is gratitude.

‘The reality is, I was dealing with so much internalised homophobia because of my childhood, that was such a huge thing for me to confront,’ he explained.

‘I don’t think I would have ever had the nerve to actually confront something that difficult if I wasn’t in a position where I had this audience looking up to me. I think I would have gone on another 10 years. I would have been a depressed 42-year-old lawyer, deeply in the closet.’

Dan and Phil were British YouTube’s power duo (Picture: Getty)

‘It’s only because of me deciding to post funny little comedy videos about my socially awkward habits on YouTube that I had this audience that made me think, “What can I achieve” by confronting this in my life.’

The overwhelming response catapulted him into his new vulnerable online era (after a couple of false starts).

The natural next step was to publish a self-help book about mental health, punctuated with astonishingly raw anecdotes from all Dan’s personal triumphs and desperate failures.

‘The amazing thing about this book is the corners of the world this went into like nothing I’ve done before,’ he reflected about the 2021 hardback release which topped the book charts.

You Will Get Through This Night will have new material about burnout in the paperback version (Picture: HarperCollins)

‘My book publishers will be like, “We’ve got a really emotional letter from someone who is a counsellor at a college in Michigan in America that recommended this book to a student and they realised they have an anxiety problem”. They just thought that’s what life was like.’

But as someone who has built a career on his self-deprecating persona the ‘sincere and personal messages’ from affected fans have been strange, to say the least.

Although Dan tries to practise what he preaches, he’s the first to admit he doesn’t uphold the healthiest habits.

‘Being on tour was amazing for me because I had no choice but to live in a constant state of freefall. My life is falling apart, my body is falling apart, living on the floor of a bus. Turns out great for my mental health. You’ve just got to go, go, go,’ he said.

One thing is for sure, this book is a rallying cry for LGBTQ+ youth to prioritise their mental health in a world that isn’t always accepting. And Dan has accumulated plenty of queer fans over the years.

Dan has become a messy gay icon for fans online (Picture: Sarah Lee)

‘The joke is half of the girls that watch Dan and Phil are lesbians, or some of them are boys now,’ he quipped.

‘How did we get there? Who are these people in 2014 in middle school just trying to survive at the worst time of their life? How did we find each other? Obviously I wasn’t open about these parts of my life until I was much older.

‘A lot of people come up to me and say ‘you shaped me as a person’ and I think “That’s terrible, that must have been really traumatic”.’

His rebranding from reclusive online star Danisnotonfire to comedy maestro and gay icon Daniel Howell has not been without its challenges, however.

‘I’ve accidentally been put on a pedestal and I’m just like “I didn’t ask for any of this” I’m trying to be a mess in real time,’ he shared.

‘Everything I have ever been able to write funny stuff about has been my flaws. If I’m being the best me I have nothing to talk about. I think I should be the messiest Dan anyone can imagine because then there’s content.”

Dan is standing up for his LGBTQ+ fans (Picture: Daniel Howell/Instagram)

But positive LGBTQ+ role models are vital as the UK government continues to target queer youth.

‘There’s such a generational divide in this country right now around what it means to be queer, what it means to be a young person, what it’s like for millennials to just buy a house and whether that will ever happen,’ Dan said.

‘It sounds crude but there is an inevitable fact that one day all the old people will die. Worst case scenario, we’ve just got to hold out for another 10, 20, 30 years and then it will be our turn to be in charge. We can’t let them break us.’

As the UK election approaches, it looks more and more likely a Labour government will secure victory, but Dan has a warning.

‘Here’s hoping they do try to actually fix things and they’re not just trying to keep things exactly the way that they are and just behave a bit more sensibly, that’s not gonna cut it.

‘If you keep punching down to all the queer people just trying to live their lives authentically it’s not gonna solve the problem, it’s just gonna make people angry until one day the lid flips.’

Dan is looking toward the future (Picture: Supplied)

Although the political future is up for grabs, Dan is taking control of his own.

‘I’m not trying to have a spectacular breakdown,’ he clarified. ‘In 2017 I was really cranking it out, and it exploded. I’m in it for a long haul now. And maybe I’ll be doing it for another fifty years instead of another five and half before I end up face down on the floor.’

As for his next book, Dan believes his fans ‘deserve something funny’.

‘We survived the pandemic, we’ve got the mental health book out of the way. We want the Dan book of clownery, just the shame-filled book of regrets by Dan Howell.’

The paperback version of You Will Get Through This Night by Daniel Howell is now available to buy.

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