Ángel David Revilla Lenoci (born 16 July 1982), better known as DrossRotzank or simply Dross, is a Venezuelan

YouTuber A YouTuber is a content creator and social media influencer who uploads or creates videos on the online video-sharing website YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006 ...

and writer who has resided in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

, Argentina, since 2007.

Early life

Ángel David Revilla Lenoci was born on 16 July 1982 in

Caracas Caracas ( , ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas (CCS), is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the northern p ...

. His father was a pilot and his mother was a gastronomy-oriented businesswoman. His ancestry comes from Spain, Italy, and United States. He studied at Santa Maria University, and graduated from

Social Communication Communication is commonly defined as the transmission of information. Its precise definition is disputed and there are disagreements about whether unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication not only transmit ...

in 2007 and also worked as a journalist for a medical magazine. In 1998 created the blog entitled ''El Diario de Dross'' (The Diary of Dross), whose username "Dross" originates due to a bad spelling of the name of the then wrestler

Darren Drozdov Darren Alexander Drozdov (April 7, 1969 – June 30, 2023), known professionally as Droz, was an American professional wrestler and football player. After a short career in the National Football League (NFL) and the Canadian Football League (CFL ...

, whom Revilla mistakenly refers to as «Warren Droz» in an interview with

Radio Programas del Perú Radio Programas del Perú (RPP) is a radio and television broadcasting company in Peru within the Grupo RPP formed in Lima in 1963 by Manuel Delgado Parker and Emilio Checa. RPP has the largest radio coverage in Peru, covering 97 percent of the ...

. Revilla started in 2000 writing scathing game reviews for websites like MeriStation or Vandal, he also made some posts in the forum

GameFAQs GameFAQs is a video gaming website that hosts guides and other resources, as well as an active Internet forum, message board forum. It was created in November 1995 by Jeff Veasey and has been owned by Fandom (website), Fandom, Inc. since October ...

Career

YouTube career

Revilla created his

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

account, DrossRotzank in 2006, and in 2007, he moved to

, Argentina, where he currently resides. At first he was dedicated to uploading gameplays of different video games such as ''

I Wanna Be the Guy ''I Wanna Be the Guy: The Movie: The Game'', commonly called ''I Wanna Be the Guy'' and abbreviated to ''IWBTG'', is a freeware platform game created by Michael "Kayin" O'Reilly for Microsoft Windows using Multimedia Fusion 2. First released o ...

''. However, Dross had some videos that were older that in the end he deleted, among them is one that was re-uploaded by user Lucas Pedraza in which he calls a hacker. In addition, he made some video reactions, videos answering questions and also some sketches with his characters like "El Troll", "La Gorda", "La Chica Pepsi", "Estela Conchaseca" and "Fuyito Kokoyama". His look consisted of wearing long hair, dark glasses and a straw hat with a leopard print. In mid-2013, he turned his content to horror videos, and his most famous videos were the Top 7, which according to ''

La Vanguardia ' (; , ) is a Spanish daily newspaper founded in 1881. It is printed in Spanish and, since 3 May 2011, also in Catalan. It has its headquarters in Barcelona and is Catalonia's leading newspaper. Despite being mostly distributed in Catalonia, ...

'', these videos "can take him twelve hours of work." In 2015, Dross participated in a project called "Dross Dark Tales of Terror", where he told contemporary horror stories. Revilla currently runs two additional YouTube channels: ''Los Vlogs de Dross'' (Dross's Vlogs), in which he deals with controversial issues, and ''Mi Querido Mussolini'' ("My Dear Mussolini"), in which he uploads videos of his pet fish, Mussolini. In March 2017, Dross was invited to the La Mole Comic Con event, which took place at the

World Trade Center World Trade Centers are the hundreds of sites recognized by the World Trade Centers Association. World Trade Center may also refer to: Buildings * World Trade Center (1973–2001), a building complex that was destroyed during the September 11 at ...

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

and which was dedicated to

pop culture Popular culture (also called pop culture or mass culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as popular art pop_art.html" ;"title="f. pop art">f. pop artor mass art, some ...

and

Japanese culture Japanese culture has changed greatly over the millennia, from the country's prehistoric Jōmon period, to its contemporary modern culture, which absorbs influences from Asia and other regions of the world. Since the Jomon period, ancestral ...

. He participated in three meet & greet sessions, on March 17, 18 and 19. Revilla traveled to the Horror Fest, held in the city of Monterrey, Mexico on October 6 and 7, 2018. In 2018 and 2019, he won in the Digital Artist and Digital Vision Award categories from

Martín Fierro Awards The Martín Fierro Awards () are awards for Argentine radio and television, granted by APTRA, the Association of Argentine Television and Radio Journalists. History The awards were first given in 1959, limited to television. The next year, the a ...

. In 2020, he exceeded 20 million subscribers. At the beginning of 2021, Dross lent his voice to a ''Manjarate'' commercial for the Chilean company

Soprole Soprole or Sociedad Productores de Leche is a Chilean maker of dairy products. Under the Soprole brand, the company markets yogurt, milk, desserts, Jelly and butter. It was part of Fonterra until 2022, since March 2023, it is a subsidiary of ...

, distributed through the Internet and Chilean television channels. In December 2021, he won again in the category Best YouTuber of the Martín Fierro Awards.

Writing career

In 2015, he was invited to the YouTube Media Fest in Buenos Aires, where he stated during a question and answer session that "the biggest dream of my life is to publish a book." The people from the

Planeta Group Planeta Corporación, S.R.L., doing business as Grupo Planeta (), is a Spanish mass media conglomerate operating in Spain, Portugal, France and Latin America. It is headquartered in Madrid. Editorial Planeta, founded in 1949, was the seed of Gru ...

decided to speak with him to make and publish his first novel, ''Luna de Plutón'' (Pluto's Moon). It was released in Spain and Latin America in 2015, and it became one of the ten best-selling Argentine books in a few weeks. David reported in Clarín magazine that he "wrote this book with my real name, Angel Revilla, but I know that ''Luna de Pluton'' has drama, mystery, suspense, adventure, everything that Dross has. Above all the normal humor of my channel, black humor." All his books from ''Luna de Plutón'' to ''Escape'' were published by

. His second book, ''El Festival de la Blasfemia'' (The Festival of Blasphemy) was released in 2016, "a short story of terror, narrated from the black humor characteristic of Dross", a sequel to his first book, ''Luna de Plutón II: La guerra de Ysaak'' (Pluto's moon 2: The war of Ysaak), was released in March 2017. His fourth book, ''El Valle de la Calma'' (The Valley of Calm) was published in 2018, a

thriller Thriller may refer to: * Thriller (genre), a broad genre of literature, film and television ** Thriller film, a film genre under the general thriller genre Comics * ''Thriller'' (DC Comics), a comic book series published 1983–84 by DC Comics i ...

based on

H. P. Lovecraft Howard Phillips Lovecraft (, ; August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American writer of Weird fiction, weird, Science fiction, science, fantasy, and horror fiction. He is best known for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos. Born in Provi ...

works. In 2019, he released ''El libro negro. Deep web y horror cósmico'' (The black book. Deep web and cosmic horror), which explores the topics of the

Deep Web The deep web, invisible web, or hidden web are parts of the World Wide Web whose contents are not indexed by standard web search-engine programs. This is in contrast to the " surface web", which is accessible to anyone using the Internet. Co ...

and

cosmic horror Lovecraftian horror, also called cosmic horror or eldritch horror, is a subgenre of horror, fantasy fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is nam ...

. It was the best-selling book in some countries of The Americas, like Argentina from August 25 to September 1, 2019. In September 2021, he wrote ''Escape'', a book with a disturbing story and black humor.

Controversies

Dross' Internet career has been largely marked by controversy because of his outspoken attitude, especially regarding politics. He is largely opposed to the

Chavism ''Chavismo'' (from ), also known in English as Chavism or Chavezism, is a left-wing populist political ideology based on the ideas, programs and government style associated with the Venezuelan President between 1999 and 2013 Hugo Chávez that c ...

, the government of his native Venezuela under

Hugo Chávez Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (; ; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician, Bolivarian Revolution, revolutionary, and Officer (armed forces), military officer who served as the 52nd president of Venezuela from 1999 until De ...

and

Nicolás Maduro Nicolás Maduro Moros (; born 23 November 1962) is a Venezuelan politician and former union leader serving as the 53rd president of Venezuela since 2013. Previously, he was the 24th Vice President of Venezuela, vice president from 2012 to 20 ...

. He has constantly mocked Chavist personalities such as Chávez himself, Maduro,

Diosdado Cabello Diosdado Cabello Rondón (born 15 April 1963Vicepresidencia de la República Bolivariana de VenezuelaDiosdado Cabello Rondón, accessed 19 April 2010) is a Venezuelan politician who currently serves as Minister of Interior, Justice and Peace s ...

, and Mario Silva. During the

2024 Venezuelan political crisis The 2024 Venezuelan political crisis was a period of the crisis in Venezuela, aggravated after the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election results were announced. The 2024 election was held to choose a President of Venezuela, president for a six-y ...

, Dross expressed his hatred towards Maduro by saying "I hope that he ends up with a stick buried in his ass. I have absolutely no commiseration in saying that I wish him the worst, because he is a murderer and a genocidal" Dross also states that should he return to Venezuela under the Maduro government, he would be arrested and sent to

El Helicoide El Helicoide is a building in Caracas, Venezuela owned by the Venezuelan government and used as a facility and prison for both regular and political prisoners of the Bolivarian Intelligence Service, Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEB ...

. In June 2022, Dross criticized the film ''

Lightyear A light-year, alternatively spelled light year (ly or lyr), is a unit of length used to express astronomical distance, astronomical distances and is equal to exactly , which is approximately 9.46 trillion km or 5.88 trillion mi. As defined by t ...

'' for containing a scene depicting a

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

couple kissing, accusing

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...

of "trying to clean its image" and calling the film "

woke ''Woke'' is an adjective derived from African-American English used since the 1930s or earlier to refer to awareness of racial prejudice and Racial discrimination, discrimination, often in the construction ''stay woke''. The term acquired p ...

", polarizing the internet, receiving backlash on social media as a result while others agreeing with his criticism to the company. Shortly thereafter, he made a tweet about ''

The Little Mermaid "The Little Mermaid" (), sometimes translated in English as "The Little Sea Maid", is a fairy tale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. Originally published in 1837 as part of a collection of fairy tales for children, the story foll ...

'', in a tone in what many saw as

racist Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...

and

xenophobic Xenophobia (from (), 'strange, foreign, or alien', and (), 'fear') is the fear or dislike of anything that is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression that is based on the perception that a conflict exists between an in-gr ...

. In August 2023, Dross attracted controversy after posting a tweet that depicted the

desecration Desecration is the act of depriving something of its sacred character, or the disrespectful, contemptuous, or destructive treatment of that which is held to be sacred or holy by a group or individual. Overview Many consider acts of desecration t ...

of the

pride flag A pride flag is any flag that represents a segment or part of the LGBTQ community. ''Pride'' in this case refers to the notion of LGBTQ pride. The terms ''LGBTQ flag'' and ''queer flag'' are often used interchangeably. Pride flags can represen ...

. The post was reported from Germany for allegedly violating the country's social media regulations. However, Twitter determined that the post did not breach either the platform's rules or German law. In response, Dross jokingly commented, "Calm down, little Adolfs". Despite criticism from some users who considered the tweet offensive to the

LGBTQ LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, Gay men, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning (sexuality and gender), questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, Asexuality, asexual, ...

community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...

, Dross has stated in the past that he identifies as

pansexual Pansexuality is sexual, romantic, or emotional attraction towards people of all genders, or regardless of their sex or gender identity. Pansexual people may refer to themselves as gender-blind, asserting that gender and sex are not determ ...

Awards and nominations

Martín Fierro Awards

Filmography

Works

* (2015) ''Luna de Plutón.'' Planeta. . * (2016) ''Festival de la blasfemia.'' Planeta. . * (2017) ''Luna de Plutón II: La guerra de Ysaak.'' Planeta. . * (2018) ''El Valle de la Calma.'' Planeta. . * (2019) ''El libro negro. Deep web y horror cósmico.'' Planeta. . * (2021) ''Escape.'' Planeta. .

References

External links

DrossRotzank
at

Los Vlogs de Dross

Mi Querido Mussolini

DrossRotzank
at YouNow
El Diario de Dross
at

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

{{Commons 1982 births Living people 21st-century Argentine male writers 21st-century Venezuelan male writers Argentine anti-communists Argentine male comedians Argentine YouTubers LGBTQ Internet celebrities Live streamers Mass media people from Caracas Pansexual men Spanish-language YouTubers Twitter controversies Venezuelan emigrants to Argentina Venezuelan male comedians Venezuelan people of Italian descent Venezuelan YouTubers YouTube channels launched in 2006 YouTube channels YouTube streamers