Beluga

Braden Boyko (born: ), also known online as Beluga, Beluga1000, and Explore Lucid Dreaming (formerly Survival Mode, exploreld, and ExploreTV)Renaming My YouTube Channel (emotional) - YouTubeIt's Mathematically Unlikely You Will Watch This - YouTubeExploreTV - YouTube is an American YouTuber whose content revolves around Discord Skits on his main channel, as well as memes and shorts on his second channel Beluga Jr.
==Content==
On his channel Beluga, Braden primarily uploads short Discord-related or speed-run meme videos. This channel, even though it's his second channel supposedly, has gained a huge amount of recognition in late June 2021 due to the nature of the content and has quickly outgrown his Lucid Dreaming channel.Compare Beluga and Explore Lucid Dreaming YouTube Statistics (By Social Blade) 
Nowadays, Braden uploads Discord-related videos to the Beluga channel and these videos are partially serial/canon. The protagonist of these videos is usually Beluga. Sometimes, he pretends to be an anime girl named "Beluwuga" as a disguise, or "Beluga Jr", his son (who has a YouTube channel as well). The videos are all connected (except some, which are in a parallel universe).
==Recurring characters==
These people are the recurring characters in videos on the Beluga channel:
===Major characters===
*Pablo: Initially a Discord moderator, later shown him to be an admin/server owner of Pablo's Pub. He once fell in love with Pepper.Discord Server Owners Be Like... - YouTube
*Lester: A moderator on Discord and owner of the Lester's Minivan server.Discord Ban Speedrun (97.1% effective) - YouTube He appears to be an assailant, as Skittle vanished after meeting him, and he appears to have a one-sided connection with Skittle-Chan.
*Eugene: A moderator on Discord. Because of his bald head, Beluga regularly compares him to an egg. He also has been associated with kidnapping.
*skittle: Beluga's best friend after encountering Lester. Later in the videos, Beluga was suffering from memory loss due to Lester's meddling, however, Hecker used his hacking skills to restore his memories along with skittles,When Your Storage runs out... - YouTube skittle has since made a return. His name is clearly a reference to the candy company "Skittles".
*skittle-chan: A female Discord user who manipulates guys to do what she wants just by saying "im a girl btw". She was originally an alter-ego of skittle Discord Server Owners Be Like... - YouTube, but for some unknown reason, she now lives separately from skittle. She was also Beluga's obsessed crush and current girlfriend.
*pepper: A Discord user with an almost identical profile picture to Skittle-chan's. She initially rejected Beluga's love confessions but he eventually tricked her to agree to go out on a date with him. They are now dating and Pepper appears to have developed some obsessive feelings for him too as she wanted him to reply to her Snapchat.This plot twist is bigger than anything on Netflix... - YouTube She was a backup girlfriend for Beluga if Skittle-Chan is gone.
*hecker: Initially a hacker who originally threatens Beluga, he later gradually becomes one of the latter's best friends once Skittle disappears, as the videos go. Beluga repeatedly pleads for his assistance. Due to Beluga saying that he knew Hecker's true name, which began with S, and a snapshot of a Discord message flashing at the conclusion of one episode, which was sent from an account with Skittle's name and Hecker's profile image, some fans believe Hecker and Skittle are the same person. This, however, has yet to be confirmed. He is also shown in Pierus' videos.
*Ralph: Discord moderator. He was the first person to appear in a Beluga discord video.
*Vladimir: A Russian dog wearing an Ushanka, sometimes being a security/police. He is not a mod, but he uses English grammar, spelling, and punctuation well. Although, he didn't in 2 videos. (Could still be a mod due to having a red nametag) He also knows every language, except for &BBT/37g (A fictional language Beluga created).Away with Any Crime in 3.071 Seconds
*Snowie: An anime girl who has a crush on beluga. She ate a Lego brick and somehow, she survived.
*Walt: A Kahoot teacher. He doesn't like people who use inappropriate nicknames, bad nicknames and also people who cheat in Kahoot.
*Apple: The Apple company, which Beluga is usually against.
===Minor characters===
*Country characters: Japan, AmericanUSA, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Canada, Britain, Chad (Country), Russia, American Samoa (Alt AmericanUSA), Sweden, Italy, Ireland, China.
*Becky: stereotypical Facebook mother.
*Pablo Jr.: Discord moderator, son of Pablo.
*Theodore: Discord moderator.
*Luna: A girl that looks similar to skittle-chan.
*Quietmint: A girl who Beluga killed when he was an imposter in Among Us.
*King Edward the 15th: King.
*Katie: Starbucks worker.
*🅱️eter: Light mode user.
*Jimmy: Dark web user.
*Beluga Jr.: Beluga's son. He owns Beluga's second channel (Beluga Jr.)
*sweetie23: Lester's "cover", used to get control of Pablo's server.When you Call them by Accident but they pick up... - YouTube
*Dennis: Discord user who ate lunch with Beluga in elementary.When You Win the Lottery... - YouTube
*RoboKiller: Verification Bot.
*Scemer: A scammer who tried to scam Beluga by telling him to give his personal details for V-Bucks.When Your WiFi Stops Working... - YouTube
*Sbeve: A flat-Earther with a square head, appears in a few videos. He is not a mod or server owner, but he plays a major role in some videos either going against a mod, helping Beluga, or constantly trying to prove that the earth is flat.
*Belu-mom: Beluga’s mother.
*Papa Beluga: Beluga's father.When Parents ask what you want for Christmas… - YouTube
*Mr. Beet: A riddle solver.
*MrBeet Security: Security of Mr. Beet. There are multiple of these, and Beluga got kidnapped by them.
*Assasin: A cat that gives beluga chocolate, then later killed him.When a Prank Goes Too Far... - YouTube
*Dave: A YouTube commenter who has a D as their profile picture.
*FBI: Person who's trying to possibly arrest Beluga.
*Trevor: A person that just got out of prison and is a moderator.When Mom Takes Your Phone Away... - YouTube
*Howard: An annoying user who loves to argue with people. He got ratioed by Dave.
*Gong-Yoo: Squid game host.
*Gregory: a rather annoying man who constantly talks about his high iq and is often called a nerd by Beluga.
*Dr. Meow: Owner of 9th dimension.
*docter: A doctor that has the same profile picture with scemer.
*dillon_1b021274738: One of the participants in Squid Game in America Be Like... has a Fortnite profile picture.
*Jeffery Bezos: One of the participants in Squid Game in America Be Like...
*Elon Musk: Joins the server after Beluga gets 20 guesses in a row on Kahoot.
*techer: Beluga's substitute teacher
*suzy baka: A random girl who plays Roblox and knows Beluga's old Roblox password.
*xxsniperkidxx: A Roblox user who insults Beluga, then Beluga steals his insults to compliment Skittle-chan.
*Jawed: a YouTuber which uploaded the first video and pranked Beluga.
*Vegan Teacher: a teacher who is vegan (does not eat anything from animals). She is defeated when someone types a meat emoji to her.
*Keanu Reeves: A famous movie actor.
*Retsel, a character with a similar profile to skittle-chan.
==Controversy==
===Dream Speedrun Video===
On May 31, 2021, Braden uploaded a video titled "Did Dream Cheat His Speedrun on Purpose" to the Beluga channel (then called Survival Mode) in which he talks about Dream’s speedrunning scandal. While he didn't accuse Dream directly and says that Dream is a good person in the video, he did claim that he thinks that Dream cheated on purpose. 
The controversy came as he didn't do much research as he confused Dream’s 1.16 runs for his 1.15 run and then used this as the basis of his entire argument in the video rendering the video completely false.Dream's Cheating Confession: Uncovering The Truth - YouTube He apologized for this in the comments calling it a mistake. 
This video was brought to attention by Karl Jobst as an example of misinformation being spread against Dream in his video title "Dream's Cheating Confession: Uncovering The Truth".Dream's Cheating Confession: Uncovering The Truth - Timestamp 1:12:27 - YouTube After this, Braden's video got some hate in the comments and elsewhere with many telling him to delete or private the video since it spread misinformation.Did Dream Cheat His Speedrun on Purpose? - YouTube Braden has not removed the video, but instead has edited his earlier comment, stating: 
==Before Beluga==
Before making the Beluga channel, Explore Lucid Dreaming was Braden's main channel. The channel itself has over 1.1 million subscribers. It made many hits, but Braden stopped uploading on this channel temporarily in order to focus on uploading on the Beluga channel daily. Although the Beluga channel still receives frequent uploads, Explore Lucid Dreaming has returned and seems to be aiming to upload every other month.
==Milestones==
===Subscriber milestones===
 
====Beluga====
*10,000 subscribers: June 15, 2021
*50,000 subscribers: June 23, 2021
*100,000 subscribers: June 24, 2021
*200,000 subscribers: June 26, 2021
*300,000 subscribers: June 27, 2021
*400,000 subscribers: June 28, 2021
*500,000 subscribers: June 29, 2021
*600,000 subscribers: June 30, 2021
*700,000 subscribers: July 1, 2021
*800,000 subscribers: July 3, 2021
*900,000 subscribers: July 5, 2021
*1 million subscribers: July 9, 20211 million subscriber special - YouTube
*2 million subscribers: August 4, 2021Beluga - YouTube
*3 million subscribers: August 19, 2021Beluga on X: "Just woke up and saw the entire population of New york city is subscribed..😯" / X
*4 million subscribers: September 8, 2021Beluga on X: "We did it!!!! fun fact if every subscriber stood on mt Everest, the entire mountain would move down from the weight 😯" / X
*5 million subscribers: October 20, 20215 Million Subscribers - YouTube
*6 million subscribers: November 18, 2021Beluga on X: "60000000!!! we did it. thank you to everyone who susbribed ❤️❤️" / X
*7 million subscribers: January 25, 2022Beluga on X: "What the-" / X
*8 million subscribers: April 28, 2022Beluga on X: “w-what…. !”
*9 million subscribers: August 13, 2022Beluga on X: “9 MILLION… we did it!! thank you all so much❤️”
*10 million subscribers: April 2, 2024
====Explore Lucid Dreaming====
*1 million subscribers: April 10, 2022
===Video view Milestones===
 
*1 million views: June 22, 2021
*5 million views: June 24, 2021
*10 million views: June 26, 2021
*25 million views: June 30, 2021
*50 million views: July 7, 2021
*100 million views: July 26, 2021
*200 million views: August 11, 2021
*300 million views: August 30, 2021
*400 million views: September 16, 2021
*500 million views: October 18, 2021
*1 billion views: February 24, 2022
*2 billion views: June 25, 2023
==Trivia==
*His favorite colors are blue and red.
*He likes cats. However, they're not his favorite animals.
*He owns a Minecraft server called Lucid Craft (lucid-craft.com).
*He has both a brother and sister, according to an Explore Lucid Dreaming video from late 2020.
*He once claimed his brother is Albert Aretz, also known as Flamingo,Beluga on X: "To clear up confusion on the latest video, yes i am the brother of Flamingo (roblox youtuber)" / X which was then stated to be all a joke and that they have no blood connections whatsoever.
*He is believed to have formerly lived in California because of a license plate seen in the video Beluga Face Reveal. He attended the University of Arizona, but has since graduatedGraduation | Instagram and lives in California again.
* In late October 2021, it was confirmed in a Reddit AMA that Beluga would be getting a figure the near future. 
**Braden released his YouTooz Beluga figure for pre-order in March 2022. The product was available from July 1-31st.Beluga - Youtooz Collectibles
** He made a video about his YouTooz figure in the style of his ordinary Discord videos.When you play video games at 2am
*His username is often misspelled in various ways during skits, such as "Begula", "Belguga" and more.
*His favorite foods are carrots and pickles.
*His videos often include misspelled words.
* Despite his YouTube icon being a smiling cat, this is not his cat. This is a picture of Ollie the Polite Cat, a meme featuring this cat who appears to be smiling and giving a polite appearance.Khan Johns (@polite_cat_olli_official) · Instagram photos and videos
*Braden's birthday is unknown, but he claims to be a 2-year-old during a few of his Discord skits, but this is just a joke. On the rare occasion he seriously mentions his age, it indicates he was born in either 2002 or 2003.
*Braden has three Discord servers. One is called BeluGANG and is for his Beluga channel, and has over 700,000 members. There is a ban appeals server for this server called Beluga Ban Appeals. For his Explore Lucid Dreaming channel, there is a Discord server called Dream Café.
* Unlike many other YouTubers, Braden is very connected with his audience. He reads through the comments on his videos regularly,5 Million Subscribers - YouTube and even featured Eugene's Wikitubia page humorously in a video.Don't Scan this QR Code - YouTube
==References==
Category:Commentary YouTubers
Category:Educational YouTubers
Category:Gaming YouTubers
Category:Meme YouTubers
Category:Comedy YouTubers
Category:Reaction YouTubers
Category:American YouTubers
Category:Users who joined in 2017
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