IShowSpeed (2024)

Warning!
This article, IShowSpeed, may contain material that is disturbing, such as sexism, dark comedy, racism, and dangerous situations.

Darren Watkins Jr. (born: January 21, 2005 [age 18]),^[1] better known online as IShowSpeed (also known as simply Speed, or Speedy), is an American gaming YouTuber, football athlete, hip-hop musician, occasional vlogger, and variety live-streamer, currently residing in Cincinnati, Ohio.

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 channels of that year, along with one of the biggest YouTubers of color.

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 NBA 2K 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^[2], the LGBTQ+ community^[3], or other unusual questions.^[4] Darren's rivalry with Ben has since become a famous meme on the Internet, and 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 Ben costume.^[5]

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.^[6] However, it's possible that the email was fake, and was sent to Darren by someone pretending to be the company to troll him.

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's main channel hit 10 million subscribers on July 22, 2022.

Darren hit 1 billion views on his main channel on November 28, 2022.

List of Memes

• Guess What? I'm Gay!: When Darren hit 900,000 subscribers, he calls his dad with a drawn-out "guess what". After Darren asked "guess what" for the 5th time, his dad becomes impatient, but Darren gets to the punchline and yells "I'M GAY!".^[7]
• 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" at timestamps 0:48 and faintly at 2:17

Talking Ben Memes

• Ok, We Friends Now?: In one of Darren's Talking Ben playthroughs, he tells 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 asks Ben if he wanted to be cool, to which Ben replied "No". Darren then proceeds to put his mouth to his livestream camera.
• Speed Is Better Than You: Darren taunts 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 falls on his head, dropping his headphones, and making the face-cam stop while Darren can be heard screaming in the background.
• Do You Love God?: Darren asks Ben on the telephone if he loves God, to which Ben replies with a laugh, Darren again asks Ben the same question, Ben once again laughs, making Darren more impatient and asks him if he loves God one more time, and Ben responded "No", making Darren shock in disbelieve. This is followed by Darren remarking "Am I gonna die next week?".
• Now You Gon' Copy Me?!: When Ben hangs up the phone on Darren, he asks Ben "Did you just hang up the phone on me?" and Ben replies with him mimicking what Darren says directly to him, making Darren furious. Testing to see if Ben can mimic him, he makes deranged noises.

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), and World Cup (2022). Darren's songs are hip hop-based that are remixes and samples of other well-known songs.

Darren sometimes adds remixes of other music videos as accompaniment samples in his music videos. For example:

• In his Shake music video, he used 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.
• In his Ronaldo music video, he used the vocals of Skrillex's Take Ü There as incidental vocals.
• In his Shake Pt. 2 music video, he used Nelly Fertuado's Promiscuous as an instrumental on the first half of the song.
  • He also used Paul Johnson's Get Get Down as an instrumental on the second half of the song, which was remixed as a jersey club beat.

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.^[8]

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.^[9] He returned on October 5, 2022, and said he will stream less frequently in his main channel to avoid receiving a third channel strike.

Content

Darren's content is mostly based off of his past livestream's 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. 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.^[10]

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.

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.^[11]
• Attempting to give himself a nose piercing.^[12]
• The Cinnamon Challenge, where he eats a spoonful of brown cinnamon powder.^[13]
• The One Chip Challenge, where he applies illegal hot sauce onto a spicy chip and eats it.^[14]
• The Ice Bucket Challenge, where one of his friends pours cold water on him.^[15]
• The Banana & Sprite Challenge, where he eats multiple bananas and drinks a big bottle of Sprite soda, which resulted in him vomiting.^[16]
• The Vacuum Trash bag Challenge where he vacuums the air of a trash bag with himself in.^[17]
• The Big Straw Challenge, where he uses the tube of a roll of paper towels as a straw to quickly drink a glass of milk.^[18]
• Eating a venomous black scorpion.^[19]
• Eating the world's hottest nut.^[20]

When Darren fails to complete his challenges safely, he would call his local police department for help, only to troll the dispatcher by coughing, along with continuously gasping and breathing heavily for air, claiming that he is "dying".

In the event of an incident in his livestreams which ends up involving him into some form of controversy, Darren will take a break from streaming until he is able to address the situation to his audience in his first stream after said controversy has boiled down to where it seems to have ended.

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

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, and 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 is currently attending high school, though he clearly shows his hatred for it.^{[citation needed]}

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^[21], who is transgender. Darren is a former player of Purcell Marian High School's football and basketball team.

Darren was born on January 21, 2005^[1], but his age had been disputed several times in the past, due to an argument among his fanbase whether if he is 19 years old (born in 2003) or 17 (born in 2005) ensuing. This was partially due to the jokes he made regarding minors. Darren has stated that he is 19, most likely so he could get a better chance at entering dating competitions on Discord, but besides that, 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), turning 16 "in a minute".^[22]

Controversies

The following section contains NSFW content and/or references; read at your own risk.

The following section contains vulgar/racist language; read at your own risk.

Twitch Sexist Rant

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 them to continue afterwards. Darren then asked "Who's gon' stop me?", to which Ash responded by saying "I will". Darren began repeating his question in a more aggressive tone, denying that Ash would stop him and started dancing in a questionable manner.^[23]

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 f*cking c*nt". Darren then yelled at Ash, saying that he masturbat*s with her every single day and that "nobody wants her" before continuing to berate her. Adin forcibly removed Darren after his rant, although Ash did not seem too phased by Darren's rant, and was even smiling.^[24]

After this incident, clips of his rant became viral on Twitter and on YouTube, causing Darren to receive major amounts of backlash, with many accusing him of being creepy and sexist.^[25] Many fans of Darren defended him, stating that he was only 16 (possibly 18) at the time and he jokes like this often. However, some people like Tipster have actually questioned why Darren was on an E-dating show at 16 (possibly 18) years old to begin with.^[26] Although nobody responded to this question, many agreed 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".^[27] 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.

Valorant Sexist Rant

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". He was banned from Valorant for 30 days, but on April 6, 2022, a YouTuber and E-sports news reporter by the name of Jake Lucky News tweeted the clip where he was sexist to the girl.^[28] A Riot Games employee named Sara Dadafshar replied to Jake's tweet, saying that Darren is now permanently banned from all of Riot Games and thanking Jake for his tweet.^[29][30]

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 Jake was hypocritical for also endorsing "trash talk" in video games.^[31] 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".^[32]

As the drama worsened, criticism towards Jake escalated to the point where he received hate comments and even death threats.^[33] It is currently unconfirmed if the drama has already been resolved, but it seems to have died down, with all parties having moved on.

4th of July Fireworks Incident

On July 4, 2022, Darren decided to light some Fourth of July fireworks in his room.^[34] Darren had a bunch of fireworks that he believed to be noisemakers that wouldn't burst into flames, and 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.^[35]

Darren freaked out and left his room as the firework launched into a wall, and his mother can 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 would later show up in his bedroom as he ends the stream.^[36] Fortunately, 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^[37] 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^[38] and Tipster^[39] 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 bad as they did, giving a disclaimer to his chat to never light fireworks indoors.^[40]

Minecraft modifier and YouTube Strike incident

On July 21, 2022, Darren played an infamous Minecraft modifier labeled "Jenny Mod" while he was voice chatting with an anonymous user. Darren would censor the screen in order to not get a Community Guidelines strike by YouTube, but at one point during the stream, he had accidentally revealed part of the footage on stream, which depicted Jenny about to perform a blowj*b to the player. Darren immediately ended the stream afterwards, but a reupload of this incident can be found here.

End of NSFW references/content.

Interviewer Jake Lucky called him out for it on Twitter^[41], which resulted in YouTube giving Darren a 1 week strike.^[8] 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.

Arrest & Swatting

On August 8, 2022, Darren was arrested after getting swatted following a staged prank call with the Cincinnati 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^[42], 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.^[43]

This incident left many of Darren's viewers and non-viewers alike confused. They, along with YouTubers such as Jadyn, said that Darren deserves a better fandom and should stop doing whatever his community tells him to do.^[44] 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.

Crypto Scam

On November 16, 2022, Darren went live with a subpar impersonator of Christiano Ronaldo and another individual, and advertised PS5 giveaways to his livestream viewers. However, no PS5s were given away, and the entire stream was to promote Paradox Crypto, a video game crypto project that was currently under scrutiny for fraud.

Darren was called out by his livestream chat and ended up blackening the camera and muting the mic. However, the mic 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.^[45]

This livestream was covered by YouTubers such as Coffeezilla^[46], SomeOrdinaryGamers^[47], 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 and promotion a mistake^[48], although it was met with mixed reception by his viewers and non-viewers alike, as some didn't think his apology was genuine.

Racism Accusations

On December 6, 2022 Darren travelled to Qatar for the 2022 FIFA World Cup for the Portugal vs Naturally game, and he decided to livestream the event, but his phone was having technical issues. However, a clip started to surface online that shows Darren confronting a Chinese fan wearing an Argentina jersey. The fan appears confused at the question of why he is wearing the jersey, so Darren responds several times with the Japanese greeting "konnichiwa", despite the fact that the fan repeatedly insists that he is Chinese.^[49]

Immediately, commenters began to express their outrage at Darren’s insensitive comments, and some called it outright racist. Darren has since responded to the backlash in a video on Twitter^[50], saying that he genuinely believed the fan was Japanese initially, 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.^[51] Both XQcOW and Kai reacted to the clip, and showed their support to Darren.^[52][53]

Quotes

Channel milestones

Trivia

Gallery

References