The only 17-year-old American Darren “IShowSpeed” Watkins is a phenomenon on the internet. He has over 13 million subscribers on YouTube, his song for the World Cup reached 19 million views, and he is huge on TikTok as well. But he keeps messing up quite a bit: In a stream on November 16, he announced that he would be giving away PlayStation 5 consoles and meeting Cristiano Ronaldo, but in reality, he ended up promoting a cryptocurrency advertisement that went quite wrong.
What makes IShowSpeed stand out? IShowSpeed has stood out for two reasons:
- He has extreme success. In a very short time, he managed to gain over 10 million subscribers on YouTube with his wild content mix. He played games, rapped, talked about soccer, and showed his lifestyle. He fueled his rise on YouTube with short clips on TikTok.
- At the same time, IShowSpeed often trips up: He yelled at a female player with sexism, barked at a little boy in Fortnite or accidentally leaked the phone number of a soccer professional from FC Bayern. And that was just a small snippet; almost weekly, something goes wrong for him.
His fans often defend IShowSpeed by saying that he is very young and is only critically viewed because he is black, while many of his critics are white. IShowSpeed himself repeatedly says: Yes, he makes mistakes. But he is also very young and still learning.
IShowSpeed says he wants to give away PS5 and meet Ronaldo
What went wrong this time? On November 16, IShowSpeed was once again seen in a two-hour live stream on YouTube, where he had a number of PlayStation 5 consoles set up in a room for a giveaway. Additionally, he wanted to meet “his idol”, Cristiano Ronaldo, in the stream (via youtube).
To show the immense popularity of IShowSpeed. A Twitter clip where he meets the wrong Cristiano Ronaldo has over 4.4 million views:
Speed finally meets Ronaldo 💀
— Speedy Updates (@SpeedUpdates1) November 16, 2022
pic.twitter.com/hSUOntlhQu
However, fans reacted negatively when they realized that the streamer was promoting the “Paradox Metaverse” with some guests, an open-world adventure game where users can earn a cryptocurrency called “Paradox Coin”.
IShowSpeed was apparently paid to run this advertisement.
Even Cristiano Ronaldo turned out to be a look-alike wearing a “Buy Paradox Crypto” t-shirt.
Some viewers apparently felt that they were lured into the stream with the promise of a PS5 and were now supposed to be sold something.
Viewers shout “Fraud” and “Sellout”
What was the reaction? Some users criticized the YouTuber for this advertisement – he, however, did not respond very gracefully and had critics banned:
“Mods, do something because it pisses me off, bro,” he said. “Calm the hell down, dog. Honestly, you are getting on my nerves, bro.”
He apparently felt personally attacked by the criticism:
The fact that you think that of me at all. I don’t know if you are all trolls or not, but just the fact that you think that of me is kind of messed up. It kind of hurts me.
What happened next? A day later, on November 17, IShowSpeed apparently changed his mind. Now he apologized to his fans for promoting the cryptocurrency. Although it did not really sound like an apology:
You all don’t know what I do for you, bro. Let me put it this way: I do so much stuff for you, bro. Now I made a mistake. You know: I’m not that smart. I’m being honest. But as I go on, I’m going to get smarter and smarter.
What happened with the cryptocurrency was a “small mistake” that he wished he had never made. But he is not a fraud. He would never do that.
YouTuber takes apart the whole issue with glee as an expert
What was the fraud? The YouTuber “Coffeezilla” specializes in such cryptocurrencies. In a 14-minute video, he investigated the incident. He explains that users in the chat denounced the crypto coin as a “fraud” and called IShowSpeed a “sellout,” as someone who sells out for money to a bad cause.
Coffeezilla explains: The situation became so uncomfortable for Speed that he muted his microphone to discuss the situation internally. But it wasn’t really muted, and so fans could hear Speed calling in mods to delete the scam accusations and looking quite puzzled during the action, even though he assured the partners: “I know what I’m doing.”
In the conversation, which was audible despite the mute, it came out that the “project” apparently involved 10 million dollars, which IShowSpeed was apparently to be involved in. The advertisement was, however, disturbed by the chat, which constantly spoke of “fraud”:
He thought he was muted and got exposed for a 10M crypto deal @SpeedUpdates1 https://t.co/CwLrA67zaa
— IIIllllIIlIII (@eef_tw) November 16, 2022
The fraud expert Coffeezilla, on the other hand, has great fun dismantling the phenomenon “Paradox Metaverse” over 10 minutes and presenting it as a blatant scam, which he easily rips apart in front of hundreds of thousands of viewers:
- The studio calls itself an indie studio, yet their game is labeled as an “AAA” project – that is ridiculous.
- The graphics of the game look like something from “PlayStation 2” times – if you give away a PS5 there, it shows only how bad your game looks.
- The company’s charts are complicated only to conceal that a pyramid scheme is hidden behind it, in which no one should invest.
- In the stream, he confronts the makers of the game and verbally assaults them for the audacity to come into his stream and talk such nonsense.
Coffeezilla is royally amused that the children and teenagers who usually watch IShowSpeed are so clever to see through the scam immediately and confront the YouTuber publicly about it. If even kids can see through such a scam so quickly, it must be pretty bad.
According to Coffeezilla, the fraud could only be more obvious if “IShowSpeed” had renamed himself “IShowScams”.
For influencers, such deals with “cryptocurrencies” are apparently a lucrative business but also a dangerous one:
YouTuber is said to have earned 11 million € because fans trusted him while he fooled them
