Delusions

“ I wanna say that I'm about, 10 to 15 percent of the world population... As far as how many people have seen my videos... I wanna say it's about 700 million. ” — Daniel when asked about how many fans he has in the Monkeyman Interview.

This is what Daniel truly believes.

Daniel Larson has many delusions due to his mental illnesses and manipulation by trolls.

Origins

The simple answer for why Daniel experiences delusions is because of his various mental illnesses, most notably schizophrenia.

Delusions

Fame

Daniel believes that he is a world-renowned international celebrity singer-songwriter with billions of fans; despite this he has also referred to himself as an "up and coming artist." While Daniel does have fans (and on a far smaller scale), it is not because of his music. It should be noted that the #DanielLarson hashtag on TikTok has over 1 billion views, but this does not come from people being interested in whatever music career Daniel thinks he has.

To further put things into perspective, Daniel has around 19,500 monthly listeners on Spotify; while Michael Jackson has 41.9 million; Taylor Swift, the top artist on Spotify, has 114.6 million. Needless to say, Daniel has a long way to go until he reaches the top charts.

In addition, this delusion of grandeur causes Daniel to continually believes that he needs a contract with a record label or management, leading to trolls manipulating him under the guise of it being for his music career.

Grace VanderWaal

Main article: Grace VanderWaal

Many of Daniel's delusions involve Grace VanderWaal, where as Grace had never even publicly acknowledged Daniel until April 2024, and definitely not in the positive light Daniel was hoping for. Due to trolls (as either management or Grace impersonators,) Daniel has been duped on multiple occasions into believing that he is in direct contact with Grace VanderWaal. He has been fed false information about Grace by trolls, especially around Grace's supposed death.

Some examples include:

• Believing that he is in an active relationship or otherwise in direct contact with Grace or her family.
  • Daniel has been manipulated into doing basically anything that he believes has something to do with Grace or his relationship with her.
• Believing that Grace is dying or dead.
• Believing that he will be collaborating with Grace.

Law enforcement

Daniel regularly believes that FBI (as well as other law enforcement and investigation agencies like the CIA,) are in direct contact with him. In some cases, he also believes that the FBI is cooperating with him such as during the The Flexburger War, despite the fact that he has a criminal record. Trolls are probably contacting him and pretending to be part of these organizations.

A notable example of this was in the Olive Garden Incident where Daniel was completely convinced that the FBI was going to raid the building and shut down Olive Garden, even proceeding to attempt a citizens arrest on the employees.

Stalking

Daniel occasionally believes that he is being stalked by random parties. During his time in Texas Daniel believed that he was being stalked by a homeless man, as well as a while pickup truck.

Finances

Main article: Daniel Larson's Finances

Daniel claiming to have his bank account robbed as a result of not being able to pay for lunch... casually leaving him with 8.6 million dollars of debt.

Daniel will use fake bank account apps or budget tracker apps to create a "situation" in which he needs money. He is probably attempting to trick fans into giving him money by doing this, that is, he's begging with extra steps. Sometimes Daniel will declare an emergency about being a few billion dollars in debt.