IShowSpeed

Darren Jason Watkins Jr. (born January 21, 2005), 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.

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. In 2022, he started making videos about soccer, especially showing support for Cristiano Ronaldo.

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, and Streamer of the Year at the 2024 Streamer Awards. Watkins is one of the most popular online streamers and Internet personalities in the world.

 Early life and education 
Darren Watkins Jr. was born on January 21, 2005, in Cincinnati, Ohio, and graduated from Ohio Digital Learning School, in Maumee.

Watkins created his YouTube account in 2016, uploading gameplay videos sometimes. Around December 2017, Watkins began livestreaming and uploading videos of games such as NBA 2K and sometimes Fortnite, usually with about two viewers watching.

 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. Kotaku called Watkins as "one of the biggest and fastest-rising streamers" on YouTube. 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.

200px|thumb|left|Watkins talking with fans in November 2021

In April 2021, Watkins' YouTube channel reached 100,000 subscribers. Two months later, his channel reached 1 million subscribers. 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. 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.

 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". Because of this, one of the game's producers, Sara Dadafshar banned Watkins from Valorant and all other Riot Games titles forever. YouTube's global head of gaming creators, Lester Chen, replied to the video, saying he was "on it". Watkins later apologized, agreed that it was "wrong", and said that he had been getting 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 went popular in the media. He reached 10 million subscribers on YouTube in this month. 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.

In August 2022, he was swatted while livestreaming on YouTube. Police handcuffed Watkins, and his cameraman had to end the stream. 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. In September 2022, Watkins played in the Sidemen Charity Match. 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.

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. 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. 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".

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 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.

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. In May, Watkins said he made a deal to stream only on the video-sharing platform Rumble, in collaboration with Kai Cenat. 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.

300px|thumb|Watkins takes a penalty against KSI in the 2023 Sidemen Charity Match at London Stadium

In August 2023, he reached 20 million subscribers on his YouTube channel. 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. 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). YouTube did not strike his channel or ban him from the platform, because it was an accident. 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.

 2024–present: Travel content and continued growth 

On January 19, 2024, Watkins publicly announced that he got a dog, naming it the N-word. The dog's name caused a lot of attention and controversy online. Watkins talked about the dog's name in his livestreams, which led to more discussion among his fans and the internet.

On February 23, 2024, Watkins joined 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 popular in which he slide tackled Brazilian former soccer player 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 went to the Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake in Gloucestershire, England, during which he injured his leg, which he said he needed hospital treatment. 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. He injured his ankle while greeting fans from a second story window. When a bodyguard was leading him out, Watkins was attacked by the crowd, and went to the hospital for treatment. Watkins' tour of Europe received over 2.5 billion views across multiple social media platforms.

Watkins is a supporter of Palestine and does not agree with Israel. He 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 live-streamed himself jumping over two speeding luxury cars in Miami. The stream was then deleted on August 5, due to breaking YouTube's Terms of Service. While on tour in Southeast Asia, he reached 30 million subscribers and got a total of 110 million views during the trip. One of Watkins' livestreams, titled "IRL Stream in Indonesia", was the first time an English-speaking streamer had one million people watching the stream at the same time.

In November 2024, Watkins lost an 50 meter race against 2024 Summer Olympics men's 100 metres gold medalist Noah Lyles. The race was set up 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 U.S. version of Baller League, a six-a-side soccer 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 briefly became honorary mayor of Lima, Peru, for two hours and was also declared an ambassador of Peru and Lima.

On February 1, 2025, Watkins entered the WWE Royal Rumble as a substitute for Akira Tozawa, who was unable to compete in the match. Watkins managed to eliminate Otis with Bron Breakker but then got speared by Bron Breakker shortly after. Outside the ring, Otis caught Watkins and threw 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 joined in "Match for Hope 2025", a soccer charity event hosted in Stadium 974, Qatar. He was a co-captain for team Chunkz & IShowSpeed, against team AboFlah & KSI. The match ended with team AboFlah & KSI's 6–5 win over team Chunkz & IShowSpeed. The event raised more than $10.7 million for charity.

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

In June 2022, he released a song called "Ronaldo (Sewey)", after becoming a fan of 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.

 References 

 Other websites 

Category:2005 births
Category:21st-century American rappers
Category:African-American rappers
Category:African-American singers
Category:American YouTubers
Category:Living people
Category:Singers from Cincinnati
Category:Rappers from Ohio