Who is IShowSpeed, Who Might Be Coming to S’pore Soon?

There’s been a huge commotion over a man known as IShowSpeed (or Speed) and his travels around Southeast Asia, and also, the possibility that he might be coming over to Singapore this weekend.

But who is he exactly, and why are so many people talking about a 19-year-old’s holiday trip?

Livestreamer with an eccentric personality

Speed, whose actual name is Darren Jason Watkins Jr., is a US-based internet personality who livestreams himself playing video games as well as travelling around the world.

He is known for his dramatic and sometimes aggressive behaviour in his livestreams, and has been a source for internet memes numerous times.

People often find his content entertaining or controversial due to his unfiltered nature, like whenever he reacted violently while playing video games or, in more serious cases, when he made sexist comments on a live dating show and again while playing Valorant, which resulted in him being banned from online streaming platform Twitch and game developer Riot Games.

Like him or hate him, he’s very popular, and as there would be countless people following him whenever he went.

Familiar?

Yes, it’s like the Kudasai girl.

He first created his account (@IShowSpeed) on YouTube in 2016. When he started livestreaming his gameplays of NBA 2K and Fortnite more than a year later, he only averaged two viewers. He slowly gained more and more followers over the years, averaging 150 new subscribers weekly in 2020.

After some of his followers uploaded clips of his streams and videos to TikTok in 2021, he quickly gained popularity, jumping from around 100,000 subscribers in April to 1 million subscribers in June that same year.

Since 2022, Speed has been focusing more on content revolving around English football and his favourite player, Cristiano Ronaldo.

Man with a big heart

Though some may think Speed is rash and maybe even immature, he is also known to many as someone with a lot of kindness.

In 2023, he donated $50,000 to the victims of the Turkey-Syria earthquake and received many grateful responses. In December that same year, he fought English social media influencer KSI in a charity boxing sparring match, and the duo managed to raise more than £50,000 for the Anthony Walker Foundation which aims to tackle racism, hate crime and discrimination by providing educational opportunities and support services.

He is also frequently seen helping out the less-privileged during his livestreams, offering to buy food for the homeless and even handing them some cash. Even when these people approach him instead, he willingly helps them and asks if they need anything else.

Where Speed has been so far

Speed started his Southeast Asia tour in Thailand on 9 September, where he accidentally crashed into a temple’s wall while driving a tuk-tuk but apologised to the temple’s monk afterwards while kneeling. When he visited the Philippines, he sparred with boxing legend Manny Pacquiao and tried the famous fast food chain Jollibee.

His other previous destinations include Vietnam, Cambodia as well as Malaysia, and he is currently in Indonesia according to his latest livestream.

Not sure why he jumped over Singapore totally (maybe because we’re a small country), but he did mention: “When I come to Singapore, y’all better be good man.”