IShowSpeed

About

IShowSpeed, whose real name is Darren Watkins Jr., is a streamer on YouTube known for his gaming content, eccentric personality and often offensive humor. Speed began uploading gaming content to YouTube in December 2020 and saw a massive boost in prominence throughout the first half of 2021 for his livestreams, gaining over a million subscribers within six months. Speed was permanently banned from Twitch in December 2021 for making sexist remarks on Adin Ross's stream. Speed is also known for his rap music and interactions with the Talking Ben app.

History

iShowSpeed uploaded his first video to YouTube^[1] on December 20th, 2017. The video does not feature Speed himself and is instead footage of Speed playing NBA 2k18. The majority of iShowSpeed's early uploads are clips taken from his streams, playing games including NBA 2k and Fortnite (examples shown below).

Buss It Challenge / Speed Dance

In May 2021, then-Twitch streamer iShowSpeed performed a dance on his livestream inspired by a dance from the music video for "2 Busy" by Steve the Stonerz between playing games of UFC 3. The clip of him performing the dance^[6] was uploaded to YouTube on June 2nd, 2021, by the account, Swiftyplug (shown below).

The dance became a recurring theme on Speed's streams. He notably did the dance in front of Soulja Boy live on stream on August 29th, 2021 (shown below).

In September, Speed did the dance in front of social media personality Woah Vicky while streaming with her (shown below, left). The dance also became popularized on TikTok, known as the Speed Dance, often set to iShowSpeed's song "Bounce That A$$" (compilation shown below, right).

2021 Twitch Ban

In December 2021, iShowSpeed appeared on Adin Ross's e-dating show on Twitch. During the stream, Speed and Ross talk with model Ash Kash. iShowSpeed asks Kash if she was the last person on earth, would she have sex with him. She says she wouldn't and iShowSpeed repeatedly and angrily says, "if we're the only two people on earth, who's gonna stop me?" implying he could force himself on her if they were the last two people on earth (shown below).

Speed was kicked out of Ross's stream and went on a further rant, cursing out Ross and the e-date show and calling Kash a thot and making sexist remarks toward her (shown below).

The interaction was shared across the web, with one tweet^[4] by @theguybev reading "Speed so corny omg" gaining over 22,000 likes before being deleted. iShowSpeed was permanently banned from the platform, forcing him to move his livestreams exclusively to YouTube shortly after.^[5]

Unbanning

In October of 2023, it was spotted that Speed's Twitch account was listed as "offline" instead of "currently unavailable," meaning that he had been unbanned from the platform. As of October 11th, he has yet to stream on Twitch nor discuss the unbanning.

Valorant Ban

On April 6th, 2022, Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky), an e-sports commentator and co-owner of Full Squad Gaming, posted a clip of a iShowSpeed streaming Valorant to Twitter.^[7] In the clip, Speed is seen making sexist remarks to a female player. He says, "what bitch? Is a bitch talking to me? Is a female talking to me? Get off the fucking game and do your husbands dishes bitch." In the post, Jake writes, "I now understand why Valorant queues are so unbelievably toxic. You got one of the most popular streamers on YouTube IShowSpeed saying crap like this and getting nothing but praise and laughs. Crap is whack" (shown below). The post gained over 171,000 likes, 15,000 quote-tweets and 13,000 retweets in two days.

That day, Sara Dadafshar, a producer at Riot Games, responded to the tweet saying she banned iShowSpeed's account from playing not only Valorant but every game by Riot Games (shown below).

iShowSpeed apologized for the remarks he made to the player in a video posted to Twitter^[8] following the ban. In the apology he says he "wasn't having a good day" and that people were sending him racist messages and jokes about his dead aunt but added that's "no excuse." He goes on to take full blame for the situation and said the clip is from "months ago" and that he's changed since then, reminding everyone that he's still young and growing (shown below).

iShowSpeed's ban from Valorant was met with mixed reactions. Keemstar defended iShowSpeed's actions on Twitter,^[9] saying he just just "trash talking" and that trash talking is a part of gaming. He also accused Jake Lucky of trying to cancel Speed and accused Lucky of racism for the attempt. He describes his point of view at length in an upload to his YouTube^[10] channel Drama Alert on April 7th, gaining over 300,000 views in under 24 hours (shown below).

July 2022 YouTube Ban

On July 21st, 2022, Twitter^[11] user and esports reporter Jake Lucky shared a clip from a then-deleted iShowSpeed stream where a Minecraft character in a mod gets oral sex from a female Minecraft character, writing, "IShowSpeed getting a blowjob in Minecraft in front of 90,000 viewers come on mannnn what are you doing" (shown below, left). The post gained over 107,000 likes in five days. On July 22nd, Lucky posted a screenshot from Speed's Instagram Story to Twitter^[12] where Speed says he was banned from YouTube, gaining over 25,000 likes in four days (shown below, right).

That day, Speed commented under Lucky's Twitter^[13] post, "bro what is your problem like seriously," gaining over 60,000 likes in four days. Sucky commented back, "I talk about streamer news, you are a streamer, you got a blowjob in a minecraft mod, I shared the clip." The two proceeded to argue in the thread, Speed defending himself by claiming he didn't know the inappropriate content would come up and deleted the stream after he was done streaming because he knew it was wrong. Each one of Speed's comments notably ratioed Lucky's.

10-Million Subscriber Milestone

On July 23rd, 2022, iShowSpeed passed 10 million subscribers on his YouTube channel. He posted to Instagram^[14] that day celebrating the milestone, writing, "We did it goodbye❤️" gaining over 1.6 million likes in three days (shown below).

2022 Arrest

On August 8th, 2022, while streaming, iShowSpeed called the police to inquire about whether setting fire to a PS4 would be safe, and the officer on the line informed him it would be fine. iShowSpeed then asked if the cop would stay on the line with him as he burned the PS4, to which the cop assented.

Following this approval, iShowSpeed started screaming and barking into the telephone, telling the officer to come immediately and help him and giving a false address. Immediately after hanging up, iShowSpeed expressed regret and anxiety about what the legal ramifications of the call might be. The video is shown below.^[16]

A minute-and-a-half video (seen below) uploaded on August 8th by his channel showing iShowSpeed getting arrested then trended, along with hashtag #freespeed. The video received over three million views in less than a day.^[15]

September 2022 YouTube Strike And Hiatus

On September 21st, 2022, iShowSpeed posted a video to YouTube titled, "goodbye for now 💔…." in which the creator revealed that he'd be offline for 14 days due to a strike he received on YouTube for an Omegle stream from two days prior in which he made a "fat joke" to a fan who originally bantered him. In less than a day, the video received roughly 1.6 million views (shown below).

Also on September 21st, Twitter^[17] user JakeSucky tweeted the clip from iShowSpeed's Omegle stream that got him banned, gaining roughly 630,600 views and 13,300 likes in less than a day (shown below).

IShowSpeed was given his 2nd strike on YouTube yesterday, which means another 14 days without streaming.

Many people believe this was the argument leading to his strike pic.twitter.com/Snh8c0JZm9

— Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) September 21, 2022

IShowSpeed Barking at Lil Nas X

On November 12th, 2022, the rapper and singer Lil Nas X made his first ‘official’ live-streaming debut on iShowSpeed’s YouTube channel. The 45 minutes stream generated some funny interactions with the unexpected duo, like the moment the 17-year-old asked the Lil Nas X artist who he liked 'Ronaldo or Messi', and the rapper responded that the prefers Messi, leading to IShowSpeed to stand up and start barking right in Lil Nas' face (see below). The clip, posted by @blackhokkage on TikTok on November 13th, 2022, has garnered 1,9 million views and 248 likes in two days.

In the same live stream, the YouTuber did a rap battle with Lil Nas X, which generated a funny freestyle moment by the rapper. The clip below, posted by @Dexerto on November 12th, 2022, has 2,2 million views and 132,000 likes in three days.

Lil Nas X dropped the most insane freestyle on IShowSpeed’s stream pic.twitter.com/XFfb1J7n0j

— Dexerto (@Dexerto) November 12, 2022

Online Presence

Rap Music

iShowSpeed has released a variety of rap songs. On August 6th, 2021, Speed released a video for a song with Jay Cinco called "Lying," gaining over 2.7 million views in seven months (shown below, left). On September 23rd he released a music video for his song "Bounce That A$$," gaining over 14 million views in six months (shown below, right).

On November 23rd, Speed released a music video for his song "Shake," gaining over 47 million views in four months and becoming his most popular upload on YouTube (shown below).

Talking Ben Videos

iShowSpeed regularly plays with the Talking Tom and Friends applications on stream and in videos, including Talking Ben. In the videos, iShowSpeed tries to get Ben to respond in a funny way to controversial questions and topics (examples shown below, left and right).

On February 11th, Twitter^[2] user @ishowspeedoocc posted a clip from Speed's stream where Ben hangs the phone up on him after asking if he supports LGBTQ+, gaining over 51,000 likes and 9,000 retweets in a week. iShowSpeed uploaded a video to YouTube containing this clip on February 17th, gaining over 200,000 views in a day (shown below).

On February 18th, Talking Ben the Dog reached number one on the App Store after iShowSpeed played the game on his stream (shown below).^[3]

Crypto “Scam” Controversy

On November 16th, 2022, IShowSpeed asked moderators of his live stream to ban critics in his chat while he was promoting a controversial cryptocurrency, while concerned commenters dubbed the crypto a “scam.” The advertisement was for Paradox Metaverse_, which is an open-world, action-adventure game that users can play to earn a cryptocurrency called Paradox Coin. A tweet posted by @garbuttsean^[18] (seen below) shows the moment the allegedly "scammers" tell him to get rid of people spamming “Scam” in his chat so that their crypto doesn’t look bad.

Speed pretends he didn’t know he was muted whilst scammers tell him to get rid of people spamming “Scam” in his chat so that there crypto doesn’t look bad @ishowspeedsui #speed #ishowspeed pic.twitter.com/8zanHcNIFG

— Sean (@garbutt_sean) November 16, 2022

On the same day, another streamer questioned the legitimacy of the same company IShowSpeed was promoting during his live stream on November 16th, 2022. The Drip uploaded this YouTube^[19] video, titled "Confronting the iShowSpeed Crypto Sponsors," which has garnered 66,615 views and 952 likes in less than 24 hours (see below).

IShowSpeed meets Luva de Pedreiro

On December 13th, 2022, the YouTuber IShowSpeed live-streamed the semi-final of 2022 FIFA Qatar World Cup alongside the Brazilian influencer Iran Ferreira / Luva De Pedreiro. The unexpected duo caught users' attention on TikTok and Twitter, sharing clips of their interactions while watching the game, like the video below shared by @dimitrisanders_ on the same day, garnering 1,6 million views and 94,900 likes in one day.

speed e luva juntos e mt entretenimento kkkkkkkkkkkkkk vsfddd pic.twitter.com/gNDl7DsSdm

— dimi (@dimitrisanders_) December 13, 2022

This wasn't the first time duo was seen together, that's because IShowSpeed called the Brazilian influencer during one of his live streams on November 30th, 2022, trying to interact with Luva de Pedreiro. @SantosMakonha shared a screenshot of their online encounter, receiving 1,100 likes and 31 retweets in 15 days.

Search Interest

External References