IShowSpeed

Darren Jason Watkins Jr. (born January 21, 2005), known online as IShowSpeed or Speed, is an American YouTuber, online personality and online streamer. He is known for his dramatic and energetic behavior showcased in his variety live streams, as well as his in-real-life (IRL) streams in worldwide locations. He has been viewed as a cultural ambassador as his visits to countries often showcase their cultures and inventions to both domestic and international audiences.

IShowSpeed registered his YouTube channel in 2016, where he began posting gaming content. He started gaining online attention in 2021 due to his provocative and energetic behavior such as barking and raging while gaming. He became a millionaire at age 16 and his first major purchase was a house for his mother. In 2022, he began shifting focus towards football/soccer-related content, becoming an avid supporter of Cristiano Ronaldo, commonly revolving his content around his support for the football player.

IShowSpeed has also pursued a rapping career. He signed with Warner Records to release his 2022 single "World Cup", which charted in several countries. He was named Breakout Streamer of the Year at the 12th Streamy Awards in 2022, and Streamer of the Year at the 2024 Streamer Awards. IShowSpeed is considered one of the most popular online streamers and Internet personalities in the world.

Early life

Darren Jason Watkins Jr. was born on January 21, 2005, in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Watkins created his YouTube account in 2016, uploading gameplay videos occasionally. Around December 2017, Watkins began livestreaming and uploading videos of games such as ''NBA 2K'' and occasionally '' Fortnite'', averaging two viewers per livestream.

Career

2021: Early career and Twitch ban

Watkins became prominent after his fanbase began posting clips on TikTok of his often-violent behavior during live streams towards games, players, and his camera, which gained popularity and became memes. His outbursts have resulted in bans from the streaming platform Twitch and the video game ''Valorant''. ''Kotaku'' described Watkins as "one of the biggest and fastest-rising streamers" on YouTube. A game that had contributed to his growth in popularity was '' Talking Ben''. Watkins' videos on ''Talking Ben the Dog'' were credited by ''Lifehacker'' for bringing the mobile app newfound popularity, with it becoming the best-selling game on the App Store in April 2022, over a decade after its initial release.
In April 2021, Watkins's YouTube channel reached 100,000 subscribers. Two months later, his channel reached 1 million subscribers. In December 2021, Watkins took part in a Twitch "e-dating" livestream show hosted by Adin Ross. The exchange between Watkins and another participant, Ash Kash, escalated to what was widely interpreted as a rape threat. Watkins was the first contestant to be eliminated, and shortly after the game had ended, he quickly rejoined the Discord call. He started harassing Kash through offensive remarks. Watkins was then kicked out of the call, with Ross apologizing to Kash for his behavior. Watkins was later banned from Twitch for "sexual coercion or intimidation." Watkins' Twitch account would not be unbanned until October 2023, though he would continue to stream on YouTube and would appear on Twitch sporadically on other content creators' streams.

2022–2023: Initial popularity and various controversies

In April 2022, a clip of Watkins playing ''Valorant'' on a live stream surfaced. In the clip, he tells a female player: "Get off the fucking game and do your husband's dishes." This resulted in one of the game's producers, Sara Dadafshar, permanently banning Watkins from ''Valorant'' and all other Riot Games titles. YouTube's global head of gaming creators, Lester Chen, replied to the clip, saying he was "on it." Watkins soon apologized for his behavior, acknowledged that it was "wrong", and claimed that he was receiving racist comments from other players that day.

On July 4, 2022, during American Independence Day, Watkins set off a Pikachu firework inside his bedroom, almost burning it down, which attracted media attention. He hit 10 million subscribers on YouTube during this month. Later in July 2022, Watkins received a community guidelines strike as well as a one-week ban on YouTube after livestreaming his character being fellated in a sexual ''Minecraft'' mod named "Jenny's Mod" to 96,000 live viewers as well as the options "Blowjob", "Sex", and "Strip" displayed on screen. He selected the "Blowjob" option. Initially, he censored the screen as it was happening, but he kept changing it from censored to uncensored. Eventually, he left the screen uncensored, and his character was seen expressing sexual activity. Watkins later confirmed the strike and purported that he may not return to YouTube, but did.

In August 2022, he was swatted while livestreaming on YouTube. Officers handcuffed Watkins, and his cameraman was forced to end the stream. Watkins claimed 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. In September 2022, Watkins played in the Sidemen Charity Match. A clip of him went viral in which he became frustrated at English referee Mark Clattenburg for disallowing his goal to be offside, and in response, Watkins proceeded to whip him with the shirt he removed while celebrating, which resulted in him receiving a yellow card.

In November 2022, Sky Sports announced that they would stop featuring him on their platform after the emergence of past misogynist and derogatory comments made by Watkins. The platform also removed all content featuring Watkins. On November 16, he garnered controversy for allegedly doing a ' pump and dump scheme' cryptocurrency scam after he started a livestream promoting The Paradox Metaverse, an action-adventure game awarding players Paradox Coin. The next day, he went live to address 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."

In December 2022, he won the Streamy Award in the "Breakout Streamer" category during the 12th Streamy Awards. That same month, during the round of 16 match between Portugal and Switzerland, Watkins garnered controversy for his behavior toward a Chinese spectator of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, which was interpreted by many as racist. During a live stream, he approached a man wearing an Argentina jersey to question him. Visibly confused, the man specified that he did not speak English, which prompted Watkins to start repeatedly hurling "Konnichiwa", a Japanese greeting, and start uttering sounds reminiscent of Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese. When a clip of the live stream started circulating online, he uploaded an apology video to his Twitter account.

In May 2023, Watkins announced he had signed an exclusive streaming deal with the video-sharing platform Rumble, in collaboration with Kai Cenat. A month later, after many attempts, Watkins met Cristiano Ronaldo in the carpark of Estádio da Luz in Lisbon after Portugal's 3–0 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In August 2023, he hit 20 million subscribers on his YouTube account. On August 16, during a livestream, Watkins jumped up from his seat due to being jumpscared while playing '' Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach'' and accidentally flashed his penis to a live viewership of 25,000 people. He subsequently 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 penis, began trending on Reddit and X (Twitter). YouTube declined to strike his channel or ban him from the platform due to the accidental nature of the incident. Later in December 2023, Watkins fought KSI in a charity boxing sparring match after a year-long banter rivalry, raising money for the Anthony Walker Foundation.

2024–present: Travel content, streamer of the year and continued growth

On February 23, 2024, Watkins participated in "Match for Hope 2024", a soccer charity match hosted in Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium, Qatar, where he played for Team Chunkz. A clip of him went viral in which he slide tackled Brazilian former footballer Kaká.

Watkins appeared on Night 2 of WWE's WrestleMania XL on April 7, 2024. He was dressed as a bottle of Prime for the WWE United States Championship match between champion Logan Paul, Kevin Owens, and Randy Orton, where he was kicked by Orton and RKOed onto the commentators' table. Watkins would later appear on the April 29 episode of '' Raw'' to announce the ''Raw'' brand's second-round picks for Night 2 of the 2024 WWE Draft; Paul announced the second round picks for ''SmackDown''.

On May 29, 2024, Watkins attended the annual Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake in Gloucestershire, England, during which he suffered a leg injury, which he claimed required hospitalization. In June and July 2024, during the UEFA Euro 2024, Watkins toured Europe, reaching 25 million subscribers on June 2. On July 3, Watkins visited Norway, where he streamed in a souvenir store. While interacting with a large gathering of fans from a second story window, he injured his ankle. Upon being escorted out by a bodyguard, Watkins was attacked by the crowd, and would be hospitalized. Watkins' tour of Europe received over 2.5 billion views across multiple social media platforms.

Watkins is a supporter of Palestine, a critic of Israel, and has regularly shouted “Free Palestine!” on his gaming livestreams. In June 2024, he donated $50,000 to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund.

On August 3, 2024, Watkins performed a live-streamed stunt where he jumped over two speeding luxury cars in Miami. The stream was then deleted on August 5, due to violating YouTube's Terms of Service. While on tour in Southeast Asia, he surpassed 30 million subscribers and accumulated a total of 110 million views for the duration of the trip. One of Watkins' livestreams, titled "IRL Stream in Indonesia", marked the first time an English-speaking streamer has received one million concurrent viewers in a livestream.

In November 2024, Watkins lost an exhibition 50 meter race against 2024 Summer Olympics men's 100 metres gold medalist Noah Lyles. The competition was refereed and organized by MrBeast. On November 22, Watkins began his tour of Australia and New Zealand. On November 26, It was announced that Watkins would be the president of the US version of Baller League, a six-a-side football league. Later that month, he was ranked first by Complex Networks in its list of "The 25 Best Streamers Right Now".

In December 2024, Watkins was nominated for and won the "Get Off Your A** Award (Best IRL Streamer)", "Best International Streamer", and "Streamer of the Year" awards of the 2024 Streamer Awards. Later that month he won the "Most Influential Soccer Creator" award of the GOAL Champions Awards.

On January 10, 2025, Watkins announced that he would be doing a tour in South America. On January 28, during his tour in Peru, he was declared an honorary mayor of Lima for an hour by Rafael López Aliaga, the city's mayor, who also declared him an " ambassador of Lima".

On February 1, 2025, Watkins appeared in WWE's Royal Rumble, when Akira Tozawa, the planned 8th entrant, was considered unable to compete in the match. Watkins substituted for Tozawa. Watkins managed to eliminate Otis with Bron Breakker but then got speared by Bron Breakker shortly after. Outside of the ring, Otis caught Watkins, but subsequently proceeded to throw him over the announcer's table — eliminating him. Watkins became the youngest Royal Rumble Entrant not to be signed to WWE at 20 years and 11 days old, which also made him the youngest ever Entrant beating René Duprée by 1 month and 1 day.

Later on February 14, 2025, Watkins participated in "Match for Hope 2025", a soccer charity event hosted in Stadium 974, Qatar, as a co-captain for team Chunkz & IShowSpeed, facing off against team AboFlah & KSI. The match ended with team AboFlah & KSI's 6–5 victory over team Chunkz & IShowSpeed. The event managed to raise more than $10.7 million for charity.

On March 5, 2025, Watkins was featured on CBS Sports Golazo's coverage of the UEFA Champions League. Later on March 8, 2025, Watkins participated in the 2025 Sidemen Charity Match, held at Wembley Stadium in London, United Kingdom. Serving as both captain and player for the YouTube Allstars team, he scored his first goal in the charity match series in the 56th minute, having failed to score in his previous two appearances. Watkins later secured victory for the YouTube Allstars by converting the decisive penalty in a shoot-out.

On March 18, 2025, Watkins announced that he would be doing a tour in mainland China and Mongolia. During his tour, Chinese state media and Chinese netizens praised Watkins for "promoting positive relations between China and the United States". In contrast to his streams in mainland China, Watkins' stream in Hong Kong was chaotic due to overcrowding and harassment by local fans; his ride on the MTR led to fans causing damage to Tin Hau station.

On May 5, 2025, Watkins was swatted at a KFC store during a Cinco de Mayo IRL livestream.

Music career

In August 2021, Watkins released his first single, "Dooty Booty", on his YouTube channel. Following its upload, the song quickly became popular on YouTube and other social media sites, such as TikTok. In November, Watkins released a single titled "Shake", which sampled both " Ready or Not" by the Fugees as well as " Hit The Road Jack" by Ray Charles. The song's accompanying music video received over 211 million views on YouTube.

In June 2022, he released a song called "Ronaldo (Sewey)", following his newfound admiration for Cristiano Ronaldo. In November 2022, he released a single titled "World Cup" under Warner Records in honor of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. On July 7, 2023, Watkins was a surprise guest at the 2023 Rolling Loud festival in Portugal and performed "Shake", "World Cup" and "Portuginies" with the support of American rapper Ski Mask the Slump God and producer DJ Scheme.

In March 2024, Watkins released his first extended play ''Trip 2 Brazil.''

Discography

Extended plays

Singles

Filmography

Awards and nominations

References

External links

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{{Streamy Awards Winners CSS

2005 births
Living people
21st-century African-American male singers
21st-century American male rappers
21st-century American male singers
21st-century American rappers
African-American male rappers
American anti-Zionists
American gaming YouTubers
American social media influencers
American trap musicians
American Twitch (service) streamers
American YouTube vloggers
Association football YouTubers
English-language YouTube channels
Internet memes introduced in 2021
Internet memes introduced in 2022
Minecraft YouTubers
Rappers from Cincinnati
Sidemen Charity Match players
Singers from Cincinnati
Soccer in the United States
Streamer Award winners
Streamy Award winners
YouTube channels launched in 2016
YouTubers from Cincinnati
YouTube streamers