Vapor

i’m ashamed to know this but EvanMCGaming on youtube has some long-form summary storytelling cinematic videos about a lot of the lore.

Personally, I think my preferred way to approach starting the Dream SMP is to choose one perspective, and then just watch that one person's videos on it all. The entire server is so saturated with YouTubers making content and having their own plot-relevant storylines that it's pretty much impossible to absorb it all and have it make any sense.

For example, I mostly kept up on the storyline through Technoblade's videos. It was easier to keep up with one person's streams than many, but he even has several edited 20 minute videos where he attempts to explain and summarize events really quickly (as opposed to other YouTubers, who may just have entire unedited 4 hour livestreams that you can't even tell is supposed to be plot relevant or not, lol). Wilbur also has a couple videos like that.

That's just my preferred way to do it.
However!
EvanMCGaming has attempted to document all the major events of the server, and has successfully done so. This playlist I'm linking is to his nine-part video documentary series that sum up the entire storyline.
Pros: It's got everything important in it.
Cons: It's documentary-style, it's not going to use actual extended clips. Which means you don't get to see any of the actual interactions. But I guess if there's any of those you want to see, you can always just ask or something and I can point you to where the videos can actually be found.

NOOO DANNEX NINJA'D ME