IShowSpeed

Darren Jason Watkins Jr. (born: ), better known online as IShowSpeed (also known as Speed), is an American YouTuber, variety online streamer, football athlete, and hip-hop musician.
Darren is known for his extravagant, eccentric, hot-headed, and ostentatious personality on his variety of gaming and entertainment livestreams. He also became notable for gaining over 1 million subscribers in a matter of days in 2021, making him one of the youngest creators with the fastest growing channel of that year, at only 16 years of age at the time. With all of his channels combined, Darren has over 40 million subscribers and approximately 5 billion views altogether, making him one of the biggest Black YouTubers.
Darren started to achieve widespread fame when his fanbase started publishing clips of him on TikTok, with many of them becoming internet memes. This includes his interactions with Outfit7's Talking Ben, which are considered some of his most popular endeavors, helping revitalize the app's popularity by making the game one of the most downloaded apps at the time he streamed his first gameplay on Talking Ben. 
==YouTube History==
Darren first created his account on March 21, 2016, and published his first video on December 21, 2017. He did his first livestream (which was about Fortnite) on December 28, 2018, but barely averaged with 2 viewers. Since the beginning of 2020, he started uploading and doing livestreams about video games including and Fortnite. He was growing slowly at a daily basis to a point where; in June 2020, he averaged about 10 viewers in his livestreams and 150 new subscribers weekly. 
===Talking Ben===
Darren is particularly known for his overwhelming rivalry with Talking Ben from Outfit7's Talking Tom & Friends franchise, mostly arguing through the telephone feature from Ben's "Talking Ben the Dog" app. Usually, he will ask Ben if he supports Black Lives Matter movement, the LGBTQ+ community, or other unusual questions. Darren's rivalry with Ben has since become a famous and loved meme on the Internet, he would also make videos with Angela and Tom, characters from games similar to Ben's. Darren also has a number of videos about him playing virtual reality (VR) games while wearing a headset. At one point, Darren and his friends did a real-life skit, where one of his friends was posing in a Talking Ben costume.
However, on February 24, 2022, Darren received a legal strike warning email from Outfit7 telling him to stop live-broadcasting any games that were associated with the company due to countless emails sent to their support team complaining about Darren's streams related to the company's games. The email also said that the company does not tolerate any bad behavior with their mobile games, and that Darren is giving the wrong image on their games when the company was made aware of his livestreams about Talking Ben. Although, it is unverified if the email was actually sent by the company.
===Rise in popularity===
In the beginning of 2021, Darren started to gain around 1,000 subscribers weekly and 350 viewers in his livestreams, growing consistently until surpassing 100,000 subscribers in April 2021. Between May and June of the same year, Darren's fanbase started uploading clips from his livestreams and memes on TikTok, which helped Darren surpass 1 million subscribers in that same period of time within June 2021 (and eventually also surpassed 1.1 million subscribers). Darren hit 10 million subscribers on July 22, 2022, and 1 billion views on his main channel on November 28, 2022. He hit 20 million subscribers on August 26, 2023.
===Music===
After his rise to success, Darren started collaborating with various music producers to release songs, such as:
*"Shake" (2021)
*"Bounce That A$$" (2021)
*"Dooty Booty" (2021)
*"God Is Good" (2022)
*"Ronaldo" (2022)
*"World Cup" (2022)
*"Dogs" with Kai Cenat (2023)
*"Portuginies" produced by DJ Scheme (2023)
*"Monkey" (2024)
*"Amar de" with MC Kevin O Chris (2024)
*"Get down" (2024)
*"Trip 2 Brazil" with Bandmanrill (2024)
*"Porradão" produced by shonci & DJ Scheme (2024)
*"Seven" produced by shonci, DJ Scheme, & DJ Luan (2024)
Darren's songs are hip-hop-based remixes and samples of other well-known songs, which he adds as accompaniment samples in his music videos. For example:
*"Shake" uses Ray Charles' "Hit The Road Jack" as an instrumental and its trio singers as incidental vocals. He also used the vocals in The Fugees' "Ready or Not" as another incidental vocal, but in a high-pitched, edited voice.
*"Ronaldo" uses the vocals of Skrillex's "Take Ü There" as incidental vocals.
*"Shake Pt. 2" uses Timbaland and Nelly Fertuado's "Promiscuous" as an instrumental on the first half of the song.
**He also uses Paul Johnson's "Get Get Down" as an instrumental on the second half of the song, which was remixed as a jersey club beat.
*In "Dogs" featuring Kai Cenat, they used the famous line "Who let the dogs out?" from Baha Men's hit of the same name.
===Channel strikes===
On July 22, 2022, the same day Darren hit 10 million subscribers, he announced on his highlights channel that he received a Community Guidelines strike by YouTube for showcasing a sexual Minecraft modifier on his screen, causing him to be unable to upload for 7 days.
On September 21, 2022, Darren announced on his highlights channel that he had received his second Community Guidelines strike by YouTube for harassment and cyberbullying, meaning that he could not upload for the next 14 days. Darren revealed he was arguing with another person on Omegle, and had then joked about the person's weight. He went on to say that he was angry that YouTube had given him a strike for something he usually does. He returned on October 5, 2022, and said he will stream less frequently in his main channel to avoid receiving a third channel strike.
On February 27, 2023, Darren announced that he had received his third and final strike. He mentioned that the strike was due to the FIFA Ballon d'Or going on at the time of one of his livestreams, and he decided to pull it up live in front of tens of thousands of viewers to watch. He also stated that he would not be able to stream on his main channel anymore, and issued a final goodbye to his audience on his secondary channel. Despite this, Darren has still continued to livestream on his main channel.
==Content==
Darren's content is mostly based off of his past livestreams' recordings, and the very few actual videos he makes are simply short clips of him doing announcements to his subscribers. In his livestreams, he mostly plays PS4 video games such as Fortnite, NBA 2K21, and Five Night At Freddy's 4, while speaking and interacting with his viewers. After breaking his PS4 console after getting swatted on August 8, 2022, he started playing video games on his PS5 console. He mostly plays FIFA 23 or the later titles on his PS5. Since February 2023, Darren has played a variety of game consoles other than his PlayStation, PC, or phone, such as several video games on his Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, as well as various Xbox 360 Kinect games. 
Since early-February of 2022, Darren has been known to play a bunch of Outfit7's games, particularly the ones associated with the company's Talking Tom & Friends franchise, on BlueStacks. Darren also features his school in his livestreams, and will occasionally log onto Omegle to troll people in different ways, such as barking at them, or by wearing fake breasts and having his face-cam zoomed into them.
Other times, when Darren is on Omegle, his livestream viewers will immediately hop on Omegle to search for him. If Darren is using Omegle on his livestream, he will eventually get bored and get off of Omegle if nobody is chatting with him, people are skipping him, or racially teasing him.
Darren's "way to do things" is very unusual, considering he sometimes barks, roars, shouts, or twerks at the webcam for no reason at all. Ever since his "peak of glory" began, his livestreams consist of him reacting to the subscriber counter reaching certain numbers. Darren also produces music, particularly fast-paced rap songs, most of the songs he produced are mostly instrumented with vocal samples from other well known songs. His most popular song is currently "Shake", which has gained 40 million views in the first 3 months since its release on November 2021.
===List of attempted challenges===
Since September 7, 2022, Darren began participating in dreadful and dangerous internet challenges, such as:
*The Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge, where he put his lips inside a glass for approximately 15 minutes.
*Attempting to give himself a nose piercing.
*The Cinnamon Challenge, where he eats a spoonful of brown cinnamon powder.
*The One Chip Challenge, where he applies supposedly illegal hot sauce onto a spicy chip and eats it.
*The Ice Bucket Challenge, where one of his friends pours cold water on him.
*The Banana & Sprite Challenge, where he eats multiple bananas and drinks a big bottle of Sprite soda, which resulted in him vomiting.
*The Vacuum Trash Bag Challenge where he vacuums the air of a trash bag with himself in.
*The Big Straw Challenge, where he uses the tube of a roll of toilet paper as a straw to quickly drink a glass of milk.
*Eating a supposedly venomous black scorpion.
*The Death Nut Challenge, where he eats the world's hottest nut.
*The Shampoo Challenge, by pouring shampoo into his eyes while taking a shower, but he had an accident during the challenge.
*The Coke & Mentos Challenge, where he pours four bottles of 2-liter Coca-Cola and three packs of Mentos into the toilet and then into his sink.
*The Shaving Underarms Challenge, by using scissors instead of a shaver.
*Salt & Ice Challenge, where he pours salt on his face near his nose and cheeks and places an ice cube on the salt for approximately 10 minutes.
*The Condom Challenge, where he has his siblings drop a water-filled condom onto his head.
*The Juvalips Challenge, a challenge similar to the Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge, but he uses a lip plumper instead of a glass cup, only to fail the challenge for putting it in his lips for two minutes.
If Darren fails to complete his challenges safely, he will call his local police department for help, only to troll the dispatcher by coughing, continuously gasping and breathing heavily for air, or claiming that he is "dying."
===Other===
Sometime around February 2023, Darren introduced a talking robot to his viewers that cost $50,000 from a friend. The robot's name is Moxie, and it was initially supposed to answer questions correctly, but whenever Darren asks the robot a question, she will answer the question incorrectly or get confused, causing him to be irritated. The robot appears several times on his livestream, and he used the robot to chat with people on Omegle.
Since early-2023, Darren has brought special guests to his livestreams, where they interact with each other by doing a variety of activities or going out at various public places. This includes Kai Cenat with various different women, an 18-year-old girl named Aaliyah, who was jokingly rumored to be 14 years old by Darren's viewers in the live chat on their prom livestream Jamal, one of his siblings who goes by the nicknames "Big Bro" or "Big Brother," has also appeared many times in his livestreams, as well as their younger brother.
On May 15, 2023, Darren and Kai Cenat announced the official teaser-trailer of their new show The Kai N Speed Show which would be available on RumbleTV on May 26.
Darren also has a second channel named Live Speedy that he created on June 1, 2021, where he posts highlights of his past livestreams, and a third named Speedy Boykins that he created on April 26 of the same year, where he usually posts short unusual clips of his videos and livestreams.
==Personal life==
===Family, education, and relationships===
Darren has a younger sister who sometimes enters his room during his livestreams to tell him "goodnight", or to interact with him. He also has a younger brother called Dian. Darren lives with his mother, who can occasionally be heard embarrassing Darren in the background of his livestreams by telling him to either stop screaming so loud or to end his streams because of it. Darren graduated from Ohio Digital Learning School from Maumee, Ohio, through online in June of 2023.https://www.youtube.com/live/ysXIcTYWi-w?si=YpkBZgHMSCC3BUTS
Although mostly unconfirmed, he formerly dated Ermony Renee, also known as Dream (not to be confused with the Minecraft YouTuber), despite there being a bit of a rivalry between them. It's unknown if they are still dating, but it's also possible that Darren has had a relationship with TikTok star and singer Ava Barbie,Ava's TikTok profile: https://www.tiktok.com/@stackinbarbie who is transgender. Darren is a former player of Purcell Marian High School's football and basketball team. On October 7, 2023, he uploaded a video he recorded for his future self in approximately 020.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec18vXsDHYU
===Birthday===
Darren was born on January 21, 2005, but his age had been disputed several times in the past, due to an argument among his fanbase whether if he was 18 years old (born in 2003), or 16 (born in 2005) at the time it ensued. This was partially due to the jokes he made regarding children. He would often state that he was 19, most likely so he could get a better chance at entering dating competitions on Discord. He hadn't mentioned his age again several times. However, in a video he published on December 22, 2020, of him doing a Q&A, he said he was 15 at the time of the video, turning 16 "in a minute".
During the time where his fanbase debated his age, he would often claim to be 19. However, on November 18, 2022, Darren finally admitted on a tweet that he was 17 years old at the time of the post, confirming he was born in 2005.
===Sinus infection===
On July 28, 2023, Darren revealed to his fans that he had a sinus infection that caused him to undergo cluster headaches. He was rushed to the hospital and recorded a video while at that time visibly having two swollen eyes blinding his vision during this incident. He posted a short video titled "idk man💔", telling his fans he was still in the hospital in Tokyo (which he started visiting shortly before the infection unfolded), due to his condition.
On August 15, Darren made a comeback stream, and announced that he "almost died from his conditions" due to the severe pain he had faced, but made a full recovery.
==Controversies==
===Rant on Twitch=== 
On December 13, 2021, Darren was on a live dating show on Adin Ross's Twitch channel. On the show, there were several women and men who were asked several questions related to dating. While on the show, Darren asked an Instagram model named Ash Kaash if she would reproduce with him in order to keep the human population going if they were the last two humans on Earth. Ash said she wouldn't and stated that their kids would have to perform incest in order for the human race to continue afterwards. Darren then asked "Who's gon' stop me?", indicating that he would force himself on her (regardless of whether or not she consented to having sex) without needing to worry about the possibility of being stopped by anyone else (due to them being the last two humans on Earth in the aforementioned scenario).
Ash responded by saying she would stop him herself, but Darren began repeating his question in a more aggressive tone, denying that Ash would stop him and started dancing in a questionable manner. Darren kept arguing with Ash until he temporarily left the stream after Adin told him to calm down. However, not long after, Darren was able to re-enter the livestream. He then went on a sexist rant, calling Ash a "bitch" and an "ugly fucking c**t." Darren then yelled at Ash, proclaiming that he masturbated to her every single day and that "nobody wanted her," before continuing to berate her. Adin forcibly removed Darren after his rant.
After this incident, clips of his rant went viral on Twitter and YouTube, causing Darren to receive large amounts of backlash, with many accusing him of being "creepy" and "sexist." Many fans of Darren defended him, stating that he was only 16 (possibly 18) years old at the time and he joked like this often. However, some people like Tipster questioned why Darren was on an e-dating show at 16 (possibly 18) at the time to begin with. Although nobody responded to this question, many agreed that Darren took it too far.
The day after the rant, on December 14, Darren's Twitch account was permanently banned due to his outburst, to which he tweeted out an image of the ban message he received from Twitch, with the caption "Bye." Despite the backlash that he received, Darren's channel growth and popularity were not hindered by this, and he has continued streaming on YouTube after his Twitch account was banned.
Darren's friend and Twitch streamer Kai Cenat asked Pokimane if she could help convince the CEO of Twitch, Dan Clancy, to get him unbanned, which she replied that she was going to TwitchCon.https://www.youtube.com/shorts/RT0jRzkliLY Kai and Darren also attended the 2023 Streamy Awards hosted by MatPat of The Game Theorists, where they found Clancy and begged him to unban Darren.https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fyE1j0DaA0w?si=oIux9-flFkHe511W
On October 10, 2023, Darren's Twitch channel was unbanned.https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/ishowspeed-suddenly-unbanned-on-twitch-years-after-permanent-suspension-2331158/
===Rant on VALORANT=== 
While Darren was playing with a girl and others in a game of VALORANT, he went on another sexist rant, making discriminatory remarks such as "go do your husband's dishes," and was subsequently banned from VALORANT for 30 days. However, on April 6, 2022, YouTuber and eSports news reporter Jake Lucky News tweeted the clip in which he was sexist to the girl. A Riot Games employee named Sara Dadafshar replied to Jake's tweet, stating that Darren was permanently banned from all of Riot Games' games, and thanking Jake for his tweet.
Darren later apologized for his rant, but many users on Twitter began to accuse Jake of being racially motivated to get Darren banned from Riot Games, and Keemstar said that Jake was "hypocritical" for also endorsing "trash talk" in video games. xQcOW replied to Keem, saying he was "pretty rich to try to use the racism card while overlooking blatant sexism," insinuating that Keem should not defend Darren if he thinks his rant was considered "trash talk."
As the drama worsened, criticism towards Jake escalated to the point where he received hate comments and even death threats.
===Fourth of July fireworks incident===
On July 4, 2022, Darren decided to light some fireworks in his bedroom. He had a bunch of them in a box that he believed to be noisemakers that wouldn't burst into flames, and he lit a Pikachu-modeled firework fountain in his bed, despite his chat urging him not to do so inside. However, the firework quickly started to spark, shooting fireballs around his room.
Darren freaked out and left his room as the firework launched into a wall, and his mother could also be heard in the livestream being shocked and angry. As his desktop's face-cam can be seen falling slowly, Darren's house alarm sounds off before firefighters later show up in his bedroom as he ends the stream. His room and the house did not catch on fire, but the ceiling and walls in his bedroom were damaged.
This incident became viral and even made headlines on the news. Although KSI and Darren's audience was worried about him and his family while also finding the incident to be hilarious, he was heavily criticized on the news and on social media for thinking that lighting any form of fireworks inside his own bedroom could be safe, as he could have possibly burned his entire house down, or even killed himself and his family. Meanwhile, others like xQcOW and Tipster had mixed reactions, finding the incident to be hilarious while also criticizing his recklessness and being concerned for his safety. 
The next day, Darren addressed the incident on his livestream, confirming that he and his family are safe and that he only suffered a few harmless burns. He also added that he didn't know the firework fountain would spark as badly as it did, giving a disclaimer to his chat to never light fireworks indoors.
===Inappropriate Minecraft mod and YouTube strike incident===
On July 21, 2022, Darren played an infamous Minecraft mod labeled "Jenny Mod", while he was voice-chatting with an anonymous user. Said mod featured NSFW material that required Darren to censor the screen to avoid a Community Guidelines strike by YouTube. At one point while recording, he accidentally revealed part of the footage on stream, which depicted Jenny about to perform oral sex on the player. Darren immediately ended the stream afterwards, but a re-uploaded video of this incident can be found here.
Interviewer Jake Lucky News called him out for it on Twitter, which resulted in YouTube giving Darren a one-week strike. Soon afterwards, Darren uploaded a short video telling his fanbase that he wouldn't stream for the following week. Although his fans thought he was quitting YouTube indefinitely, Darren later returned to streaming a week after he received the strike. 
===Swatting and arrest=== 
On August 8, 2022, Darren was arrested after getting swatted following a staged prank call with the Lisbon Police Department. People suspect that it was either because some of his fans had sent a SWAT team to his house, or that said fans requested him to prank call the police station, thought it is indecipherable who orchestrated the prank. While he was getting arrested, he switched the stream to his phone and had a friend film him being detained before one of the cops told his friend to stop.
This incident left many of Darren's viewers and non-viewers alike confused. They, along with YouTubers such as Jadyn, said that Darren deserved a better fandom and should stop doing whatever his community tells him to do. He allegedly set his PS4 on fire during a stream, but he claimed Adin Ross had bailed him out of jail and went back to streaming the next day.
===Cryptocurrency scam===
On November 16, 2022, Darren went live with a subpar impersonator of Cristiano Ronaldo and another individual to advertise a PlayStation 5 console giveaways to his livestream viewers. However, none of said consoles were given away, and the entire stream was actually done to promote Paradox Crypto, a video game cryptocurrency project that had been under scrutiny for fraud.
Darren was called out by his livestream chat and ended up blackening the camera and muting the microphone. However, his microphone wasn't fully muted, and viewers could hear a confused Darren getting into an argument with the two individuals, during which both Darren and the two others essentially confirmed that Paradox Crypto is a scam.
This livestream was covered by YouTubers such as Coffeezilla, SomeOrdinaryGamers, as well as Penguinz0 and Asmongold TV. It was also covered by online news sites, and Darren would eventually apologize to his viewers and call the entire stream/promotion a mistake, although it was met with mixed reception by his viewers and non-viewers alike, as some didn't think his apology was genuine.
===Accusations of racism=== 
On December 6, 2022 Darren travelled to Qatar for the 2022 FIFA World Cup for the Portugal vs Switzerland game, and decided to livestream the event. A notable clip from the stream circulated online that showed Darren confronting a Chinese fan wearing an Argentine jersey. The fan appeared confused at the question of why he was wearing the jersey, with Darren speaking to him with the Japanese greeting "こんにちは" (konnichi wa, "good day"), despite the fact that the fan repeatedly stated that he was Chinese.
Immediately, commenters began to express their outrage at Darren’s insensitive comments, and some called it outright racism. Darren has since responded to the backlash in a video on Twitter, saying that he genuinely believed the fan was Japanese at first, and then tried to respond to the man with "a nickname they call me in China." He assured his fans and viewers that he did not mean to be racist, and attributed his attitude to the heat of the moment during a stream with the match still going on.
This was covered by Twitch streamers such as Destiny (who mistook Darren for Kai Cenat), which led to several people including Kai himself calling him out.https://www.youtube.com/watcg?v=pB-pyRFJC0E Both XQcOW and Kai reacted to the clip, and showed their support to Darren.
===False copyright claims===
On February 5, 2023, YouTuber Jabroney would make a Twitter thread showing that a company going under different names such as Thumb Media, Cardigan, or Aegis TM would copyright claim or even strike videos that had Darren's face in the thumbnail or mentioned his username (IShowSpeed). Jabroney then showed an article in the second tweet that mentioned Darren’s surprise upon learning of what was happening, and had later shown a response that Darren uploaded to his Speedy Boykins channel, in which he asked people to stop emailing him about the company and stated in the video that he was an affiliate of the company.
Jabroney would also link a video from YouTuber MattRadiant called "IShowSpeed is trying to have my channel terminated.", in which Matt discussed how he had received three copyright strikes for making videos related to Darren. Jabroney would also explain in the thread how multiple YouTubers messaged him asking about how to resolve the false copyright claims. He would later upload a video titled "Youtube's Biggest Copyright Troll Just Outed Himself", in which he recapped the situation.
Darren was later criticized for falsely copyright-claiming videos despite his channels' collective size, with some saying that he could benefit from any kind of attention without him or his channel being affected.
===Flashing his "meat" on stream===
On August 16, 2023, a day after announcing he had "almost died" in the hospital in Tokyo, Japan, Darren was playing Five Nights at Freddy's: Ruin, a Security Breach DLC expansion. While playing the game, he stumbled across Glamrock Chica with a jumpscare by the animatronic character. Upon noticing the animatronic, he started making sexual remarks, followed by him air humping on camera pretending to "fuck" her by thrusting his penis towards the screen, which accidentally exposed his penis. He then stopped the stream shortly after and deleted the livestream.
However, the clip would be shared online, most commonly on Twitter and Reddit. A day after the incident, the YouTube Team revealed that Darren would not receive any punishments for the incident due to him swiftly deleting the livestream.
On August 18, Darren responded to the controversy during a livestream, and revealed that flashing on stream was one of his biggest fears. He would vent his emotions and feelings on the livestream. However, due to the community's excessive use of the trend "IShowMeat", referencing the slang term meat, meaning penis, he started breaking down in tears and repeatedly begged his livestream viewers to not spam "IShowMeat" or "meat emojis" in his chatbox. The incident was subsequently featured as a "PTSD flashback" in his next Five Nights At Freddy's stream, which gave rise to more memes related to the incident. His dad would later make a song about his incident, called "IShowTheMeat".
===Accusations of Pedophilia===
On August 2023, Darren reacted to the music video for 'Super Shy' by NewJeans. During the reaction, someone informed him about the age of the youngest member of the group, Hyein, who was 15 at the time, whilst Darren was 18. Even with the person telling him that information on the stream, he continued with the reactions. His behavior in the reaction video received major backlash from fans as they found it disrespectful towards the group, knowing some of them were and are minors, as Darren smashed his desk, causing an object to fall on the ground when he saw Hyein smile on the screen. He then stood up to pick up the object, seemingly showing his sexual arousal, according to viewers and fans. He also bit his lips while watching the video which also sparked major concern and backlash.
Fans took to social media platforms to express their anger and concern, which caused them to accuse Darren of being inappropriate and disrespectful towards Hyein. Fans even reported to the group's South Korean labels, HYBE and ADOR to bring this to their attention, which showed that they ultimately care about Hyein and the girls.https://www.koreaboo.com/news/newjeans-fans-report-popular-youtuber-hybe-after-disgusting-reaction-video-resurfaces/ 
=== Eating Soap On Livestream ===
On the Star Wars day of May 4th, Darren began his usual livestream, but during it, he tried an ASMR segment inspired by a video of someone eating soap. Believing it harmless, he ate half a bar, struggling to swallow and nearly vomiting, For the most part, he struggled to chew but eventually managed to swallow. A friend called him, warning that what he was doing was idiotic and started advising him to stop. Darren ignored the message and took a bite of another bar of soap. His fans from discord later revealed the video was fake, the "soap" actually chocolate. He eventually called 911https://www.youtube.com/live/yQmOGEsx0no?si=qfVOCI1YfR4jdYh0&t=12467.
===Norway incident===
On July 3, 2024, during a visit to Oslo, Norway, Darren was visiting a souvenir shop and then checked out with props, but there was a crowd of people at the exit. The crowd grew bigger and bigger as time went on and he couldn't exit. Then he went to the back exit to see if he can exit there, however there was a crowd of people there and the crowd grew bigger. Someone even broke the glass door. He ended up calling the police and they sent in one car an hour later, Darren ended up staying in the shop for more than an hour.
He injured his ankle after doing the Siiu celebration beside a store window for the fans outside. The injury was quite severe, as he had to be carried to his designated car outside and could not walk. Videos taken from alternate angles shared by fans show that when he exited the building, the crowd swelled and swarmed around Darren, who was yelling out in pain.
In a Twitter clip, the mob can be seen pulling on Darren's hair and jumping on top of his car while he curses at the crowd. While the aforementioned clip shows the size of the mob and what it was doing, His official stream captured his cries of pain and anger. As soon as he got outside, the crowd can be seen rushing towards him as he yells them to stop touching him and pulling of his hair.https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/culture/ishowspeed-norway-crowd-attack-youtuber-b2574006.htmlhttps://www.dexerto.com/youtube/ishowspeed-attacked-by-norwegian-crowd-as-he-vows-never-to-return-2807592/
Due to the pandemonium, Slipz (his cameraman) could not even follow Darren out in the streets. After things calmed down, Darren said: "Bro, I am never coming to this fucking country again, I swear to God. I promise on God I am never coming to this fucking country. For real, bro." He was eventually forced to stop his stream quite early due to the horrible experience with the fans in Oslo.
During the incident, a guy that jumped on Darren broke in his car and stole a jersey,.https://twitter.com/562alexd/status/1809599936620818570
==Filmography==
List of music video appearanceshttps://web.archive.org/web/20221029090637/https://www.complex.com/music/tion-wayne-aitch-lets-go
Year	Title 	Artist(s) 	Role
2022	Let's Go	Tion Wayne featuring Aitch	Himself
==In-jokes and memes==
*"Guess What? I'm Gay!" – When Darren hit 900,000 subscribers, he called his dad with a drawn-out "guess what." After Darren asked "guess what" for the fifth time, his dad became impatient, but Darren got to the punchline and yelled "I'M GAY!."
*"God is Good, God is Great" – This meme is considered as a recurring theme in his streams, partially because of Darren ending his God is Good song with a guttural scream. This is featured on Ukrainian phonk producer MoonDeity's song "GO."
*"Okay, We Friends Now?" – In one of Darren's Talking Ben playthroughs, he told Ben that he wanted to be friends with him, asking him, "We friends now?" Ben replied "no," prompting an enraged Darren to immediately throw in a temper tantrum.
*"Do You Wanna Be Cool?" – In another one of Darren's Talking Ben playthroughs, he asked Ben if he wanted to "be cool," to which Ben replied "No." Darren then proceeded to put his mouth to his livestream camera.
*"Speed Is Better Than You" – Darren taunted Ben, saying that "nobody loves him" and "nobody would ever care about him," and when Darren said "Speed is better than you," his PC suddenly fell on his head, making him drop his headphones, and the face-cam stopped while Darren could be heard screaming in the background.
*"Do You Love God?" – Darren asked Ben on the telephone if he loved God, to which Ben replied with a laugh. Darren again asked Ben the same question, and Ben once again laughed, making Darren more impatient. He asked him if he loves God one more time, and Ben responded "no," leaving Darren shocked in disbelief. This was followed by Darren remarking, "Am I gonna die next week?"
*"Now You Gon' Copy Me?!" – When Ben hung up the phone on Darren, he asked Ben "Did you just hang up the phone on me?" and Ben replied with him mimicking what Darren said directly to him, making Darren furious. Testing to see if Ben can mimic him, he started making deranged noises.
*"IShowMeat" – After Darren accidentally flashed his penis himself, many people both inside and outside his audience made puns on his username such as "IShowMeat," "IShowMyMeat," "IShowMoreThanSpeed" and many more. The term was first tweeted by Twitter user @clintbabyy.
==Quotes==
*"Roar, next level, I'm a lion now. Let's f***ing go!" (Darren about to hit 1 million subscribers)
*"My name is IShowSpeed and I made history, they call me Speed for a reason, bro." (Darren moments after hitting 1 million subscribers)
*"Shake that a**,shake that a**!" (in "Shake")
*"God is good, God is great, God is gooo, ooo- ouhhh" (one of Darren's most iconic quotes)
*"Do you love God?" (to Talking Ben)
*"Did you just hang up the phone on me?"
*"Johnny ate a booger! It taste like sugar."
*"Am I gay, Ben... AM I?!"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmenX1xIN_k
*"If we were the last two people on Earth, would you reproduce with me?" (Darren's survey to Ash.Kaash which led to his first sexist rant)
*"I just want to be friends, that's all I wanna be! I wanna be friends."
*"Okay, we friends now?"
*"Now you gon' copy me?!" (Darren getting frustrated at someone copying him)
*"You old c**t I will f**k you up! Im'ma beat yo a**!"
*"Who the f**k is this little a**, corny a**,bro, who is this!? Who is this!? Get off my d*mn screen!" (Darren's aggressive words while playing BEN.EXE)
*"Do you support Black Lives Matter?" (another one of Darren's most iconic questions to Ben)
*"AYYYYY!!! GUESS WHO'S BACK!!!" (Darren's first words from his second stream after being arrested)
*"You don't need a girl bro.As long as you got your hand,Vaseline and lotion,you straight man." (Darren giving life advice while singing "Payphone" by Maroon 5)
*"I love y'all bro, I'm gone bro. Bye." (Darren's final goodbye to his audience after receiving his third and final strike)
==Channel milestones==
===IShowSpeed===
====Subscriber milestones====
====Video view milestones==== 
*1 million views: December 21, 2020
*5 million views: April 8, 2021
*10 million views: April 29, 2021
*20 million views: June 10, 2021
*30 million views: July 1, 2021
*40 million views: July 8, 2021
*50 million views: July 23, 2021
*60 million views: August 3, 2021
*70 million views: August 15, 2021
*80 million views: August 30, 2021
*90 million views: September 7, 2021
*100 million views: September 18, 2021
*200 million views: January 7, 2022
*300 million views: February 14, 2022
*400 million views: March 17, 2022
*500 million views: May 17, 2022
*600 million views: June 27, 2022
*700 million views: August 1, 2022
*800 million views: September 11, 2022
*900 million views: November 2, 2022
*1 billion views: November 28, 2022
*2 billion views: December 9, 2023
===Live Speedy===
====Subscriber milestones====
====Video view milestones====
*100 million views: February 21, 2022
*200 million views: April 12, 2022
*300 million views: June 23, 2022
*400 million views: August 26, 2022
*500 million views: October 12, 2022
*600 million views: November 29, 2022
*700 million views: January 16, 2023
*800 million views: March 24, 2023
*900 million views: May 24, 2023
*1 billion views: June 19, 2023
*2 billion views: January 11, 2024
===Speedy Boykins===
====Subscriber milestones====
*100,000 subscribers: August 7, 2021
*200,000 subscribers: February 23, 2022
*300,000 subscribers: March 27, 2022
*400,000 subscribers: May 7, 2022
*500,000 subscribers: June 24, 2022
*600,000 subscribers: July 11, 2022
*700,000 subscribers: September 4, 2022
*800,000 subscribers: October 13, 2022
*900,000 subscribers: November 8, 2022
*1 million subscribers: December 17, 2022
====Video view milestones====
*100 million views: May 7, 2022
*200 million views: July 2, 2022
*300 million views: October 5, 2022
*400 million views: January 14, 2023
*500 million views: June 3, 2023
*600 million views: December 10, 2023
*700 million views: June 2, 2024
==Trivia==
*Occasionally, Darren calls his fanbase "Speed Gang." However, most of the time in his livestreams, he refers to them as "chat."
*Darren has two main bodyguards: "Rudiger" and "Henry", who are both British.
*Despite being banned on Twitch, Darren still links his Twitch account in his descriptions.
*Darren and many of his fans mention that the reason behind his energetic behavior is because he is autistic. However, he has never been diagnosed.
*On every livestream where Darren anticipates a subscriber milestone being reached, his fanbase collectively unsubscribes to annoy him, and to provoke a reaction from him.
**Once he achieves the milestone, he always celebrates by diving head-first straight to the camera.
*In his first school roleplay video, Darren was repeatedly sexually harassed by the Family Guy character Herbert the Pervert.
*While he used to be a fan of Cristiano Ronaldo, but after the 2022 World Cup, he has stated that he became a fan of Lionel Messi. 
*Darren seems to be a big fan of , even to the point where he has the main character as his profile picture, and made a rap song titled "One Piece" in November 2021, where he raps about why One Piece is "the best anime in the world."
*In his Shake reaction stream, Darren was singing and dancing along to his song Shake with his father on a livestream. When the lyric "suck that cock" came up, he spit in his hands and pretended to give a blowjob with his hands. His father then slapped his hands down and nodded his head disapprovingly.
*Darren occasionally censors obscene/vulgar words in his Live Speedy highlights.
*Previously, Darren would sometimes say that "Darren Watkins" is not his real name, even though sometimes, in his descriptions and/or thumbnails, he mentioned the name "Darren Watkins," indicating that it is in fact his real name.
**He had also made a joke short video in which he said that his real first name is "Juwan."
*Darren tried to pronounce almost all the football players' names wrong in FIFA 22. 
**He also tried to guess the country flags wrong, such as guessing the one for Austria as the one for the Netherlands.
*Some of Darren's favorite football players include Cristiano Ronaldo from Al-Nassr, Rafael Leão from AC Milan, Son Heung-min from Tottenham Hotspur, and Riyad Mahrez from Manchester City.
*Darren posted a video where he visited London in September 2022 to compete in Sidemen's charity match.
*He is known for his signature dance, where he repeatedly bounces his feet, accompanied with raising both of his hands up and down.
*His third channel's username, Speedy Boykins, is a pun of his nickname "Speedy", and "Boykins" being a portmanteau of "boy" and his last name, "Watkins."
*He once got banned for 95 Years from hacking Bedwars on Roblox, an action that moved Darren to tears.
*He won the Breakout Streamer Award of the 2022 Streamy Awards, which was hosted by YouTuber Airrack on December 4, 2022. 
*During a stream, Darren video called Canadian rapper Drake. However, Drake would hang up on him after Darren said that his voice was "so sexy."
**He also met rapper Lil Tjay through a video call on one of his livestreams.
*Darren's chat has notably annoyed him by spamming "Common sense" ever since his infamous fourth of July fireworks incident, as a simple reminder to not do anything that is obviously too dangerous or risky to do.
*He sometimes uses a filter that makes him look bald and has made a few shorts of himself playing with it.
*Every year since 2021 on April Fool's Day, he pranks his audience by telling them he is quitting YouTube and then shouting "April Fool's" at the end.https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zsuLE6BoLpg?si=Sx6SmxEd7rLrhH83https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx0FwbKh2FYhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yRxMWMu_t4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgNd7lP1-NI?si=wLVx1gMasnwPOYko
*He has traveled to several different countries, including Qatarhttps://youtu.be/Cl-7LhCjUew?si=ZEAZTLSpuktF_3vI, Japan, the United Kingdom, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Northhttps://youtu.be/Mra9vzMrtsw?si=CVmsvU97Tz0Xa2ZR and South Korea, Spain, Albania, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Sweden, Norway, the Philippines, https://www.spin.ph/life/people/ishowspeed-urges-maniacal-filipino-fans-to-respect-his-boundaries-a4858-20240912?ref=home_feed_1https://www.gmanetwork.com/entertainment/celebritylife/news/21484/the-crazy-and-memorable-moments-of-ishowspeed-in-the-philippines/photo and Thailand.https://youtu.be/BaSZ3d5svbM?si=0CKQB1P2y9Eld8tl
** During his trip to the Philippines in September 2024, he went to Manila where he met the famous boxer Manny Pacquiao where he was gifted a pair of boxing gloves.https://news.abs-cbn.com/lifestyle/2024/9/12/online-streamer-ishowspeed-meets-boxing-legend-manny-pacquiao-2017
*He has met professional soccer players Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar, and was blocked by Lionel Messi.
*He performed at Rolling Loud 2023.
*His old console is the Nintendo 3DS.
*His first car cost $500,000.00https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j8V3wHw1ls?si=MFlVEMbcqzklwCIj
*He has fought at WWE Wrestlemania.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06MlcC1T2vo?si=Cgqs5-xgwENm-2rn
*He has signed to Manchester United and will play for the club starting 2025.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-fY8QvIgNY
*He met American actress Mirandacosgrove through a MrBeast challenge.https://x.com/Rap/status/1812664634375360690
*He is very athletic, to the point of being able to jump over a a Ferrari at full speed.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQLPMbzca6w
*He raced against Travis Scott in a livestream.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyn0xZilcHY?si=2gnv5HXPh3d3D-Zh
**He is also intended to race againts Jake Paul, over a bid of $25,000.https://youtu.be/v8tTkt8uf2w?si=0jhqtX3oDfnQHnIi
==Gallery==
SpeedFace.jpg
Speed Gets Banned.jpg|Speed crying over being banned on Roblox.
Strong Young Fella.jpg|Buff Herbert and Speed in a bathroom stall.
Ben. AKA Speed's Enemy.png|Talking Ben, who is Speed's "frenemy" and was the subject of many of his videos.
Speed mad at ben.jpg|Speed gets angry at Ben.
Speed Ben Revenge.jpg|Speed gets revenge on Ben.
Speed N Word.jpg|Speed screaming the N-word after seeing "Black-Hood Ben".
Speed expose.jpg|Speed finds a camera in a Ben Plush.
God is Good.jpg|Speed in his "God is Good" music video.
Bounce that A$$.webp|Speed in his "How I Feel" music video.
Maxresdefault (7).jpg|An image of Speed kissing Ben.
File:Speedwithvrbens.jpg|speed meeting many other bens in vr
==References==
es:IShowSpeed
Category:Comedy YouTubers
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