| IShowSpeed | |
| Other Names: | Speed |
| Birth Name: | Darren Jason Watkins Jr. |
| Birth Date: | January 21, 2005 |
| Birth Place: | Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. |
| Years Active: | 2016–present |
| Signature: | IShowSpeed Signature.svg |
| Channel Direct Url: | IShowSpeed |
| Channel Display Name: | IShowSpeed |
| Subscribers: | 28.1 million |
| Views: | 2.9 billion |
| Silver Button: | yes |
| Silver Year: | 2021 |
| Gold Button: | yes |
| Gold Year: | 2021 |
| Diamond Button: | yes |
| Diamond Year: | 2022 |
| Stats Update: | August 19, 2024 |
| Module: | |
Darren Jason Watkins Jr. (born January 21, 2005), known online as IShowSpeed or simply Speed, is an American internet personality and online streamer. He is best known for his dramatic behavior in his variety livestreams, in which he primarily streams around the world, and plays video games. In 2022, IShowSpeed began to shift towards soccer-related content while also becoming an avid supporter of footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, commonly revolving his content with support towards him.[1] [2]
Watkins registered his YouTube channel "IShowSpeed" in 2016, where he began posting gaming content. He started gaining online attention in 2021 due to his aberrant behavior and comments. One incident resulted in him being banned from Twitch and the game Valorant. After being banned from Twitch, he solely streams on YouTube. Two years later, he shifted towards football-related content, leading to appearances at the Sidemen Charity Football Match and meeting sports athletes. In 2022, he was named Breakout Streamer of the Year at the 12th Streamy Awards.[3] [4]
Watkins has also pursued a recording career; most notably, he released his 2022 single "World Cup" through Warner Records, which charted in several countries.
Darren Jason Watkins Jr.[5] was born on January 21, 2005 in Cincinnati, Ohio.[6] He has a younger half-brother named Dian, who would appear occasionally on his streams.[7]
In July 2023, he was rushed to a hospital while in Tokyo, Japan, after having a sinus infection and a stinging pain in his head which he described as a cluster headache.[8]
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 Fortnite, but only managed to average two viewers.
He became prominent in 2021 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 has greatly contributed to his growth in popularity is Talking Ben. Watkins' videos on Talking Ben the Dog were credited for bringing the mobile app newfound popularity, with it becoming the best-selling game on the App Store over a decade after its initial release.
In April 2021, Watkins's YouTube channel reached 100,000 subscribers. After two months, his channel reached 1 million subscribers in June 2021.
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 sexually harassing Kash, slurring her repeatedly. Watkins was then kicked out of the call, with Ross apologizing to Kash for his behavior. Watkins was later banned from Twitch. According to a Twitter post by him, Watkins was banned for "sexual coercion or intimidation."In April 2022, a clip of Watkins playing Valorant on a live stream surfaced. In the clip, he tells a female player to, "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 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 American Independence Day, July 4, 2022, Watkins set off a Pikachu firework inside his bedroom, almost burning it down, which attracted media attention. He also hit 10 million subscribers on YouTube in July 2022. Later that month, 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 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 claimed he wouldn't return to YouTube, but he returned soon after his ban ended.
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 Football 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.[9]
In November 2022, American rapper and singer Lil Nas X appeared on Watkins' stream. In the same month, 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.
In December 2022, he won the Streamy Award in the "Breakout Streamer" category during the 12th Streamy Awards. Throughout November and December 2022, he visited various football stadiums to try and watch Cristiano Ronaldo play live. He traveled to Old Trafford, Craven Cottage, and various other stadiums in Qatar, though Ronaldo was on the bench during those games, up until Portugal's loss to Morocco.[10] [11]
During the round of 16 match between Portugal and Switzerland, in December 2022, 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 January 2023, Watkins had a portrait of Cristiano Ronaldo tattooed on his arm.[12] In February 2023, Watkins uploaded a short video on one of his secondary channels stating he was behind Thumb Media Affiliate and Cardigan, two copyright companies that had either been claiming ad revenue or striking videos from channels that had been using clips from his streams. Other content creators also discovered Adin Ross, one of his associates, was also behind the labels. Following this short, Watkins faced significant backlash from his community.[13] [14]
In May 2023, Watkins announced he had signed an exclusive streaming deal with the video-sharing platform Rumble, in collaboration with Kai Cenat.[15] 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.[16]
In August 2023, he hit 20 million subscribers on his YouTube account.[17] On August 16, 2023, during a livestream, Watkins jumped up from his seat due to being jumpscared while playing and accidentally flashed his penis to a live viewership of 25,000 people.[18] He subsequently ended the livestream and released (before also quickly deleting) a TikTok video in which he claimed he was quitting Youtube, saying "I'mma miss y'all, dearly dawg. But I'm quitting man, this is my last time. Me posting the video, I just can't take it dawg." 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).[19] [20] YouTube has since declined to strike his channel or ban him from the platform due to the accidental nature of the incident.[21]
In October 2023, Watkins met and collaborated with Indian singer Daler Mehndi during his visit to India.[22] On October 11, 2023, Twitch unbanned Watkins's account after nearly two years.[23]
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.[24] [25]
On June 2, 2024, he reached 25 million subscribers on his YouTube account in a 15-minute-long livestream entitled "25 million.......".[26] On June 20, 2024, he met Albanian prime minister Edi Rama during his live stream in Albania.[27] [28] On July 3, 2024, Watkins visited Norway, where he found himself trapped in a souvenir shop due to a large crowd. While gesturing to them from a second-story window, he jumped and injured his ankle, but believed he broke it. Unable to walk, he was escorted out by one of his bodyguards, in which he was attacked by the crowd, with some of them pulling him by the hair and one jumping on top of his car.[29] He was later rushed to the Hospital to have his ankle treated.[30] During the incident, the Norwegian Police Service refused to assist Watkins until he ended his stream.[31] He vowed never to return to Norway again because of the behavior of his crowd[32], but later returned in a livestream on July 17th.
On August 3, 2024, Watkins performed a live-streamed stunt where he jumped over two speeding luxury cars—a Lamborghini and a McLaren—in Miami to prove his athleticism and silence skeptics who had previously doubted the authenticity of his car jump videos. The stream was then deleted on August 5, 2024 due to the stream itself violating YouTube's Terms of Service. A few days later, the live stream itself was then later restored. On August 16, 2024, he returned to stream again. [33] [34] [35] [36]
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.[37]
Watkins would later appear on the April 29, 2024, 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.
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 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, 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.[38]
In March 2024, Watkins released four new songs for his new EP, Trip 2 Brazil.
In February 2023, Watkins donated over $50,000 to victims of the Turkey–Syria earthquakes.[39]
In December 2023, Watkins fought KSI in a charity boxing sparring match after a year-long banter rivalry.[40] They raised over £50,000 for the Anthony Walker Foundation.[41]
| Year | Peak chart positions | Album | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IRE [42] | NLD Tip [43] | NZ Hot [44] | SWE Heat. [45] | UK [46] | |||
| "Dooty Booty" | 2021 | — | — | — | — | — | rowspan="10" |
| "Shake" | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| "God Is Good" | 2022 | — | — | — | — | — | |
| "Ronaldo (Sewey)" | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| "World Cup" | 37 | 1 | 29 | 6 | 52 | ||
| "Dogs" | 2023 | — | — | — | — | — | |
| "Portuginies" | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| "Come My Way" | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| "Monkey" | 2024 | — | — | — | — | — | |
| "Amar de" | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| Title | Role | Notes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | The Sidemen Story | Himself | Documentary | [47] |
| Title | Artist(s) | Role | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | "Let's Go" | Tion Wayne feat. Aitch | Himself | |
| "Don't Lie" | A1 x J1 feat. Nemzzz | [48] | ||
| 2022 | Streamy Awards | Streamer of the Year | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Breakout Streamer | ||||
| 2023 | Streamy Awards | Streamer of the Year | [49] | |
| Variety Streamer |