IShowSpeed
American YouTuber and online streamer From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Darren Jason Watkins Jr.[2] (born January 21, 2005),[3] better known by his online username IShowSpeed, is an American YouTuber, internet celebrity, and online streamer. He is known for his dramatic and full of energy live streams, including in-real-life (IRL) streams in worldwide locations. People see him as a cultural ambassador because he shows the culture and inventions of each country he visits to people around the world.[4]
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He created his YouTube channel in 2016, and first posted gaming content. He became popular in 2021, due to his wild and full of energy behavior such as barking and raging while gaming. He became a millionaire at age 16 and bought a house for his mother.[5] In 2022, he started making videos about soccer, especially showing support for Cristiano Ronaldo.[6][7]
Watkins also became a rapper. He signed with Warner Records to release his 2022 single "World Cup", which became popular in many countries. He won Breakout Streamer of the Year at the 12th Streamy Awards in 2022,[8][9] and Streamer of the Year at the 2024 Streamer Awards.[10][11] Watkins is one of the most popular online streamers and Internet personalities in the world.[12][13][14]
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Early life and education
Darren Watkins Jr.[15] was born on January 21, 2005, in Cincinnati, Ohio,[3] and graduated from Ohio Digital Learning School, in Maumee.[16]
Watkins created his YouTube account in 2016, uploading gameplay videos sometimes.[17] Around December 2017, Watkins began livestreaming and uploading videos of games such as NBA 2K and sometimes Fortnite, usually with about two viewers watching.[18]
Career
2021: Early career and Twitch ban
Watkins became popular after his fans began posting videos on TikTok showing his violent behavior during live streams towards games, players, and his camera, which gained popularity and became memes. Because of his outbursts, he was banned from Twitch and the video game Valorant.[19] Kotaku called Watkins as "one of the biggest and fastest-rising streamers" on YouTube.[17] A game that made him popular was Talking Ben. Lifehacker said Watkins' videos made Talking Ben the Dog popular again, and it became the best-selling game on the App Store in April 2022, over a decade after its release.[20]
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In April 2021, Watkins' YouTube channel reached 100,000 subscribers. Two months later, his channel reached 1 million subscribers.[18] In December 2021, Watkins joined a Twitch "e‑dating" livestream show hosted by Adin Ross. Watkins and another participant, Ash Kash, argued, and many people thought Watkins made a rape threat. Watkins was the first player to be eliminated, and shortly after the game had ended, he quickly rejoined the Discord call. He started harassing to Kash with rude words. Watkins was then kicked out of the call, with Ross apologizing to Kash for his behavior. Watkins was later banned from Twitch for sexual harassment.[21] Watkins' Twitch account would not be unbanned until October 2023, though he would continue to stream on YouTube and would appear on Twitch sometimes on other content creators' streams.[22]
2022–2023: Popularity and controversies
In April 2022, a video showed Watkins playing Valorant on a live stream. In the video, he tells a female player, "Get off the f**king game and do your husband's dishes".[19] Because of this, one of the game's producers, Sara Dadafshar banned Watkins from Valorant and all other Riot Games titles forever.[23][24] YouTube's global head of gaming creators, Lester Chen, replied to the video, saying he was "on it".[17] Watkins later apologized, agreed that it was "wrong", and said that he had been getting racist comments from other players that day.[25]
On July 4, 2022, during American Independence Day, Watkins set off a Pikachu firework inside his bedroom, almost burning it down, which went popular in the media.[26][27] He reached 10 million subscribers on YouTube in this month.[18] Later in July 2022, Watkins got a community guidelines strike and a one-week ban from YouTube after livestreaming a sexual Minecraft mod called "Jenny's Mod" to 96,000 live viewers. The screen showed options like "Blowjob", "Sex", and "Strip", and he chose "Blowjob". At first, he censored the screen as it was happening, but he kept changing it from censored to uncensored. In the end, he left the screen uncensored, showing his character in a sexual scene. Watkins later confirmed the strike and said he may not return to YouTube, but did.[28][29]
In August 2022, he was swatted while livestreaming on YouTube. Police handcuffed Watkins, and his cameraman had to end the stream.[30] Watkins said that he had been placed in jail and that Adin Ross had to bail him out, allowing him to return to streaming on August 11.[31] In September 2022, Watkins played in the Sidemen Charity Match.[32] A clip of him went popular in which he became angry at English referee Mark Clattenburg for calling his goal offside. Watkins took off his shirt to celebrate, then hit the referee with it and got a yellow card.[33]
In November 2022, Sky Sports said that they would stop featuring him on their platform after the people found out about old misogynist and insulting comments made by Watkins. The platform also removed all content about Watkins.[34][35] On November 16, people accused him for doing a "pump and dump scheme" cryptocurrency scam after he started a livestream about The Paradox Metaverse, an action-adventure game awarding players Paradox Coin.[36][37] The next day, he went live to talk about the controversy and apologized, saying "I do so much stuff for y'all, I made a mistake. I'm not that smart, I'ma be honest, I made a mistake that I wish I never did but I'm not a scammer".[38]
In December 2022, he won the Streamy Award in the "Breakout Streamer" category during the 12th Streamy Awards.[39] That same month, during the round of 16 match between Portugal and Switzerland, Watkins caused controversy for acting in a way toward a Chinese fan of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, that many people thought it was racist. During a live stream, he talked to a man wearing an Argentina jersey to question him. The man said he did not speak English, which Watkins started repeatedly saying "Konnichiwa", a Japanese greeting, and made sounds that seemed like Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese. When a clip of the live stream started going popular, he uploaded an apology video to his Twitter account.[40]
On January 7, 2023, Watkins said in a livestream that his pet bulldog had passed away. The incident made Watkins sad, who became emotional while talking to fans.[41] In May, Watkins said he made a deal to stream only on the video-sharing platform Rumble, in collaboration with Kai Cenat.[42] A month later, after many attempts, Watkins met Cristiano Ronaldo in a parking lot of Estádio da Luz in Lisbon after Portugal's 3–0 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina.[43]
In August 2023, he reached 20 million subscribers on his YouTube channel.[44] On August 16, during a livestream, Watkins got jumpscared while playing Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach and accidentally showed his penis to about 25,000 live viewers.[45] He then ended and deleted the livestream. Viewers uploaded the clip of the incident onto social media, and the term "IShowMeat", in reference to the slang word meat, meaning a penis, began trending on Reddit and X (Twitter).[46][47] YouTube did not strike his channel or ban him from the platform, because it was an accident.[48] Later in December 2023, Watkins had a charity boxing sparring match with KSI after a year-long banter rivalry, raising money for the Anthony Walker Foundation.[49]
2024–present: Travel content and continued growth
On January 10, 2025, Watkins announced that he would be doing a tour in South America.[50][51] On January 28, during his tour in Peru, he briefly became honorary mayor of Lima, Peru, for two hours and was also declared an ambassador of Peru and Lima.[52]
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Music carrer
Watkins has made many songs. These have been popular on YouTube and TikTok. In 2022, he made a single named "World Cup". It went onto the UK Singles music chart.[53] It also went onto other national music charts.[54][55]
References
Other websites
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