“I'M LIVE EVERY DAY” reads the header on one of IShowSpeed's YouTube channels. The phrase could be confusing – ‘live’ versus ‘live’; different words with the same spelling. Live, a verb, to be alive. Live, an adjective, to occur currently, a show happening as it is broadcast. For Ohio-born streamer Darren Watkins Jr, there is no difference between the two. He is live every day.
At the time of writing, Watkins has 24.2m followers on his main YouTube account (plus another 11m and change on his auxiliary accounts, Speedy Boykins and Live Speedy), 16.2m on Instagram and 25m on Tiktok. He has 1.3k videos on his main YouTube. By his own estimate, Watkins livestreams 70% of his life. He's the most subscribed-to Englishspeaking streamer on YouTube. He is also just 19 years of age.
A streamer is a catch-all, someone who performs live online. There are esports streamers who play competitive video games. There are pornographic streamers, like camgirls. Then there are ‘just chatting’ streamers like Watkins, known as variety show-like entertainers. Sometimes Watkins plays games like Fifa or Grand Theft Auto. Sometimes he watches other videos online. Two of his recent videos: Irl stream buying a cat (3:30:29, 2.2m views), and NOTHING can stop me (4:15:06, 1.6m views).
Watkins grew up in the American midwest. His childhood was spent playing video games, riding bikes, “being a dumbass”. As he's travelled, he's become aware of other versions of life. “I'm like, damn. What if I grew up around all of this?” says Watkins. “The midwest, where I'm from, [is] really not a lot. But when I go to Cali they got stuff there. What if I grew up with a… I don't know… a park that looks like that, and knew all these different types of people.” Though technically a teenager, Watkins talks about his childhood with the haziness of someone much older. Anything before he started streaming is vague. His family is the one thing he is truly reserved about, though it's difficult to keep anything private. He has several siblings. He is closer to his dad than his mum; he speaks about his dad with adoration,
